Understanding Minor League Performance in OOTP 26

[szathkey]

A few quick questions:

1) Based on the description of the option it doesn’t seem like it would change things, but do results change significantly if MiLB lineups are based on potential vs actual? What happens if you check/uncheck that box?

2) I do tend to agree with one of the posters above…does this really mean that the stats are “broken”? If you want the game to be a perfect sim of a historical league and you are in a recalc league, these issues should be addressed through recalc, no? Similarly, if it’s a league with development on, this simulates the real life phenomenon of higher draft picks being given chances in higher leagues even though they may not have produced because of something the team sees in them. Then their development catches up to their potential or it doesn’t.

The test shows a last place finish in almost every category. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on a game they pay money for, but I fail to see the issue here and I’d rather the team work to fix things that are actually broken.

Believe me, I’ve been very vocal about this year’s game in particular, so I don’t defend lightly. (The Draft Combine and historical mode have been a particularl focus of mine).

Maybe I’m alone…Just my two cents.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by szathkey

A few quick questions:

1) Based on the description of the option it doesn’t seem like it would change things, but do results change significantly if MiLB lineups are based on potential vs actual? What happens if you check/uncheck that box?

2) I do tend to agree with one of the posters above…does this really mean that the stats are “broken”? If you want the game to be a perfect sim of a historical league and you are in a recalc league, these issues should be addressed through recalc, no? Similarly, if it’s a league with development on, this simulates the real life phenomenon of higher draft picks being given chances in higher leagues even though they may not have produced because of something the team sees in them. Then their development catches up to their potential or it doesn’t.

The test shows a last place finish in almost every category. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on a game they pay money for, but I fail to see the issue here and I’d rather the team work to fix things that are actually broken.

Believe me, I’ve been very vocal about this year’s game in particular, so I don’t defend lightly. (The Draft Combine and historical mode have been a particularl focus of mine).

Maybe I’m alone…Just my two cents.

I would agree with this. I play Stats only and don't see a problem with minor league stats. Players are getting promoted when they should and not bombing out because they're moved to ML too soon based on false information.

Can't comment on the tests other than to say - Huh? How many drafts do you people have where you get players who are 600 across the board and all at 1 current?

Have you run any tests with normal game created draft classes?

[Garlon]

The current ratings drive the results in conjunction with the league totals and the available talent in the league.

philthepat did a much better test and showed that there is nothing wrong here.

[jpeters1734]

Some of you are missing the actual issue here.

This isn’t about whether the team finished last in the league. It’s not about whether you’ve “noticed” anything in your own saves. It’s not about realism or how prospects sometimes succeed early. This is about mechanics, how the sim engine calculates performance, and whether that logic makes sense.

A player with 1 out of 600 current ability across the board should not be putting up a .900 OPS and 3+ WAR in AAA, period. That’s not a matter of opinion. That’s a broken outcome. And when you compare that to a control player with 1/1 current/potential who gets obliterated, it becomes clear: potential is influencing real-time in-game performance.

That shouldn’t be happening. Potential should guide development and scouting, not on-field results.

If you want to argue that this is fine, go ahead. But at least be honest about what you’re defending: a system where production doesn’t actually reflect current ability. That’s not just a balance issue, it completely undercuts statistical evaluation and changes how the game should be played.

This isn’t a nitpick. It’s a fundamental flaw.

Just to clarify, this test was done using the standard MLB game file, no custom league settings, no altered environments, the only edits were to the players themselves. Everything else was left untouched.

[Garlon]

At best it sounds like you may have found a bug with 1/600 players playing in the minor leagues, since philthepat showed that those same players at the MLB level batted .068.

This scenario of a 1/600 fictional player being generated and playing at AAA is not realistic.

The engine outcomes are based on current ratings, so maybe there is also some weirdness when introducing something like that into the 2025 standard game file too.

[Brad K]

Is it possible that the calculations break down when dealing with ratings at the extreme? An overflow type situation?

[LD84]

I lost all faith in this franchise when I discovered many years ago that playing time in the minors has zero correlation with development.

It is very possible to have a young player get zero playing time and still develop.
Or fall apart.

Combined with random talent changes, no one is able to explain how coaching works and to what extent it works, and no one is able to explain how “development budget” works.

I am not wholly convinced that the entire development “engine” is not just pure RNG and the player has very little or maybe even no impact on how players develop.


So I cannot say that I am all that surprised by this finding.

And what is worse. The OOTPD team probably will not respond. I am not sure if it is because they do not care. But I think it may be because they themselves do not even understand how this game works.

