How Close Should Historical Stats Be?

[majesty95]

What are your expectations for simmed stats when playing historicals? Let's assume we have real lineups off and default settings and player dev off. How close is close enough for you?

How much do you deviate when you go to 3-year or 5-year recalc?

What acceptance rate do you have for outier stats (ie a player hitting .330 when his real life stats said he was a .290 hitter)?

What do you expect from bench management? Should guys who had 300 ABs in real life have about that in the sim or do you like to see what would happen if they played a full season, assuming they had only 300 ABs because of injury. What if they were a platoon player?

How close to real life should pitching stats be? Should the amount of 230+ IP pitchers be the same as real life or is there an expected variance that you are ok with? How far off from real life is accepted in league leaders for ERA?

[actionjackson]

Because I play random debut all the time, I'm not really a stickler for it. I also use re-calc and player development together (development at the default settings), so there's a little bit of weirdness there, but for the most part guys perform as expected. I don't really analyze it too much. I just let it flow.

[David Watts]

If recalc and modifiers are working the way they are supposed to, or to put it more bluntly, the way they did 2 versions ago, outlier seasons are a blast. Over 500 at bats .330 is just 20 more hits than .290. Lots of things can factor into a player getting those extra hits. What sucks is when a .290 hitter starts stringing together 3 or 4 .330 and above seasons in a row.

[majesty95]

In OOTP 16 I just had a season where Kent Hrbek hit .360 and Tom Brunsnsky hit 51 HRs. 0_o Just trying to figure out what most people think of that (1984 season with 3-year Recalc double weighted.) I’ve always though of Recalc being the high and low you can generally expect the player to fall within. Always hard to wrap my head around extreme outlier seasons, especially 51 home runs when their career high is 32 lol

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by majesty95

In OOTP 16 I just had a season where Kent Hrbek hit .360 and Tom Brunsnsjy hit 51 HRs. 0_o Just trying to figure out what most people think if that (1984 season with 3-year Recalc double wrighted.) I’ve always though of Recalc being the Hugh and low you can generally expect the player to fall within. Always hard to wrap my head around extreme outlier seasons, especially 51 home runs when their career high is 32 lol

If you can, let us know what Hrbek and Brunansky do in 1985 and 86. What did Gwynn, Mattingly and Winfield hit during that 1984 season.

[Reed]

For batters with more than 400 ABs in my league, I would hope that 80% would be within 30 points of their real batting average. For pitchers with more than 150 IP in my league I would hope that 80% would be within .15 of their real life wh/ip rate. I hope that makes sense. I realize your adjust/weaken hitters/pitchers will have a big impact also. I think the default setting is different for OOTP 16 compared to OOTP 18.

[DawnBTVS]

Originally Posted by majesty95

What are your expectations for simmed stats when playing historicals? Let's assume we have real lineups off and default settings and player dev off. How close is close enough for you?

How much do you deviate when you go to 3-year or 5-year recalc?

What acceptance rate do you have for outier stats (ie a player hitting .330 when his real life stats said he was a .290 hitter)?

What do you expect from bench management? Should guys who had 300 ABs in real life have about that in the sim or do you like to see what would happen if they played a full season, assuming they had only 300 ABs because of injury. What if they were a platoon player?

How close to real life should pitching stats be? Should the amount of 230+ IP pitchers be the same as real life or is there an expected variance that you are ok with? How far off from real life is accepted in league leaders for ERA?

I usually play with the OOTP Development engine mostly because if I wanted real life, I'd just read box scores, etc. I figure players potentially going to different teams/run environments via trade in OOTP or being injured alone will wildly alter what "real" should be as far as close mimicry goes. Barry Bonds going from the late 1980s Pirates to Fenway Park/early 1990s Red Sox is a wildly different beast than going to the Giants like in real life.

With all that said, when I do choose 3 year recalc, I'm fine with a 75-80% closeness. If you look at enough players in real life, they usually have an aberration or two season wise (e.g. David Cone went from 20-3 to 14-8, 14-10, and finally 14-14 but bounces back to 17-10). So which season is "realistic"? The ones where he's winning 14 games or the top end of 17/20 wins?

