way way way WAYYYY too many pickoffs

[mytreds]

I’d actually like to see the success rate of pickoffs in the game. Because every time an opposing pitcher throws to first, my runner is out. It’s one of those outcomes in this simulator that I really feel I have 0 control over.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by md40022

And being that most users sim and don't manage the games and don't have a way to really track this ---- I think the assumption that it was fixed via the patch was just that, an assumption.


As someone who manages every game, I say with absolute confidence that there are too many pickoffs. My initial comments stand. That patched helped it a little - it did not "fix" it, because a standard 1-to-3 pickoff doesn't happen 3 times in a 2 inning span,,, ever.

How about three in one inning? First one he caught the guy jumping too early. The other two were straight 1-3 standard pick offs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HKeG0-nFCY&t=3s

A reddit post where a guy wonders about most pick offs in an inning because he just watched a game where ARod and Swisher were both picked off in the top of the third inning. Don't know what year but nobody disputed it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/co..._in_an_inning/

Heaven knows what one would find if there was an easy way to search.

As far as OOTP I do play out every inning of every game. FWIW I'm not seeing it and I'm in Sept just finished game #127. I did have a guy picked off about a week ago in my season. I couldn't tell you when the last one before that was.
Same experience for me throwing over. I finally got a guy out with a PO in my last game. Have no idea the last time I pulled that off either.

Why would you see it and I wouldn't? Not a clue. My game is imported which should make no difference. Players are still a "bag of ratings" just using the v23 engine. I do play "one pitch" and control everything other than I let the AI control whether baserunners advance an extra base on batted balls.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Hey, so related to this, the game doesn't seem to track pickoffs (or infield hits, infield pop-ups, runner advance/hold/thrown out rates for base hits into the outfield*, or a slew of other things I'd love to see) in a way that we as end users can easily see this / point it out. Can we get these added in to the individual / team stats so we can run these kinds of trials and either confirm that these are issues or, perhaps, pre-emptively head them off at the pass?

*Check out the Team Advanced Fielding table here:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...fielding.shtml

I think you mean:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...fielding.shtml

People should note that bref uses PO for both putouts and pickoffs so make sure to mouseover to see which one it's referring to. I've noticed that mlb.com uses PK. I tried finding it on fangraphs, but I couldn't.

EDIT: I also found that bref counts theirs differently from retrosheet.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by md40022

Here's 3 pickoffs in a 2 inning span..... I don't know if this qualifies as "more data" or not, but none the less it is data provided by someone who said there's far too many pickoffs on a thread started by another user who also said there are far too many pickoffs.


So, send this back to the boys' at the lab if ya wish.

Just the one game log showing three pickoffs in two innings here isn't really actionable, given that that's no different than a game where one team hits 3 HR's in an inning or something. It happens, in real life, as the examples linked above show. Obviously it should be fairly rare, but it does happen. So this is really just anecdotal evidence, not something actionable.

What would be much more useful here would be something like a month's or, even better, a season's worth of game logs from your team's games where you feel you're seeing too many pickoffs. That at least gives us a larger data set to compare against to where it would provide a sufficient amount of evidence to act on.

[md40022]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Just the one game log showing three pickoffs in two innings here isn't really actionable, given that that's no different than a game where one team hits 3 HR's in an inning or something. It happens, in real life, as the examples linked above show. Obviously it should be fairly rare, but it does happen. So this is really just anecdotal evidence, not something actionable.

What would be much more useful here would be something like a month's or, even better, a season's worth of game logs from your team's games where you feel you're seeing too many pickoffs. That at least gives us a larger data set to compare against to where it would provide a sufficient amount of evidence to act on.

This is where I have a little issue. I am the customer, not the developer. I didn't purchase the game to work homework tasks for you guys. I already did the homework task earlier this year with one of your other developers to fix a facegen related crash problem.... A season's worth of game logs? Come on, man.

You ask for more data
I send you more data
You say it's not enough data because what I sent could just be "one of those things that happen" (even though it doesn't) -----
And this is on a thread specifically titled "way way way WAYYYY too many pickoffs" and several users on he thread are in agreement with the post.....

"Just remember..... it's not a lie, if you believe it" -- George Costanza

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ

[md40022]

Originally Posted by jaa36

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/...x180m8stqnmhg2

Well it's happened three times in one inning...

