Online Leagues Having Lack of Offense?

skinsfan55 · 12-02-2022, 03:10 PM

Hey all,

I've been part of an online league for years, started in 2012 and we're not almost to 2050.

A couple seasons ago the offense dropped a TON to the point we're in deadball era numbers.

10 seasons ago the league average ERA was about 4.40 and the league batting average was about .260. Now it's 3.15/.230 respectively and it's been trending down for "years".

Even in the real life MLB with a lack of offense the league ERA last season was 3.96 and the league BA was .243.

Now, everyone is similarly disadvantaged but it makes the league less compelling if a two time MVP slashes .266/.301/.401/.702. Last year's champ hit 87 homers as a team!

---

Are other online leagues experiencing this? If not, have you taken steps to mitigate it?

I don't know how to see the league wide number, but my team, a perennial playoff team with a "top" offense has had a BABIP well under .300 for years now. Is that a potential fix? To lock league BABIP at ~.300?

actionjackson · 12-02-2022, 06:55 PM

I have no familiarity with online leagues, but are you able to use:

Game Settings > League Settings > Stats & AI > League Totals > Select Year

in an online league? Picture below.

If you can, maybe get everyone to pick a favourite year (stats wise) from this list, and this list and rotate through them. It will set the level of offense for your league if you select the year you want your league to replicate that year. Select the year every season the day before Opening Day.

Many things you can do here. You can stay with one particular season's offensive environment. This feature is very good at staying quite close to the league wide stats of the year you select. Be forewarned, that it will come close on every stat that you can measure, so if you go with something in the 1980s, there will be tons of stealing with about a two thirds success rate. If you don't like that success rate, move towards the 2000s, where it's more like three quarters.

You can switch it up a bit each year. Maybe pick five different seasons, and rotate through them randomly. I personally use 1984 every year for my games, but a lot of other folks like to switch it up a bit. Maybe go five years with one, and five years with another, and so on. I bet this is a league with fictional players. A crazy dropoff in offense in fictional leagues, is a complaint I've seen here, over the decade plus that I've been around.

This is definitely an option to combat that. You can set the BABIP to your taste as well. It's the only one of the nine boxes (AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, HBP, K, and BABIP), and the only one that I would recommend changing. Be careful with that one, though. Don't want it up too much. Maybe three points max. Let the modifiers do their job, and you'll get something close to whatever season you choose. In fact just picking the season, and allowing the game to set the modifiers will give you what you want, without the need to fiddle with any of the totals, or the BABIP.

Don't mess with the totals, and don't set all the modifiers back to 1.000, is what I would recommend. You will not get the numbers you want by changing the numbers of the season you've selected, nor will you get them, if you return the modifiers to default. Take the modifiers as they come, and I'm pretty sure you'll get what you want. I guarantee you won't be seeing those 3.15/.230 numbers anymore. Maybe find a season that had something around just under a 4.00 ERA, and just over a .260 AVG. That might be everybody's sweetspot, and it would be miles from what you're seeing now.

You have 151 different seasons to choose from, although, I don't recommend going too far back, because then you'll get the kleenex box glove, or no glove days, and you'll have tons of errors, and reckless abandon on the bases, with a 60% SB success rate. You probably want a season with a .980 and up league wide FPct, and around a 70-75% SB success rate, so you're looking at a more modern season. As I said before, doing this will result in every stat from the selected year being more or less in line with that year, so keep that in mind, when you're choosing your season(s).

The Range modifiers are always set to 1.000. Every other modifier will change slightly, every time you select the year, even if you are selecting the same year, every year. That's OK. It's just the game engine gearing up to produce the results that you want your league to produce. This might be bafflegab to you, so if you have any questions, fire away.

byzeil · 12-03-2022, 10:30 PM

I run an online league and am in several others. I've seen the dropoff and after looking into it and talking with OOTPD decided to manually run a recalc and that has seemed to fix the problem. As I understand it as leagues go from version to version the game engine gets tweaked and if not recalc'd the stat modifiers are not correct for the game engine.

The recommendation I go was to manually run the recalc after importing from an older version. Best time to run it is on opening day when rosters are set. I also ran it for each of my minor league levels and that has seemed to help.