There's just too many variables from home park factors to maybe a team drafts differently (if you don't have players going to their original teams) or the AI decides to put Player X hitting in the 6th spot instead of 2nd like he did in real life.

I don't expect every player to be super close to real life. The hardest part is trying to figure out what's good enough for realism. Some could argue that Roger Maris was a 40 HR a year hitter, when healthy. Others look at his numbers and think he should hew closer to 25-30 HRs a year.

I'm more focused on league wide stats being 95% realistic. Doesn't have to be perfect but if the AL hit 230 HRs in 1966, I expect the end of the season in OOTP to reflect 225-235 HRs probably. I'm far more lenient on players due to the wildly varying circumstances within the game itself.

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by DawnBTVS

With all that said, when I do choose 3 year recalc, I'm fine with a 75-80% closeness. If you look at enough players in real life, they usually have an aberration or two season wise (e.g. David Cone went from 20-3 to 14-8, 14-10, and finally 14-14 but bounces back to 17-10). So which season is "realistic"? The ones where he's winning 14 games or the top end of 17/20 wins?

Wins aren't an effective measure of a pitcher's talent as Felix Hernandez has shown us. I'm more concerned with WHIP and ERA+. With that said, when a pitcher has three years of 1.35, 1.41 and 1.24 WHIP and posts a 1.05 it throws me off. In my mind, that pitcher has shown he's not capable of that type of year in real life, so why is he all of the sudden so much better in the game (assuming he is on same team with coaching off). That's exacerbated when the 1.24 was a career low. If he was on a different team with better coaching I could maybe see it. But all things being even, it's hard to wrap my head around.

As far as your comment about looking at box scores, for me, I like to get players to perform like real life and then see what happens if some of the free agents signed with different teams or a few trades were made that didn't happen in real life. Could being on a different team affect their stats? Could they propel a 2nd place team to win their division? Kind of like your scenario of Bonds going to the Red Sox instead of the Giants.

[DawnBTVS]

Originally Posted by majesty95

Wins aren't an effective measure of a pitcher's talent as Felix Hernandez has shown us. I'm more concerned with WHIP and ERA+. With that said, when a pitcher has three years of 1.35, 1.41 and 1.24 WHIP and posts a 1.05 it throws me off. In my mind, that pitcher has shown he's not capable of that type of year in real life, so why is he all of the sudden so much better in the game (assuming he is on same team with coaching off). That's exacerbated when the 1.24 was a career low. If he was on a different team with better coaching I could maybe see it. But all things being even, it's hard to wrap my head around.

As far as your comment about looking at box scores, for me, I like to get players to perform like real life and then see what happens if some of the free agents signed with different teams or a few trades were made that didn't happen in real life. Could being on a different team affect their stats? Could they propel a 2nd place team to win their division? Kind of like your scenario of Bonds going to the Red Sox instead of the Giants.

One issue is that "all things being equal" in OOTP it isn't all equal. It's all dependent on the Computer AI and other player ratings and park factors. I feel like you're trying to obtain real life numbers in a way that simply isn't that feasible with OOTP and the way it's structured.

Keep in mind that WHIP does involve hits so that 1.05 could've been reflected on the team suddenly acquiring a Gold Glove level SS or just a fluke season of random luck. Maybe the team's park factor went from a 1.020 down to a 0.960 instead for that year.

David Cone is a perfect example where he was putting up 1.20-1.25 WHIPs yet won the Cy Young in 1994 going 16-5 with a 1.07 WHIP (his career best). His BB/9 dropped to what he produced in 1990 & 1991 but the big difference was his H/9 dropped to 6.8 from the 7.2 and 7.3 range. One could argue he just got lucky as almost every other starter on Kansas City was almost 8+ H/9 for the season.

