Pitching Slider Q's

Weaseltail · 04-08-2021, 01:20 PM

Love the new pitching sliders, but not clear what they actually do. Anyone have any info on:

Adjust vs. Override: My assumption is "Override" does what it says, completely overrides the team strategy settings for the player. Also assume "Adjust" tweaks the team strategies slightly for a player, is that right? If so, can "Adjust" be used to get a player above the max for the team . . . you set team Steal to max, then set player Steal to max on adjust, does the player have an even higher attempted steal rate, or is it capped at the team max?

Hold Runner: Is there a downside to maxing this? Does max Hold Runner make it more likely a pitcher gives up a hit, walks a guy, etc.? I assume so, otherwise everyone would just max hold runner. If so, does min Hold Runner make your pitcher more effective against the batter at the cost of giving up more steal attempts (which might be a really good trade-off)?

Guard Lines: I assume maxed guard lines increases the chance of giving up a hit, but reduces the chance the hit is an XBH, is that right? Is the opposite true, min GL reduces the chance of a hit, but increases the chance the hit might be a double or triple? Again, might be a good trade off if so. Is Shift OF Depth just the OF corollary to GL?

OF/IF Shifts: I assume default is to shift in obvious situations (XPull hitters), but I'm confused how the min/max work. Is min simply never shift, no matter what? Is max always shift even against spray hitters? Or is there some point at which the AI won't shift even if the slider is maxed? I see lots of people maxing the shifts, but if max means shifting against spray hitters, that seems like a poor strategy.

Thanks for any info, tried searching but couldn't find anything specific.

Play4Thrills · 04-08-2021, 10:04 PM

I welcome feedback or validation, but I'll share my thoughts on these.

My sense is that the sliders all adjust how likely a player is to do a certain thing, after already accounting for the player/circumstance itself. So, e.g., the game seems to encourage stealing generally under certain condtions, perhaps when the algorithm determines it is strategically advantageous. But not all players are equally likely to steal under the same circumstances; I believe the game looks at various player attributes to determine if the player will then steal. My sense is that the slider affects that individual player's decision making in that instance, making it more likely or less likely that they'll do the thing.

So, like for infield shifting, my sense is that the game already has an algorithm in place to encourage shifting based on the batter type. The slider seems to affect how much more or less the shfiting occurs, e.g., if your team only does it for extreme pull or also pull/normal hitters.

For hold runners, I think the key will be that holding runners too frequently will lead to more errant throws and give-away extra bases, so there's some balancing required (which I haven't figured out exactly yet).

Oh, and for override/adjust, the manual appears pretty explicit in that it's one or the other -- either the player strategy or the global strategy applies; the "adjust" setting does not attempt to blend the two.

Weaseltail · 04-09-2021, 10:15 AM

Appreciate the response. I'm all in favor of the black box approach - it's no fun to have everything laid out for you - but there really needs to be some explanation of how all the new sliders, check boxes, etc. work. Completely flying blind isn't much fun either. We should at least have some official word on what they do, even if we never get the details of exactly how and and to what extent they do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Play4Thrills

Oh, and for override/adjust, the manual appears pretty explicit in that it's one or the other -- either the player strategy or the global strategy applies; the "adjust" setting does not attempt to blend the two.

That had always been my understanding as well, but somebody on Twitch (who would likely know) said that Adjust actually did work as I described. And that makes sense, otherwise why even have it as an option?

Baby Ruth · 04-09-2021, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weaseltail

Completely flying blind isn't much fun either.

This is something I'm seeing more and more of here. Why is it so hard for the people that took the money for the product to actually explain how the product works?

Anyone · 04-09-2021, 11:40 AM

Regarding holding runners, I don't see this difference in fielders' positioning when playing out games, so maybe it doesn't do this, but I'd expect holding runners more often to make fielders play closer to the bag more often, this allowing more ground balls in the hole to get through for hits (they may just operationalize it by giving slightly less range to infielders when a runner is being held on or something).

