Does playoff experience matter?

[drhay53]

I have a team that's perennially in the playoffs but in 7 straight appearances I've only won 1 World Series.

Something that I've wondered though throughout these seasons is whether or not playoff experience benefits players in OOTP? I have a tendency to play my playoff vets when the choice is close, but I'm just curious how much the OOTP vets around here have thought about this factor.

How do you feel about the effect of playoff experience in OOTP? Is it real?

[NoOne]

Edit: oops i may have went on a tangent below, but it seemed like the bulk above. i don't think experience is too big of a deal, at least not more than the regular season if it does. i'm not even 100% sure age or exp is a real factor. e.g. i typicalyl have young(er) SP. i rarely sign one beyond age ~32, and only that old if they are amazing. so, i have plenty of expected success with 23-24-25 year old SP all the time.

are some players snakebit? randomly, for sure... hard coded? not likely. could relate to personality if you have that on too... i think it's more about many small factors adding up... if enough point in one general direction, it won't be negligible relative to player ratings under-the-hood. too often sports casters and espn douch#@$s regurgitate nonsense about choking... or at least over report it when it's simply fallacious.

as far as your 1/7 success:

depends on the teams. a great regular season team can be less formidable in the playoffs. i'd hesitate before making big changes, though. althogh some things should be done if you dont - like minimizing coast of 5th starter and bottom 3-4 releivers.

if you make to the playoffs a ton and getting farily "normal" performances from SP/RP/Offense during the playoffs, then i'd suggest reallocating resources away from pieces that aren't used in the playoffs much - shift money from 5-7RP, 5th sp, and whatever else you can think of. just don't sacrifice too many regular season wins that you don't regularly make the playoffs. look at these slots as luxury and developmental. cheap! ~$2-3mill, not $10+million. add that 7-10mill to a regular's salary and you have quite an upgrade to that position with little loss.

you may win a handful fewer games during the regular season, but you'll be a stronger playoff team.

1/7 isn't that unusual, either. if that trend continues in perpetuity (playoffs every year, winning ~100 games consistently etc), then i'd think it's a bit low.... but you're not likely to play enough years to know. so, even though the regular season is different, it is still the same game between the lines.

you aren't playing bad teams in the playoffs. if you could see your w/l vs. above .500 teams, you will see that 100-win team isn't so dominant as you think. i'd guess a 100-win team should win it 1/4 or so. but, if you have another great team in your conference, during that time period you are less likely to reach that... and in weaker times you'll win more. so, look at other factors before making any drastic changes.

another way to see it: let's say you are a great team. you have a 75% the first round, then 65% the 2nd and 60% in teh WS. you will win the WS less than 1/3rd of the time. those are some pretty wickedly imbalanced win% compared to real life, i hope... i treid anyway. hence, only 1 team of the five? with over 110wins has won the world series per game trivia. have to consider the different playoff format for each of them, too. teams don't typically have a 60/40 probability in baseball playoffs. that's like a top team playing a bottom-dweller.

[drhay53]

Thanks for a great response. I should mention, before discussing my situation a little more, that I wasn't really complaining about the 1/7.... it was just meant as a preface that I've been in the playoffs a lot so I've had this to consider basically ever year.

I play with Spanish Lefty's suggested development and aging speed, and then realistic injuries. So this year for instance, 3 of my best 4 players were out for the playoffs. I took the LCS to 7 games on the strength of my pitching and defense, and I considered it a successful trip, all things considered.

I have the benefit of a very rich organization (this is a fictional league but consider this team like NYY). Many years I end with $50 million in budget space (I also play with financial evolution on so massive contracts right now are around the $40 million / yr level). That's even with maxxing out scouting and player development, and buying ~300% of the limit in international FA. Money isn't really the problem.

Partly, what I'm doing is trying as hard as possible to use home grown players. So I'm usually under budget because I have a lot of young players under team control. Pitching is where I'm most likely to spend in a trade or big FA buy, but right now in my fictional league I'm in that weird in between place on newgens vs. the players that were in the league when it started; so there isn't a lot of young pitching available at a prospect cost that I'm willing to pay. I think it'll be a few years in this league before really good rule 5 eligible prospects in my organization will start hitting the trade market.

I've been over 100 wins in 5/7 seasons, and the one that I won the WS was a 111 win season. Typically I find that I'm not scoring enough runs in the playoffs; as you suggest, I'm beating up on bad pitching all year but then getting stymied in the playoffs. I understand the situation (not enough star power at the plate), but I'm just not the type of GM that trades away prospects. I have an understanding owner so I can be patient, develop my talent, get them lots of experience, and hopefully start winning more WS once my guys who have been in the organization for 15 years with 10 years of playoff experience are all veterans.

This is really the main point of the OP; I just want to know how people generally feel about playoff experience in OOTP. I tend to trust my vets more because I've seen all their clutch hits and such, and I know what they're going to give me. But is playoff experience real in OOTP?

