Injury Proneness compounding over time

[jfb8300]

Perhaps the reason no one can agree to what level injuries should be set it because the percentage of fragile and wrecked players changes so drastically over time. Take the MLB QuickStart for example, just 0.56% of players are listed as Fragile or Wrecked. As most injuries occur to that class of player, injuries would have to be set to Very High to get an appropriate level on injuries in 2021.

But fast forward that same league to 2052 (with injuries at Normal the entire time) and 10.3% of players are Fragile or Wrecked!

Why is this? For one, I believe we've been told players can degrade from Ironman > Durable > Normal > Fragile > Wrecked. But can only improve from Durable > Ironman.

Secondly, it seems players take FAR too much of a hit to their Proneness rating from any injury.

Third, editor ratings seem to break down roughly as follows:

Ironman 0-5
Durable 5-30

Normal 30-125

Fragile 125-180
Wrecked 180-200

Durable/Ironman has a 30 point window and rarely ever get injured. While Fragile and Wrecked players have a 75 point window and are always injured.

When 10.3% of the league is injury prone, it results in bloodbath, no one can stay healthy. It warps the playing time distribution, age curve, and the total number of players getting the qualified number of plate appearances or innings pitchers. The AI gives out contracts with no regard to proneness and Fragile players end up with guaranteed 10 year contracts while perpetually injured and ratings ever declining.

Clearly the game sees optimized to function best at the QuickStart level. Can this snowball effect of injury prone players not be fixed? It makes playing far into the future a pointless endeavor.

[OutS|der]

How do you get them shown as Ironman? Even at all 1's all I see is Durable

[RchW]

Make sure the view includes "prone" then use a filter as desired.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Somewhat disagree with your logic. If you have examined the first (and other) early drafts, you'll see a large number of FRAGILE prospects entering the league. I sort to avoid any of those guys and won't pick below NORMAL -- and only then for highly rated guys.

So it isn't always the injuries of existing players polluting the pool, a good chunk of the issue is newly drafted FRAGILE players.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

Somewhat disagree with your logic. If you have examined the first (and other) early drafts, you'll see a large number of FRAGILE prospects entering the league. I sort to avoid any of those guys and won't pick below NORMAL -- and only then for highly rated guys.

So it isn't always the injuries of existing players polluting the pool, a good chunk of the issue is newly drafted FRAGILE players.

But a legitimate concern is that the AI signs drafts and trades without regard to proneness. Serious leg up for the human player.

[Maurice Thorez]

I do not disagree with what you are describing as this is my understanding of the game engine too, but I will disagree with your conclusion here. I think what the game does with injuries is for the most part quite accurate and even the 10% fragile/wrecked number reflects reality. Honestly, if you look at any MLB 40-man and team IL right now you can probably pick out 3-6 of the following; pitchers whose arm is ready to fall off or has repeatedly done so, a veteran 1B, corner OF, or C with knee issues that needs days off to stay healthy, a SS or CF with nagging groin or hamstring issues etc... This kind of sucks of course for players you are attached to, but it is the toll physical activity day after day takes on the body. There is a reason OOTP has the "realistic" injury setting as high. It is also a reminder to not let injury prone players get fatigued when managing.


The game reflects reality in that players start out healthy, albeit some sturdier than others, then progressively break from use. While they recover from individual injuries they mostly never quite go back to the days of their youth pre-injury. Players start breaking as soon as they are drafted(or before if you have feeder leagues) and everything goes downhill from there so a growth from .56% to 10% for any individual draft class is completely believable trajectory for me. Now if only .56% of players are fragile/wrecked in the MLB in a quickstart, off-hand I would probably say that is too low without knowing exactly what the real-world equivalent of fragile or wrecked is.

My best advice to you might be to drop the injury setting to low(I am assuming you are using the default of normal). That will of course probably see a few top talents probably stick around for longer and have more HOF level career arcs than in real life, but it will help.