Weaseltail · 04-09-2021, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anyone

Regarding holding runners, I don't see this difference in fielders' positioning when playing out games, so maybe it doesn't do this, but I'd expect holding runners more often to make fielders play closer to the bag more often, this allowing more ground balls in the hole to get through for hits (they may just operationalize it by giving slightly less range to infielders when a runner is being held on or something).

That would make sense. So would Play4Thrills suggestion that it would increase errant throws/errors/advances.

It would be great if one of the devs could just clarify this. What is the tradeoff - increased hits, increased throws to 1B/errors, something else - so we could make an informed decision on where to put the slider. Same with the other sliders I mentioned above.

I'm not asking for specific numbers, just a general idea of what the sliders impact within the game. I'm at the point right now where I'm just ignoring them, since I don't know what they really do and I can't find any definitive information despite hours of looking on the forums + discord. And that's a shame because I'd like to use them and somebody spent a lot of time coding them into the game to improve everyone's experience.

Anyone · 04-09-2021, 10:35 PM

I agree the devs should clarify it, as in not exact numbers, but what you lose in return for preventing some SB's by holding runners more (I'm pretty sure it does prevent some SB's to hold runners more, and if it didn't that would be a major bug, but I think that at least does happen because my team was giving up a lot of SB's with it low, I raised it, and we've been giving up fewer), but just "Your fielders are holding runners more so you give up more hits" or "Your pitchers throw more pickoff throws, some catch runners off base but some are thrown away, so there are more errors" or "Your pitchers can't concentrate as fully on the hitter as often, so they don't pitch as well" (maybe more than one of those).

But while I'm too lazy to do this, maybe someone isn't: I can think of a fairly easy way if you want to put a few hours into it you can get an idea, and if someone does it they can post it and inform us all:

Do a historical replay of a recent season, picking almost any team to use. Only two things need to be true about that team: 1) The most important: The manager must allow for you as GM to set "Hold Runners " to anything you want. 2) The team's pitching staff and catchers shouldn't be outliers, should be fairly ordinary, not especially great at preventing SB's and not especially awful at it.

Then with player development off and injuries off, to avoid extra randomness, have it sim the same season twice with that team in that league (after the first you reload the league from the same starting point). The first time set Hold Runners to the minimum for "All Times, All Scores." Collect all pitching and fielding stats for the team. The second time set it to the maximum and do the same. In all other ways keep everything else exactly the same both times.

Note the differences.

With it at maximum if there aren't noticeably fewer successful stolen bases given up than at minimum, you caught a major bug. I'm.sure that won't happen, but if it did...

But then look at other stats. At max if BABIP given up is higher then it means you give up more hits from a fielding penalty.

If at max the pitchers have more BB's and fewer K's then it imposes a cost on pitcher concentration, maybe fatigue from pickoff throws, or both.

If at max pitchers have been charged with more errors, that would mean errant pickoff throws come about from it.

You could also check which team gave up more runs overall, on max or on min. If there's a significant difference, then you've found that either high or low is optimal (maybe not max or min, but one side is generally better). I'm sure there are sliders where one side is better: Low intentional walks I'm sure is better than high, and I'm also sure that low sac bunts is better than high.

If the runs allowed difference is close enough that even over a season it's best explained by chance then it's balanced but you still will have found what you trade off for allowing fewer SB's (more hits from a fielding penalty, worse pitcher performance, pickoff throwing errors, or what?) .

Yes, we shouldn't have to do this: Devs should tell us what we sacrifice to prevent some SB's by holding more runners on without someone having to give up a few hours to find out; but, people have done tests before and published them on these boards and this one isn't too hard, so maybe someone wants to know badly enough to test it, and then can post so we all gain. I admit I'm too lazy and have no truly good reason not to besides that, but if I weren't as lazy as I am I'd do it.