Courtesy of Baseball-Reference
- David Cone with the Red Sox in '94 (Neutral Adjusted): 13-6 with a 2.88 ERA and 1.092 WHIP
- David Cone with the Dodgers in '94 (Neutral Adjusted): 13-6 with a 2.27 ERA and 0.956 WHIP. Massive difference just going to a different ballpark, never mind whatever the actual defensive talent behind him would be or how that team's run production would affect him.

Derek Lowe played out of his mind in 2002 with a 0.97 WHIP while routinely putting up 1.20-1.40 WHIPs otherwise. It happens sometimes. Same thing for hitters where a guy like John Cangelosi (career .250 hitter) explodes for a .318 BA in 256 PA in 1995 for Houston.

As for your desire to see players perform like real life then throw them into different situations, that's great but further muddies the waters of what exactly real life you're expecting.

Bill James made a reference to Jose Cruz Sr. in his 1984 Historical Abstract (IIRC) stating that he was roughly the equivalent of Jim Rice as far as Slugging and potential power on the road. Now, in real life, Cruz Sr routinely finished around 14-17 HRs while hitting .300-.312 range because he was playing the Astrodome, a notoriously tough HR park in that era.

Yet on the road he was usually almost doubling his HRs at home and sometimes hitting 0.20-0.40 better in several years. So the question becomes what is realistic? If you look at his seasons, he should hit 12-17 HRs and around .305 for the year for most seasons recalc wise. But if you look at his road numbers and how the Astrodome hurt him, one could see him as a hitter challenging 20 HRs a year in the right ballpark.

So if you play OOTP out and Cruz is hitting at Fenway Park and hits .335 with 24 HR despite recalc saying he should top out around 15 HR and a .302 BA, is that a flaw in the realism you're expecting or is it OOTP adequately interpreting Cruz?

[majesty95]

That's a great example and helps to clarify it, especially the Cone example in Dodger Stadium.

My question would then be, what would make Kent Hrbek hit .55 higher than his career high and Tom Brunansky hit 60% more home runs than his career high playing on the same team in the same ballpark?

I guess my thing with those is that those are outliers for that player's career. I can see how maybe they get hot and hit .20 to .30 higher than their career best or even 8-10 HRs more (assuming 32 is the career high). I just have a hard time wrapping my head around two guys who played 14 years in the MLB outperforming their real life career highs so dramatically seemingly in the same situation. What makes it even more weird is that they have done it (along with Gaetti) in multiple versions making me wonder if its a Metrodome thing in game.

[DawnBTVS]

Originally Posted by majesty95

That's a great example and helps to clarify it, especially the Cone example in Dodger Stadium.

My question would then be, what would make Kent Hrbek hit .55 higher than his career high and Tom Brunansky hit 60% more home runs than his career high playing on the same team in the same ballpark?

I guess my thing with those is that those are outliers for that player's career. I can see how maybe they get hot and hit .20 to .30 higher than their career best or even 8-10 HRs more (assuming 32 is the career high). I just have a hard time wrapping my head around two guys who played 14 years in the MLB outperforming their real life career highs so dramatically seemingly in the same situation. What makes it even more weird is that they have done it (along with Gaetti) in multiple versions making me wonder if its a Metrodome thing in game.

Could be? I've found that the Park Factors are wildly different, especially when comparing to a site such as Baseball-Reference where a run environment irl may be 101 but the PF in the game is like 107 for some reason. I know the "ideal" is to go by 3-5 year PFs but I find teams usually would change so I think it doesn't adequately reflect how the park may've played that particular season. Having a lineup of Bichette/Castilla/Walker/Galaragga hitting at Coors Field in 1996 is far different than having most of those guys gone by 2001.

For his career, Hrbek did hit .298 at home against .266 on the road along with 19 more HR. That's a difference of 0.032, decent jump.

With that said, I would need more details though.

#1: What were the PFs year to year? Outside of an outlier 1987 (95), it was routinely 105-107 in the Run Environment according to Baseball-Reference. So about 5-7% above whatever the league average run environment would be.

#2: What were the recalc settings at? 3 years? Double current season?