Thanks for posting this, it's actually a pretty funny story. I think there's definitely an asterisk that needs to be placed next to it given that they had an infielder playing catcher and the first pickoff was on a guy who attempted an early steal...... None the less though, a very unique story.

[Bobfather]

Originally Posted by FlyTheW1104

Record breaking amount of pickoffs in my simulation. I've scoured the settings and see no way to turn them down? Does opting for more conservative baserunning help? This is ridiculous...

Me too. All base stealing is way too tough now.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by md40022

You say it's not enough data because what I sent could just be "one of those things that happen" (even though it doesn't) -----
And this is on a thread specifically titled "way way way WAYYYY too many pickoffs" and several users on he thread are in agreement with the post.....

Every year dozens of people complain there are too many injuries, even though there are actually far less injuries in-game than in real life. Dozens of others tell us that they don't like the default injury settings because these actually lead to fewer injuries than real-life (which is true).

There are plenty of other areas of the game where this is true as well. Just the fact that a few folks think there's a problem somewhere, does not mean there absolutely is one. It might mean that, but we have to verify it before we can act on it.

To verify, all we can go by is the data we have. Right now, our outputs tell us what amount of pickoffs there are in-game, and they're absolutely similar to real life. We also don't see issues with too many pickoffs in our countless hours of in-game testing.

So what should we do? Go against the data we have and 'fix' something that may not even be broken because a handful of folks insist we should based on nothing more than anecdotal information?

Plenty of other times in the past, when we've had someone complain something was off, when we actually go and look things up, it turns out it is not off. Sometimes we've jumped the gun and made changes too quickly when folks point something out they're sure is wrong, and then we have to redo them again.

So before we make major changes, we first need to make sure there's an actual problem. Otherwise, we can just jump in, go on your say so and decrease pickoffs by a lot. Then you'll be happy, but in a week or two, we'll have another thread with other folks complaining pickoffs are unrealistically low in-game.

Then it turns into a vicious circle of edit and counter-edit to an area of the game that was perfectly fine to begin with, until things end up at a point where no one's happy.

One game with three pickoffs no more proves there's a problem with too many pickoffs in-game than one game with a single player hitting four home runs proves there are too many home runs in the game. Both things can happen in reality, if only rarely.

If you want to convince us there's a problem that requires changes beyond what our data says and what our tests say, then you have to actually give us a substantial amount of data to work with, enough to prove there's an actual issue. Not just anecdotal evidence from single games or incredibly small sample sizes. Otherwise, there's just nothing substantial enough for us to act on.

[Lukas Berger]

With all the above being said, if you're convinced there's a problem, getting us a more substantial amount of data is not something that should be too difficult or time-consuming. It should probably take 10 minutes or so, depending on the speed of your internet connection.

If you're sure you're seeing this, then just go to the saved games folder. Then zip up the entirety of your save where you have too many pickoffs. Yourleaguename.lg

(Before you do that though, just make sure you had game logs turned on for the time period you want us to look over)

Then upload that to Dropbox or another sharing site and post/send a link to that for us to download.

Or just directly ftp the zipped up folder to us. Instructions on doing that are here.

Then just let us know which team's games to look over and for what time period (if you were seeing this while playing out games for example). We can go through the game logs from there.

[Matt Arnold]

The only other piece I wouldn't mind more clarification on is that it has been mentioned this seems more of a problem when playing out as when simming. When playing out the games, how exactly are you approaching stealing? Like in the above cases, were you attempting to steal on those plays and the players were picked off?

The last example was 2 for one team and one for the other. Which team were you playing as? Again, were you trying to steal? The second one started the batter with back to back pickoff throws to 1st, so I would certainly be a little curious on how you play out games.

Or were these just watched game? Obviously that would have a different effect, although if you're just watching a game, that obviously plays out very similarly to simmed games. And I guess finally, are these games played out in pitch by pitch mode, or in one-pitch mode where you see the whole AB at once. Obviously most of our data that shows the rates match IRL are based on simmed data, so if you are aggressively stealing or aggressively throwing to a base, that can obviously skew the results.

[md40022]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

The only other piece I wouldn't mind more clarification on is that it has been mentioned this seems more of a problem when playing out as when simming. When playing out the games, how exactly are you approaching stealing? Like in the above cases, were you attempting to steal on those plays and the players were picked off?