Weaseltail · 04-10-2021, 12:28 PM

So I ran a very abbreviated test using the 2021 KC Royals. I set all the team strategy sliders to the midpoint and ran a control test. I then changed the Hold Runners slider to the minimum (keeping everything else at the midpoint). I then ran a third sim with the Hold Runners slider at the max level (everything else still at the midpoint). The only thing that changed between the three sims was the value of the team strategy Hold Runners slider.

I ran 50,000 games per sim, all against the Minnesota Twins. Here's what I found out:

There was no statistical difference between the sims when it came to HRA, BB/9, defensive efficiency, or batting average allowed (this was identical for all sims at .286).

There were some fairly minor differences in the following:
Runs Allowed: Min (287193), Mid (285992), Max (284602)
K/9: Min (8.23), Mid (8.22), Max (8.19) - likely noise, but not really sure
ERA: Min (5.44), Mid (5.42), Max (5.39)
SB allowed: Min (26598), Mid (26525), Max (25995).

That's roughly a 2.3% decrease in SB, and a 0.9% decrease in ERA and RA when moving from the min slider to the max slider. Or put differently, going from the min to max Hold Runners rating would save you roughly 1 run every 20 games played (I think). And going from the default midpoint to the max would save you about 1 run every 36 games.

No real idea what this means, and I'm sure there are nuances that weren't evident in my test (pitcher hold runner skill, catcher arm, etc.). It's also possible I should have run more sims to confirm the data (but I'm too lazy). But it doesn't appear there is any obvious downside to maxing the Hold Runners slider, or any advantage to setting it to the min value. It also doesn't appear it really matters all that much in the bigger picture.

Intuitively I just can't believe that's true, since you'd expect there to be tradeoffs for every slider, but I couldn't find one. I'll make the same plea as above, devs please give us some guidance on these things so we can at least understand what the new features do.

Baby Ruth · 04-10-2021, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weaseltail

devs please give us some guidance on these things so we can at least understand what the new features do.

Let's make sure this request continues to jump to the top of the forum. It's mind-boggling how many requests for information on how systems work just go unanswered.

N51_rob · 04-10-2021, 02:01 PM

Pulled up the manual online and its sparse but this is what I was able to find.

Anyone · 04-11-2021, 02:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weaseltail

There was no statistical difference between the sims when it came to HRA, BB/9, defensive efficiency, or batting average allowed (this was identical for all sims at .286).

This suggests there may be no tradeoff, which isn't great game design if that's the case, and that it's optimal to set Hold Runners to maximum.

Its effect on stolen bases allowed is pretty small, but it doesn't seem to have a down side.

prorta · 04-11-2021, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baby Ruth

This is something I'm seeing more and more of here. Why is it so hard for the people that took the money for the product to actually explain how the product works?

I actually included discussed this in another post. And that went silent as well. Seems that the game had lots of changes, and I am looking in the forums, online manual, and even youtube, and nothing. For example, why do we have the option of Opener and Follower for pitchers in the strategy??? Better yet, they changed the location of "upcoming FA"...and that was never in the online manual when I checked. I am about to dump this game and go back to 21.

Also, the stadium kit...anyone knows how it exactly works? Any suggestions?

Weaseltail · 04-11-2021, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anyone

This suggests there may be no tradeoff, which isn't great game design if that's the case, and that it's optimal to set Hold Runners to maximum.

Its effect on stolen bases allowed is pretty small, but it doesn't seem to have a down side.

I keep thinking I must have either done something wrong in my test or that I'm just not looking at the right measurements. Maybe there is a trade off but you just can't tell from the limited data available on the sim engine. Because I agree, if there isn't a trade off, it's a bad design and needs to be fixed. This is where the devs could really help by just explaining what the trade off is, even if they don't tell us the magnitude or how it's calculated.

Anyone · 04-11-2021, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weaseltail

I keep thinking I must have either done something wrong in my test or that I'm just not looking at the right measurements. Maybe there is a trade off but you just can't tell from the limited data available on the sim engine. Because I agree, if there isn't a trade off, it's a bad design and needs to be fixed. This is where the devs could really help by just explaining what the trade off is, even if they don't tell us the magnitude or how it's calculated.