The button to recalc is on this page but only there during I believe the preseason to opening day (could be wrong about that period). You can put a check in the option "automatically adjust...." as I have in that image but seems that maybe for some reason that doesn't work or has issues when you are importing a league.

12-02-2022, 03:10 PM	#1
skinsfan55 Bat Boy Join Date: Aug 2017 Posts: 15	Online Leagues Having Lack of Offense? Hey all, I've been part of an online league for years, started in 2012 and we're not almost to 2050. A couple seasons ago the offense dropped a TON to the point we're in deadball era numbers. 10 seasons ago the league average ERA was about 4.40 and the league batting average was about .260. Now it's 3.15/.230 respectively and it's been trending down for "years". Even in the real life MLB with a lack of offense the league ERA last season was 3.96 and the league BA was .243. Now, everyone is similarly disadvantaged but it makes the league less compelling if a two time MVP slashes .266/.301/.401/.702. Last year's champ hit 87 homers as a team! --- Are other online leagues experiencing this? If not, have you taken steps to mitigate it? I don't know how to see the league wide number, but my team, a perennial playoff team with a "top" offense has had a BABIP well under .300 for years now. Is that a potential fix? To lock league BABIP at ~.300?

12-02-2022, 06:55 PM	#2
actionjackson Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Toronto, ON Posts: 6,181	I have no familiarity with online leagues, but are you able to use: Game Settings > League Settings > Stats & AI > League Totals > Select Year in an online league? Picture below. If you can, maybe get everyone to pick a favourite year (stats wise) from this list, and this list and rotate through them. It will set the level of offense for your league if you select the year you want your league to replicate that year. Select the year every season the day before Opening Day. Many things you can do here. You can stay with one particular season's offensive environment. This feature is very good at staying quite close to the league wide stats of the year you select. Be forewarned, that it will come close on every stat that you can measure, so if you go with something in the 1980s, there will be tons of stealing with about a two thirds success rate. If you don't like that success rate, move towards the 2000s, where it's more like three quarters. You can switch it up a bit each year. Maybe pick five different seasons, and rotate through them randomly. I personally use 1984 every year for my games, but a lot of other folks like to switch it up a bit. Maybe go five years with one, and five years with another, and so on. I bet this is a league with fictional players. A crazy dropoff in offense in fictional leagues, is a complaint I've seen here, over the decade plus that I've been around. This is definitely an option to combat that. You can set the BABIP to your taste as well. It's the only one of the nine boxes (AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, HBP, K, and BABIP), and the only one that I would recommend changing. Be careful with that one, though. Don't want it up too much. Maybe three points max. Let the modifiers do their job, and you'll get something close to whatever season you choose. In fact just picking the season, and allowing the game to set the modifiers will give you what you want, without the need to fiddle with any of the totals, or the BABIP. Don't mess with the totals, and don't set all the modifiers back to 1.000, is what I would recommend. You will not get the numbers you want by changing the numbers of the season you've selected, nor will you get them, if you return the modifiers to default. Take the modifiers as they come, and I'm pretty sure you'll get what you want. I guarantee you won't be seeing those 3.15/.230 numbers anymore. Maybe find a season that had something around just under a 4.00 ERA, and just over a .260 AVG. That might be everybody's sweetspot, and it would be miles from what you're seeing now. You have 151 different seasons to choose from, although, I don't recommend going too far back, because then you'll get the kleenex box glove, or no glove days, and you'll have tons of errors, and reckless abandon on the bases, with a 60% SB success rate. You probably want a season with a .980 and up league wide FPct, and around a 70-75% SB success rate, so you're looking at a more modern season. As I said before, doing this will result in every stat from the selected year being more or less in line with that year, so keep that in mind, when you're choosing your season(s). The Range modifiers are always set to 1.000. Every other modifier will change slightly, every time you select the year, even if you are selecting the same year, every year. That's OK. It's just the game engine gearing up to produce the results that you want your league to produce. This might be bafflegab to you, so if you have any questions, fire away. Attached Images Last edited by actionjackson; 12-02-2022 at 06:59 PM.