The last example was 2 for one team and one for the other. Which team were you playing as? Again, were you trying to steal? The second one started the batter with back to back pickoff throws to 1st, so I would certainly be a little curious on how you play out games.

Or were these just watched game? Obviously that would have a different effect, although if you're just watching a game, that obviously plays out very similarly to simmed games. And I guess finally, are these games played out in pitch by pitch mode, or in one-pitch mode where you see the whole AB at once. Obviously most of our data that shows the rates match IRL are based on simmed data, so if you are aggressively stealing or aggressively throwing to a base, that can obviously skew the results.

When my team is batting, I get picked off at random times regardless of the situation. More often than not, I am NOT stealing. The computer throws over to first base anyway though, and boom - he gets me. Often times this will be with a runner on base who is of zero threat to steal. In the 3 pickoffs that occurred in that 2 inning segment that I posted about, 2 of the runners were guys who were absolutely no threat at all to steal; Devers and Juan Soto. The other guy was Yelich, who is a little bit of a threat, but that was me picking off the computer and being that I did successfully pick him off - I don't know if he was actually planning on stealing or not.

All I can say is there doesn't seem to be much pattern to it. I've had catchers who couldn't run at all get picked off before and I obviously didn't give them the steal command prior to them being picked off. It happens often enough that I cringe every time the computer throws to 1st base, because I know his success rate is far too high.

As far as gathering more data for you guys.... I understand why you're asking, but I'm just not doing that. Because of issues like this I am just not nearly as dedicated to this game as some others are and because I'm not all that dedicated to it, I'm not investing any additional time into it --- it's not my job. Being that so many people sim out games and this is not something that is easily tracked through box scores, that's why it's not being made a bigger deal than it is.... and the patch a while back did significantly help, but there's still an issue.

While the example I gave yesterday COULD be one of those things that "just happens", the fact that the best IRL comparison we could draw to it involved an infielder playing catcher and one of the 3 pickoffs being on a broken stolen base attempt, I think that kind of goes to prove those things DON'T "just happen" - so being that it did happen in the game, I don't know what more data is needed to satisfy your colleague ----- but regardless, I don't get paid to sit there and track game logs. So if this is just one of the little disappointing glitches w/ OOTP23 than so be it. It doesn't completely cripple the game, but it can be a bit annoying when your slow and fat catcher who is no threat to run is getting picked off in crucial situations.

[Sweed]

Also from my post where I also mentioned the Oriole game I also mentioned Swisher and ARod. Also in that linked thread there is another about Cueto picking off two Giants in a game just the week before. Something else happened in the Cueto game besides him getting two. Bumgarner also got one for a total of three.

Here are the two games. Both occurred in the same season.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/b...01207071.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/b...01206280.shtml

I don't think using the Oriole game as something that shows those things "just don't happen" is proving anything either way. Pretty sure the two I listed had real catchers in the game. It just moves the goal posts from "never" to "well that needs an asterisk". And some will want to asterisk these because two are described as PO-CS as the runner tried to advance rather than dive back towards 1b. Without seeing the actual play we can't say it was a "normal" PO and he figured he had no chance to get back so tried to advance. Or he broke too soon and the P saw it and reacted. But I'm not sure OOTP does the later kind of PO anyway. I think it only does the traditional throw over, out going back. IE getting the total number right but not having the "took off too soon" or "tried to advance anyway" variety. IOW the real life "other ways of being PO" don't apply when comparing to OOTP, I think.

It isn't easy to come up with game by game stats. I only found these because I had an idea where to look. However league wide I see present day PO are around 225-275. Go back to 1983 when teams were more about baserunning and they had 414. Take those numbers for whatever you think they show.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by FlyTheW1104

Record breaking amount of pickoffs in my simulation. I've scoured the settings and see no way to turn them down? Does opting for more conservative baserunning help? This is ridiculous...

sureee.....show me the OOTPB report and stats on pickoffs.....
23 years, surely it available by now.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by md40022

When my team is batting, I get picked off at random times regardless of the situation. More often than not, I am NOT stealing. The computer throws over to first base anyway though, and boom - he gets me. Often times this will be with a runner on base who is of zero threat to steal. In the 3 pickoffs that occurred in that 2 inning segment that I posted about, 2 of the runners were guys who were absolutely no threat at all to steal; Devers and Juan Soto. The other guy was Yelich, who is a little bit of a threat, but that was me picking off the computer and being that I did successfully pick him off - I don't know if he was actually planning on stealing or not.