The only measurement you didn't mention was errors by pitchers. You might check that if you still have the data from the test games, because the tradeoff could possibly be errors on pickoff throws. Being errors, they wouldn't even prevent ERA's from being a bit lower as they were with "hold runners" at max.

But if I designed the game, the biggest tradeoff would be that infielders would be out of position to field more often from holding runners on, which is why in real life if a runner is slow enough not to be a threat to steal the infielders will "play behind the runner" so as not to concede more hits. That difference in that would have shown up in the defensive efficiency rating, and from your test apparently doesn't exist in the game.

One doesn't see the fielders playing differently when playing the games out, but if I'd designed the game I'd just give a small fielding range penalty to an infielder holding a runner on-- but as I said, that would have shown up in DER and it didn't. If it is in the game, a dev should post in this thread and tell us. If it isn't, it really needs to be added.

The tradeoff doesn't have to be perfectly equal in runs given up. I think a lot of strategies, one way is overall better than the other (I believe realistically sac bunts should be better when very rarely done other than when a pitcher is batting, and intentional walks should be rarely done. Both have obvious tradeoffs, though, and those are obvious and it would be wrong to find a way to make them completely even).

Likewise with the frequency of holding runners, it should be realistic. If one way is better overall, that way should be better overall in OOTP. But there should be a benefit (the small benefit to allowing slightly fewer steals) and a cost (which realistically there is a cost to holding runners on in balls getting through the infield which otherwise would not; if the first baseman has to play on the bag instead of a bit behind it, he will make fewer plays; if a middle infielder has to hold a runner at second, he'll miss even more plays).

It may not end up even; one way may overall be better; but there should be some tradeoff.

I could guess that maybe the devs didn't know how much range to take away from infielders realistically, so they just took none away and made the stolen base difference a lot more incremental than it would really be, possibly.

I'd rather they took their best guess, personally.

Play4Thrills · 04-11-2021, 11:17 PM

In my experience playing regular season games, the only time I regret holding runners is when there's an error. For this reason, I do not hold runners on 1st or 2nd if there's another runner on 3rd.

Weaseltail · 04-12-2021, 11:54 AM

So I've been digging around a bit on the discord channel as well as Sgt. Mushroom's really useful Society of OOTP Baseball Research channel and there's actually some research on this.

It appears Adjust does have an effect and modifies your overall team strategy settings for that player. The manual seems to imply it has no effect, but that isn't the case, at least based on the research I reviewed (which appears solid and was done by someone with a background in statistics). And honestly it makes sense it would have an impact, otherwise why even make it an option on the player settings?

04-08-2021, 01:20 PM	#1
Weaseltail Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2018 Posts: 127	Pitching Slider Q's Love the new pitching sliders, but not clear what they actually do. Anyone have any info on: Adjust vs. Override: My assumption is "Override" does what it says, completely overrides the team strategy settings for the player. Also assume "Adjust" tweaks the team strategies slightly for a player, is that right? If so, can "Adjust" be used to get a player above the max for the team . . . you set team Steal to max, then set player Steal to max on adjust, does the player have an even higher attempted steal rate, or is it capped at the team max? Hold Runner: Is there a downside to maxing this? Does max Hold Runner make it more likely a pitcher gives up a hit, walks a guy, etc.? I assume so, otherwise everyone would just max hold runner. If so, does min Hold Runner make your pitcher more effective against the batter at the cost of giving up more steal attempts (which might be a really good trade-off)? Guard Lines: I assume maxed guard lines increases the chance of giving up a hit, but reduces the chance the hit is an XBH, is that right? Is the opposite true, min GL reduces the chance of a hit, but increases the chance the hit might be a double or triple? Again, might be a good trade off if so. Is Shift OF Depth just the OF corollary to GL? OF/IF Shifts: I assume default is to shift in obvious situations (XPull hitters), but I'm confused how the min/max work. Is min simply never shift, no matter what? Is max always shift even against spray hitters? Or is there some point at which the AI won't shift even if the slider is maxed? I see lots of people maxing the shifts, but if max means shifting against spray hitters, that seems like a poor strategy. Thanks for any info, tried searching but couldn't find anything specific.