In terms of the AI having issues signing fragile/wrecked players to long-term contracts, that could be a genuine problem if that is happening. I would never sign a wrecked player to a 10-year contract, probably even if they were an MVP level talent and I doubt few real world GMs would do any different. You can probably mitigate this problem in the game a bit by placing a higher emphasis on stats in the AI evaluation settings(my thought process on this being fragile/wrecked players will not be able to accumulate the same numbers to warrant a giant contract), but this could have some knock on effects elsewhere you might not be happy with. I do hope how injury prone a player is would be factored into drafting for the AI, but as far as I know there is no way of confirming whether it does or does not.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by jfb8300

Perhaps the reason no one can agree to what level injuries should be set it because the percentage of fragile and wrecked players changes so drastically over time. Take the MLB QuickStart for example, just 0.56% of players are listed as Fragile or Wrecked. As most injuries occur to that class of player, injuries would have to be set to Very High to get an appropriate level on injuries in 2021.

But fast forward that same league to 2052 (with injuries at Normal the entire time) and 10.3% of players are Fragile or Wrecked!

Why is this? For one, I believe we've been told players can degrade from Ironman > Durable > Normal > Fragile > Wrecked. But can only improve from Durable > Ironman.

Secondly, it seems players take FAR too much of a hit to their Proneness rating from any injury.

Third, editor ratings seem to break down roughly as follows:

Ironman 0-5
Durable 5-30

Normal 30-125

Fragile 125-180
Wrecked 180-200

Durable/Ironman has a 30 point window and rarely ever get injured. While Fragile and Wrecked players have a 75 point window and are always injured.

When 10.3% of the league is injury prone, it results in bloodbath, no one can stay healthy. It warps the playing time distribution, age curve, and the total number of players getting the qualified number of plate appearances or innings pitchers. The AI gives out contracts with no regard to proneness and Fragile players end up with guaranteed 10 year contracts while perpetually injured and ratings ever declining.

Clearly the game sees optimized to function best at the QuickStart level. Can this snowball effect of injury prone players not be fixed? It makes playing far into the future a pointless endeavor.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I think you are highlighting a legitimate issue. I think it merits real discussion and not a settings change as a solution to the potential problem. I don't have the answer but if .56% is the baseline for wrecked/fragile players based on the out of the box start, I feel that number should never grow to a full 10%. This number should fall in line like league batting average and era over time. Small fluctuations okay, but never something like what the OP is seeing. Could you imagine what your league would look like if ERA or B.A fluctuated like this over time? I really hope one of the devs takes notice to this thread. Thanks for doing the legwork and posting.

[Syd Thrift]

One of the reasons why I lower aging and raise development is to counteract this effect down the line. I'm not convinced that the fragility rates are too high - I remember Bill James saying back in the 80s that the vast majority of pitchers at the MLB level would be decent if everything broke right, but they're having issues because they're either young, injured, or coming back from an injury - but when they are like that, a significant component of aging as we know it is actually that slow increase in injury proneness we experience in lengthier leagues.

I set one league to 0.9 aging and 1.1 development, along with I think I put 120 TCR, and really you don't see super old players past the first couple years in the league (although even then, aging or no aging, players are likely to call it quits as they get into their early 40s). I think that setting AI evaluation to stats only helps as well; a 36 year old is just as likely to have an "off year" as a 24 year old but when it happens to the latter, it's much, much more likely to be the last chance at playing full time that player gets. If you leave ratings weight on, the AI is too likely to say "okay, but he's still slightly better than the kid on the bench" IME and let him keep playing until the ratings actually drop significantly.

[Ohiostate25187]

This is something I've noticed in past versions as well. I'm not opposed to seeing a higher percentage of fragile or wrecked players, but to see a consistent pattern across saves and knowing that players in future years appear to be predictably more injury prone is odd. I've found this in both MLB quickstart as well as fictional leagues.

[Tyler87898]

I feel like it says more about the quickstart than about the injury settings/how it works. Maybe with the MLB quickstart it's hard for OOTP to accurately assess real life injury proneness to such a large degree. It might be good to compare the injury rate in multiple samples of the first year of a MLB quickstart to real life.

I mean I have no research to back it up, but I feel the 10% can't be too far off from real life.

[KBLover]

You got me curious so I checked my longest running franchise, currently in 2044, though carried over from 19 to now, so I don't know if this has changed over the versions.