Here is an example. The year I won the WS, I had this pitcher (Ronnie Cantley, fictional player but I loved that dude). He was fading big time in skills. The year before he had a Cy Young season, only losing to an even better pitcher on my team. He had like 75 stuff, 275 strikeouts in 230 IP, etc. This year his stuff fell off a cliff, down to 50, he spent a couple months on the DL, etc. My 1-2 punch for the playoffs seemed to be gone. He was like 35 years old with 13 years experience, so on a hunch, I said "this guy's down for one last ride. He's my number 2 for the postseason." What did he do? He went out there and won WS MVP by dominating 2 starts, like 15 K's 2 BB's, 5 H, 1 ER. He left the club and bounced around in people's bullpens for a few years after that, never really making any impact.

After that, I was like, there may be something to this experience thing in the playoffs. So I'm curious about other people's thoughts and experiences.

[nebradska]

I don't think OOTP simulates players having playoff experience, though I accept I could be wrong about that.

[NoOne]

maybe not solely from a playoff point of view. if age has an effect it's their rookie season or possibly the first 1-3 years? i'm a bit on the fence about that though.

it's possible the first time(s) in a playoff game might have an effect?? depends on the developer's views on that. if data supports it and if that data has any integrity.

i've seen players been consistently bad throughout their career in the playoffs. i chalk it up to a cosmic joke on them. make a clone and replay their career - it will likely have different postseason results. simply put the sample size makes it impossible to know unless you do some testing with a player. same probabilities, but different results are likely each time you simulate it. enough of a sample will prove one way or another.

you said:
"Typically I find that I'm not scoring enough runs in the playoffs; as you suggest, I'm beating up on bad pitching all year but then getting stymied in the playoffs."

i just mean it's tougher in the playoffs so don't expect to score over time the same avearge of runs you did in the regular season -- small smaple + it's not relative to the league it's relative to the specific team you are playing in the playoffs. expectations should be tailored to the playoff competition that round. if you are looking at an average runs scored for 4-7 games, don't. looking at that will only cause an uninformed decisions, that will only be right with luck.

when you are winning 100+ in a year you are likely scoing 800+ easily (110 - 850-900+ or so?). that's not a weak offense. and you can't have a weak pitching staff.

so, i'd look into how it's using your pen in the playoffs. shorten it up. set the bottom-feeders to "unspecified" but DO keep them on the playoff roster. you likely move your 5th guy to the pen anyway... 2-3 to "unspecified" is okay if they are noticeably worse than other options on your staff.

simplify bullpen roles for the playoffs.... you don't have to contend with a ton of games without days off. if you shuffled things around in the regular season due to performance, now is the time to seriously think reverting back to best ability rather than regular season performance.

make sure you don't accidentally leave "always or occasionally use highest rested" for your Rotation in the playoffs... you'll have guys pitching with 80% rested or worse. also, make sure 5-man changed to 4-man rotation.

most of all... even if you made all the best decisions, you cna stil end up 0/7 or 1/7.

an extremely dominat team only has a ~20-30% of winning 3 tiers of playoffs. i'd shoot for 1/4 to 1/3 or better if winning ~100+ a year average (higher if you only have 2 rounds etc). you'll have a good idea of your WS rate after 50-100 years or so :P and that is assuming you didnt change how you do things in significant ways... if so, reset that egg-timer and recalculate the rate from that point on.

i'd just make sure the right bullpen guys are being used and that's the biggest key to the playoffs. a bench becomes virtually non-existent, so i make sure i have a couple good baserunners/speed guys, because that's likely the only way they get into a playoff game is as a pinch-runner. when you win 100+ often, the couple games a strong bench gives you in teh regular season doesn't mean much. once you have a base (somewhat know your likelyhood of WS per year), you can make meaning ful changes and see if the results are better or worse.

you run your best starters out in order, possibly a stud pitches early, maybe not. you send out your best pen to the breaking point and that's all you can do.

i am the opposite of a barry bonds fan. i think he's a cheater. i don't think he's a choker just because of his playoff performances. anyone can have a bad 20-30AB... anyone can have a bad stretch of pitching. just as you are told to ignore stats at the beginning of a season, you should ignore them in the playoffs too... it's simply logical reasoning. it's illogical for it not to apply in the same situation, yet many "feel" it's different.

[USF]

One thing I have seen in my many years of online experience is the hot hand usually does well in the playoffs. Teams going into the playoffs on a streak or playing torrid in September usually do well in October.

Jason

[NoOne]

those fire/snow icons are delayed to show up and likely delayed to leave too. they likely show up reactively to recent results. don't believe they are reliable for anything in the future.

"they" say by the time you notice a good hitting streak, it's about to end (same with bad luck). it typically lasts a short stretch of games and can't be identified until too late. so, you can't realize any benefits from juggling the lineup, typically.

there's no way to distinguish a 5-7 game streak of atypical play with a larger stretch. since they don't happen too often, it's not wise to bet on them.

maybe personality and morale can scale this a bit... maybe they have something extra coded to compound really good or bad results... the latter would be .. not quite how realtiy works but maybe a simplified way of modelling insecure or confident people and how they handle adversity and success differently... looks like that is part of personalities already, so i have fairth the didn't double dip on that effect by using something random with the same proportion and no other similarity.

obviously you want players playing at a high level during the playoffs... there's no consitent way to know who is entering a hot streak, unfortunately. hindsight is all we have.

[RchW]

Whether by luck or design, OOTP mimics good and star players having bad playoffs. IRL the headlines are usually who is bad.