04-10-2021, 12:28 PM	#8
Weaseltail Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2018 Posts: 127	Challenge accepted lol So I ran a very abbreviated test using the 2021 KC Royals. I set all the team strategy sliders to the midpoint and ran a control test. I then changed the Hold Runners slider to the minimum (keeping everything else at the midpoint). I then ran a third sim with the Hold Runners slider at the max level (everything else still at the midpoint). The only thing that changed between the three sims was the value of the team strategy Hold Runners slider. I ran 50,000 games per sim, all against the Minnesota Twins. Here's what I found out: There was no statistical difference between the sims when it came to HRA, BB/9, defensive efficiency, or batting average allowed (this was identical for all sims at .286). There were some fairly minor differences in the following: Runs Allowed: Min (287193), Mid (285992), Max (284602) K/9: Min (8.23), Mid (8.22), Max (8.19) - likely noise, but not really sure ERA: Min (5.44), Mid (5.42), Max (5.39) SB allowed: Min (26598), Mid (26525), Max (25995). That's roughly a 2.3% decrease in SB, and a 0.9% decrease in ERA and RA when moving from the min slider to the max slider. Or put differently, going from the min to max Hold Runners rating would save you roughly 1 run every 20 games played (I think). And going from the default midpoint to the max would save you about 1 run every 36 games. No real idea what this means, and I'm sure there are nuances that weren't evident in my test (pitcher hold runner skill, catcher arm, etc.). It's also possible I should have run more sims to confirm the data (but I'm too lazy). But it doesn't appear there is any obvious downside to maxing the Hold Runners slider, or any advantage to setting it to the min value. It also doesn't appear it really matters all that much in the bigger picture. Intuitively I just can't believe that's true, since you'd expect there to be tradeoffs for every slider, but I couldn't find one. I'll make the same plea as above, devs please give us some guidance on these things so we can at least understand what the new features do. Last edited by Weaseltail; 04-10-2021 at 01:10 PM.

04-10-2021, 02:01 PM	#10
N51_rob Bat Boy Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Maryland Posts: 7	Pulled up the manual online and its sparse but this is what I was able to find. Attached Images __________________ Follow my OOTP 21 Franchise on Twitter! Robs Baby Birds Twitter Updates!

04-12-2021, 11:54 AM	#16
Weaseltail Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2018 Posts: 127	Update on Override/Adjust So I've been digging around a bit on the discord channel as well as Sgt. Mushroom's really useful Society of OOTP Baseball Research channel and there's actually some research on this. It appears Adjust does have an effect and modifies your overall team strategy settings for that player. The manual seems to imply it has no effect, but that isn't the case, at least based on the research I reviewed (which appears solid and was done by someone with a background in statistics). And honestly it makes sense it would have an impact, otherwise why even make it an option on the player settings?

04-08-2021, 10:04 PM	#2
Play4Thrills Minors (Single A) Join Date: Apr 2021 Posts: 57	I welcome feedback or validation, but I'll share my thoughts on these. My sense is that the sliders all adjust how likely a player is to do a certain thing, after already accounting for the player/circumstance itself. So, e.g., the game seems to encourage stealing generally under certain condtions, perhaps when the algorithm determines it is strategically advantageous. But not all players are equally likely to steal under the same circumstances; I believe the game looks at various player attributes to determine if the player will then steal. My sense is that the slider affects that individual player's decision making in that instance, making it more likely or less likely that they'll do the thing. So, like for infield shifting, my sense is that the game already has an algorithm in place to encourage shifting based on the batter type. The slider seems to affect how much more or less the shfiting occurs, e.g., if your team only does it for extreme pull or also pull/normal hitters. For hold runners, I think the key will be that holding runners too frequently will lead to more errant throws and give-away extra bases, so there's some balancing required (which I haven't figured out exactly yet). Oh, and for override/adjust, the manual appears pretty explicit in that it's one or the other -- either the player strategy or the global strategy applies; the "adjust" setting does not attempt to blend the two.