At the MLB level, I have 714 Fragile/Wrecked players out of a population of 7,402, which equals just over 9.6%.

I've always had the injury setting to "High" since it's labeled "Realistic Modern Day".

When I looked at individual team rosters - most teams have no more than 6 fragile players (on expanded rosters up to 44 in this league) and none have more than 3 wrecked players. Some have no one under normal. My team has 5 fragile players though my squad tends to have fewer injuries than most and I don't control the games or have complex subbing (usually "if starter tired" for 90% of them).

So it seems most of the torn up guys in this league are in free agency.

[itsmb8]

One thing I suggest to neutralize the advantage the player has vs the AI in regards to signing or drafting fragile or wrecked players is to hide the injury rating for players.

Personally I think its unrealistic as you can look at injury history and assume how injury prone they are, but youre never 100% certain.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Tyler87898

I feel like it says more about the quickstart than about the injury settings/how it works. Maybe with the MLB quickstart it's hard for OOTP to accurately assess real life injury proneness to such a large degree. It might be good to compare the injury rate in multiple samples of the first year of a MLB quickstart to real life.

I mean I have no research to back it up, but I feel the 10% can't be too far off from real life.

Yes, I'd agree with this. If anything we probably need to set more players in the quickstart to be fragile/wrecked than we have now.

The problem is that when we do that, then everyone complains that 'player X' is always getting injured and is useless in-game, when in real life they absolutely, no doubt at all, have 15 more years of HOF caliber play ahead of them

So we do tend to shade the injury proneness in the quickstart down a bit.

So when comparing the numbers in the quickstart to a league that's been running for awhile, where there's a discrepancy, you can take it for granted that the quickstart is too low.

[KBLover]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

The problem is that when we do that, then everyone complains that 'player X' is always getting injured and is useless in-game, when in real life they absolutely, no doubt at all, have 15 more years of HOF caliber play ahead of them

I could have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer but I took a 101 MPH fastball to the knee.

[Maurice Thorez]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Yes, I'd agree with this. If anything we probably need to set more players in the quickstart to be fragile/wrecked than we have now.

The problem is that when we do that, then everyone complains that 'player X' is always getting injured and is useless in-game, when in real life they absolutely, no doubt at all, have 15 more years of HOF caliber play ahead of them

So we do tend to shade the injury proneness in the quickstart down a bit.

So when comparing the numbers in the quickstart to a league that's been running for awhile, where there's a discrepancy, you can take it for granted that the quickstart is too low.

Thanks for being upfront about this. I thought the .56% fragile/wrecked number looked low. However, I can understand why you did this. I tend to lean towards the side of realism, but the real world can be really miserable in many respects, not just with MLB player injuries, and OOTP is a game that is supposed to be fun in the end.



Out of interest does the 9 to 10% fragile/wrecked players in the MLB player pool reported here by a couple players what you would expect to see on default settings after 20 years or so?

[RchW]

I just checked my almost 100 season fictional league and it is wild. Fragile/wrecked for MLB players is 400/1418 or 28.2% and including 3 levels of minors it's 664/4607 or 14.4%.

No wonder I struggle to sign FA as I won't do fragile/wrecked.

This has been played and imported since at least v14.

[jfb8300]

Originally Posted by RchW

I just checked my almost 100 season fictional league and it is wild. Fragile/wrecked for MLB players is 400/1418 or 28.2% and including 3 levels of minors it's 664/4607 or 14.4%.

No wonder I struggle to sign FA as I won't do fragile/wrecked.

This has been played and imported since at least v14.

Good point. The original 10.3% number in the thread pertained to the entire universe. If just looking a ML level players, it is is 24.7% after 30 seasons of play vs .53% at start. That's much more than a "discrepancy," it is a game altering issue that affects anyone playing a decade plus into the future.

And for the record I hope this thread isn't being interpreted as one complaining about too many injuries. Ideally I'd like to set injuries at High or Very High because that's where it needs to be to get a appropriate amount of pitchers starting 30 games per season. At Normal or below, far too many start 30+ games compared to real life. But if you do that, injuries really go into a tailspin as the years go on - the numbers reported in the OP were just at Normal level.