#3: Are these single season outliers you're talking about? How are their career totals if you're looking at single season performances?

#4: It could just be a simple case of the pitchers they faced ratings wise. Maybe they faced lesser talented relievers far more often or opposing star pitchers got injured so they feasted on the #3-#5 pitchers more than usual?

One thing I've found is that players tend to be... extreme far more often in OOTP 18 than in past versions. I had a guy, despite playing on OOTP Development, hit something like 57 HRs one season yet he finished his career usually around the 27-33 range outside of that single season.

Some of that I attribute to the assigned PFs in the game. IIRC Spritz? has said ideally to play it with all parks set to neutral but that takes away the charm for me of a Bonds hitting at Fenway or a Pedro pitching at Qualcomm Stadium. With that said, I've found that the PFs can vary wildly especially if you're going by 1 Year PF where "pitcher's parks" irl that are usually 96-98 can suddenly show up as say a 1.010 for BA and HR in the game for some reason.

[pstrickert]

OOTP uses 3-yr PFs as a rule.

[majesty95]

Yeah I don’t like the neutered parks either for the reason you mentioned. The ideal scenario would be to use neutered stats but for many reasons they come out further aaay fromnideal than real stats with park factors. Overall, it’s not that bad. I just hate seeing guys like Brunansky hit 51 and worry one day I’ll see Brady freaking Anderson hit 60 lol. It could happen in OOTP though and I’m not sure how we could prevent it.

[majesty95]

I think 5-year recall may be the way to go. You still get some outlier seasons but they aren’t as crazy. You do get some seasons like McGwire’s rookie year neutered though.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by majesty95

I think 5-year recall may be the way to go. You still get some outlier seasons but they aren’t as crazy. You do get some seasons like McGwire’s rookie year neutered though.

I was fooling around over the weekend with 5 year recalc and I was really liking the numbers it was producing.

Just for kicks, what did Hrbek and Brunansky's lefty/righty splits look like in that 84 season? Of course, if you didn't have OOTP create them, never mind.

[majesty95]

This is Hrbek:




Real life

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by majesty95

In OOTP 16 I just had a season where Kent Hrbek hit .360 and Tom Brunsnsky hit 51 HRs. 0_o Just trying to figure out what most people think of that (1984 season with 3-year Recalc double weighted.) I’ve always though of Recalc being the high and low you can generally expect the player to fall within. Always hard to wrap my head around extreme outlier seasons, especially 51 home runs when their career high is 32 lol

Seems like there are way to many other variables.
Wouldn't you have to look at every teams strategies?

I would think the most realistic result is one season with exact lineups.
(personally i think that takes the fun out of it)
I prefer to see what would happen if a player beset with injuries in real life is healthy.

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by fredbeene

Seems like there are way to many other variables.
Wouldn't you have to look at every teams strategies?

I would think the most realistic result is one season with exact lineups.
(personally i think that takes the fun out of it)
I prefer to see what would happen if a player beset with injuries in real life is healthy.

Well, if you believe the sabermetric guys, batting order doesn't mean much. It might affect runs or RBI a little but AVG, SLG, OPS should be unaffected. In theory, it provides lineup protection in real life but Im not sure if the game factors in who is behind them in the order and how they pitch to them, especially if not playing out games.

I did notice something in my game yesterday that raised a concern though. A guy like Paul O'Neil will get better in 1993 because of his stats. However, those stats are seemingly 100% tied to him going to the Yankees. He was a .250-.270 hitter on avg in Cincinnati. However, as soon as he got to NY, he was a .300 hitter six seasons in a row, including a .359 season.

There's no way to simulate what happens if he stays in Cincinnati or goes to another team with a less ideal park or worse coaches (or worse order protection). We all knew of the Coors affect and it possibly doubling for guys there. But that improvement was so dramatic and consistent that you can only correlate that to the Yankees. You'll always get that improvement in the game no matter where he plays....

Kind of unrelated but made me think of that in terms of replicating stats.