04-09-2021, 11:40 AM	#5
Anyone Major Leagues Join Date: Jul 2014 Posts: 405	Regarding holding runners, I don't see this difference in fielders' positioning when playing out games, so maybe it doesn't do this, but I'd expect holding runners more often to make fielders play closer to the bag more often, this allowing more ground balls in the hole to get through for hits (they may just operationalize it by giving slightly less range to infielders when a runner is being held on or something).

04-09-2021, 10:35 PM	#7
Anyone Major Leagues Join Date: Jul 2014 Posts: 405	I agree the devs should clarify it, as in not exact numbers, but what you lose in return for preventing some SB's by holding runners more (I'm pretty sure it does prevent some SB's to hold runners more, and if it didn't that would be a major bug, but I think that at least does happen because my team was giving up a lot of SB's with it low, I raised it, and we've been giving up fewer), but just "Your fielders are holding runners more so you give up more hits" or "Your pitchers throw more pickoff throws, some catch runners off base but some are thrown away, so there are more errors" or "Your pitchers can't concentrate as fully on the hitter as often, so they don't pitch as well" (maybe more than one of those). But while I'm too lazy to do this, maybe someone isn't: I can think of a fairly easy way if you want to put a few hours into it you can get an idea, and if someone does it they can post it and inform us all: Do a historical replay of a recent season, picking almost any team to use. Only two things need to be true about that team: 1) The most important: The manager must allow for you as GM to set "Hold Runners " to anything you want. 2) The team's pitching staff and catchers shouldn't be outliers, should be fairly ordinary, not especially great at preventing SB's and not especially awful at it. Then with player development off and injuries off, to avoid extra randomness, have it sim the same season twice with that team in that league (after the first you reload the league from the same starting point). The first time set Hold Runners to the minimum for "All Times, All Scores." Collect all pitching and fielding stats for the team. The second time set it to the maximum and do the same. In all other ways keep everything else exactly the same both times. Note the differences. With it at maximum if there aren't noticeably fewer successful stolen bases given up than at minimum, you caught a major bug. I'm.sure that won't happen, but if it did... But then look at other stats. At max if BABIP given up is higher then it means you give up more hits from a fielding penalty. If at max the pitchers have more BB's and fewer K's then it imposes a cost on pitcher concentration, maybe fatigue from pickoff throws, or both. If at max pitchers have been charged with more errors, that would mean errant pickoff throws come about from it. You could also check which team gave up more runs overall, on max or on min. If there's a significant difference, then you've found that either high or low is optimal (maybe not max or min, but one side is generally better). I'm sure there are sliders where one side is better: Low intentional walks I'm sure is better than high, and I'm also sure that low sac bunts is better than high. If the runs allowed difference is close enough that even over a season it's best explained by chance then it's balanced but you still will have found what you trade off for allowing fewer SB's (more hits from a fielding penalty, worse pitcher performance, pickoff throwing errors, or what?) . Yes, we shouldn't have to do this: Devs should tell us what we sacrifice to prevent some SB's by holding more runners on without someone having to give up a few hours to find out; but, people have done tests before and published them on these boards and this one isn't too hard, so maybe someone wants to know badly enough to test it, and then can post so we all gain. I admit I'm too lazy and have no truly good reason not to besides that, but if I weren't as lazy as I am I'd do it.

04-11-2021, 11:17 PM	#15
Play4Thrills Minors (Single A) Join Date: Apr 2021 Posts: 57	In my experience playing regular season games, the only time I regret holding runners is when there's an error. For this reason, I do not hold runners on 1st or 2nd if there's another runner on 3rd.