This complaint is more about injury distribution. And how the AI's seeming inability to account for injury proneness destroys not just its competitiveness, but its financial standing over the long run.

Right now, 32.4% are Durable/Ironmen and near impervious too injury. That's definitely seems too many. 24.7% are Fragile/Wrecked and guaranteed to get injured.

The remaining 42.9% are Normal, but just an injury or two away from becoming Fragile/Wrecked. My ideal fix would be to see most players in the Normal range, but when they suffer an injury they wouldn't immediately turn into Fragile (short of the injury being a Tommy John or something else long term). The hit to their Proneness ratings needs to be much lower, and there is no setting/slider for this. Please give us one!

In that scenario, injuries could be set to High or Very High to get a MLB realistic number of injuries and 30 game starters. With more players ranked Normal - and thus equally susceptible to injury - it would introduce more uncertainty/fog to the Player. Because, like others have mentioned, every Filter I have screens out Fragile/Wrecked players. Won't touch them. Ever. Huge advantage to the Player and handicap to the AI.

[koohead]

How does age play into the distribution though? I would suspect/hope that as players age, the fragility should increase. The impact of recurring injuries to a 33 year old should impact their proneness far more than injuries to a 24 year old...in theory? Yes, there will be the share of 22 year olds who are injury prone. but if the injury and aging model were accurate, the impact should increase over time.

[jfb8300]

Originally Posted by koohead

How does age play into the distribution though? I would suspect/hope that as players age, the fragility should increase. The impact of recurring injuries to a 33 year old should impact their proneness far more than injuries to a 24 year old...in theory? Yes, there will be the share of 22 year olds who are injury prone. but if the injury and aging model were accurate, the impact should increase over time.

Perhaps it isn't happening that way. An injury to a Normal 24 year old and turns him Fragile, leading to deteriorating ratings and less playing time or retirement. Meanwhile, most Durable/Ironman stay that way throughout their career, so when they are 30+ they are still chugging along and racking up 200PA or 40IP.

For example, in MLB from 2016-2019 the average number of 30+ year olds hitting those milestones was 268 players. In OOTP from 2050-2053 those milestones were hit by 414 players aged 30+. Of those 149 were still Durable/Ironmen.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by jfb8300

Good point. The original 10.3% number in the thread pertained to the entire universe. If just looking a ML level players, it is is 24.7% after 30 seasons of play vs .53% at start. That's much more than a "discrepancy," it is a game altering issue that affects anyone playing a decade plus into the future.

And for the record I hope this thread isn't being interpreted as one complaining about too many injuries. Ideally I'd like to set injuries at High or Very High because that's where it needs to be to get a appropriate amount of pitchers starting 30 games per season. At Normal or below, far too many start 30+ games compared to real life. But if you do that, injuries really go into a tailspin as the years go on - the numbers reported in the OP were just at Normal level.

This complaint is more about injury distribution. And how the AI's seeming inability to account for injury proneness destroys not just its competitiveness, but its financial standing over the long run.

Right now, 32.4% are Durable/Ironmen and near impervious too injury. That's definitely seems too many. 24.7% are Fragile/Wrecked and guaranteed to get injured.

The remaining 42.9% are Normal, but just an injury or two away from becoming Fragile/Wrecked. My ideal fix would be to see most players in the Normal range, but when they suffer an injury they wouldn't immediately turn into Fragile (short of the injury being a Tommy John or something else long term). The hit to their Proneness ratings needs to be much lower, and there is no setting/slider for this. Please give us one!

In that scenario, injuries could be set to High or Very High to get a MLB realistic number of injuries and 30 game starters. With more players ranked Normal - and thus equally susceptible to injury - it would introduce more uncertainty/fog to the Player. Because, like others have mentioned, every Filter I have screens out Fragile/Wrecked players. Won't touch them. Ever. Huge advantage to the Player and handicap to the AI.

Thanks for the clarification re amount in MLB and for highlighting this issue. Some refinement of the module is needed IMO even if just to save an AI team from signing 4 FA at full market value that are going to play in half the games. These contracts would be discounted IRL.

I'm going to shortlist fragile/wrecked players in my upcoming season to see what happens to the group.