All I can say is there doesn't seem to be much pattern to it. I've had catchers who couldn't run at all get picked off before and I obviously didn't give them the steal command prior to them being picked off. It happens often enough that I cringe every time the computer throws to 1st base, because I know his success rate is far too high.

As far as gathering more data for you guys.... I understand why you're asking, but I'm just not doing that. Because of issues like this I am just not nearly as dedicated to this game as some others are and because I'm not all that dedicated to it, I'm not investing any additional time into it --- it's not my job. Being that so many people sim out games and this is not something that is easily tracked through box scores, that's why it's not being made a bigger deal than it is.... and the patch a while back did significantly help, but there's still an issue.

While the example I gave yesterday COULD be one of those things that "just happens", the fact that the best IRL comparison we could draw to it involved an infielder playing catcher and one of the 3 pickoffs being on a broken stolen base attempt, I think that kind of goes to prove those things DON'T "just happen" - so being that it did happen in the game, I don't know what more data is needed to satisfy your colleague ----- but regardless, I don't get paid to sit there and track game logs. So if this is just one of the little disappointing glitches w/ OOTP23 than so be it. It doesn't completely cripple the game, but it can be a bit annoying when your slow and fat catcher who is no threat to run is getting picked off in crucial situations.

I would be more upset that you ACTUALLy cannot run a report on the pickoff stats.....so we all have to speculate and waste time wondering
23 versions and we still don't have it....or granslams or xyz

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by md40022

As far as gathering more data for you guys.... I understand why you're asking, but I'm just not doing that. Because of issues like this I am just not nearly as dedicated to this game as some others are and because I'm not all that dedicated to it, I'm not investing any additional time into it --- it's not my job.

Dude, in the time it took you to compose your narrative (the above is the pertinent excerpt only), you could have located the data file, loaded it, and sent it off to OOTP for analysis. I mean, we are talking ten or fifteen minutes. Less, if you are smooth at locating files. I have done it, which is saying something, because it does not exactly come naturally for me. But I sent it and got a thoughtful and timely response. I don’t mind these debates, even the gnarly ones; but at some point, if you think there is a genuine problem, you will invest considerably less of your time in forwarding the data, than in these discussions.

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Every year dozens of people complain there are too many injuries, even though there are actually far less injuries in-game than in real life. Dozens of others tell us that they don't like the default injury settings because these actually lead to fewer injuries than real-life (which is true).

There are plenty of other areas of the game where this is true as well. Just the fact that a few folks think there's a problem somewhere, does not mean there absolutely is one. It might mean that, but we have to verify it before we can act on it.

To verify, all we can go by is the data we have. Right now, our outputs tell us what amount of pickoffs there are in-game, and they're absolutely similar to real life. We also don't see issues with too many pickoffs in our countless hours of in-game testing.

So what should we do? Go against the data we have and 'fix' something that may not even be broken because a handful of folks insist we should based on nothing more than anecdotal information?

Plenty of other times in the past, when we've had someone complain something was off, when we actually go and look things up, it turns out it is not off. Sometimes we've jumped the gun and made changes too quickly when folks point something out they're sure is wrong, and then we have to redo them again.

So before we make major changes, we first need to make sure there's an actual problem. Otherwise, we can just jump in, go on your say so and decrease pickoffs by a lot. Then you'll be happy, but in a week or two, we'll have another thread with other folks complaining pickoffs are unrealistically low in-game.

Then it turns into a vicious circle of edit and counter-edit to an area of the game that was perfectly fine to begin with, until things end up at a point where no one's happy.

One game with three pickoffs no more proves there's a problem with too many pickoffs in-game than one game with a single player hitting four home runs proves there are too many home runs in the game. Both things can happen in reality, if only rarely.

If you want to convince us there's a problem that requires changes beyond what our data says and what our tests say, then you have to actually give us a substantial amount of data to work with, enough to prove there's an actual issue. Not just anecdotal evidence from single games or incredibly small sample sizes. Otherwise, there's just nothing substantial enough for us to act on.

Well put. And I should note that I have packaged files and sent them off for analysis, not a heavy lift, even for me, and have gotten a timely and thorough response, which I appreciate. It’s not too much to ask.