It is now a lot of sloppy spaghetti code holding all this together and I don't think one single person fully knows how it all works.

[WhiskyTango]

I cannot comprehend how philthepat did a "better test" when the OP is talking specifically about MiL and philthepats test involved ML performance. It's like my car sounds wonky in 2nd gear and the mechanic reports my car sounded fine to him. I ask him if he ran it in 2nd gear and he says no he ran it in 3rd gear.

The OP has made heroic efforts to call attention to a question involving MiL stats. To reiterate: a teenager with a very bright future (which in baseball years is a few years away at least) but oddly contemptable current ability immediately goes to AAA, competes against much more experienced (and hence developed) semi-pros, and doesn't do too bad. No. Not realistic. For you to suggest there's nothing really unlikely with that scenario suggests baseball is a completely alien concept for you.

There may be a question of how the software manages extreme scenarios, but it does not seem to change the OP's basic conclusion. Perhaps the more average scenario is not as noticeable (though the OP reported he was noticing it with normal usage which led to his test involving 1/600 settings).

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Garlon

At best it sounds like you may have found a bug with 1/600 players playing in the minor leagues, since philthepat showed that those same players at the MLB level batted .068.

This scenario of a 1/600 fictional player being generated and playing at AAA is not realistic.

The engine outcomes are based on current ratings, so maybe there is also some weirdness when introducing something like that into the 2025 standard game file too.

That's the whole point of this post... the sim engine in the minor leagues uses potential ratings to such a high degree that 1/600 player is effective in AAA. This proves that the engine outcomes ARE NOT based on current ratings (in the minors)

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by WhiskyTango

I cannot comprehend how philthepat did a "better test" when the OP is talking specifically about MiL and philthepats test involved ML performance. It's like my car sounds wonky in 2nd gear and the mechanic reports my car sounded fine to him. I ask him if he ran it in 2nd gear and he says no he ran it in 3rd gear.

The OP has made heroic efforts to call attention to a question involving MiL stats. To reiterate: a teenager with a very bright future (which in baseball years is a few years away at least) but oddly contemptable current ability immediately goes to AAA, competes against much more experienced (and hence developed) semi-pros, and doesn't do too bad. No. Not realistic. For you to suggest there's nothing really unlikely with that scenario suggests baseball is a completely alien concept for you.

There may be a question of how the software manages extreme scenarios, but it does not seem to change the OP's basic conclusion. Perhaps the more average scenario is not as noticeable (though the OP reported he was noticing it with normal usage which led to his test involving 1/600 settings).

Philthepat's test confirmed what this issue is about. Including the ML data is crucial because it proves that potential ratings are only used for the sim engine output in the minor league levels. That highlights the issue that a player can be very effective in AAA and looks ML ready, but performs like a middle-schooler once promoted

[WhiskyTango]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

Philthepat's test confirmed what this issue is about. Including the ML data is crucial because it proves that potential ratings are only used for the sim engine output in the minor league levels. That highlights the issue that a player can be very effective in AAA and looks ML ready, but performs like a middle-schooler once promoted

Yes, the tests compliment each other.

I find Garlon's response interesting re a potential bug in how 1/600 settings deploy. It implies a solution of tweaking those results so they are not noticeable, which would not address the overall implication of how the stats are generated and so, if true, seems to reinforce some of the other criticisms.

[edit] though I think it does involve realism to the degree that usually gamers play according to assumptions based on reality, and the 1/600 findings are not realistic and so completely skew one's ability to manage intuitively. It is not merely academics. Which is why the propagandists like to chime in with it seems fine enough to them because it makes the discussion sound like it's about subjective perspectives.

[Garlon]

I set up a standard game and went to the Buffalo Bisons of the AAA IL.

I edited Leo Jimenez to 1/500 for all the batting ratings.

What I noticed is that his scouted ratings on his profile did not change when I did this even though the editor current expected ratings were .055 at MLB level. I then went to League Settings>Global Settings and toggled off Use Complete Scouting System and when I returned to Jimenez his ratings appeared correct on his profile.

His AAA stat line for the season was 348 PA and .184/.290/.298 with a 45 OPS+.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Garlon

I set up a standard game and went to the Buffalo Bisons of the AAA IL.

I edited Leo Jimenez to 1/500 for all the batting ratings.

What I noticed is that his scouted ratings on his profile did not change when I did this even though the editor current expected ratings were .055 at MLB level. I then went to League Settings>Global Settings and toggled off Use Complete Scouting System and when I returned to Jimenez his ratings appeared correct on his profile.

His AAA stat line for the season was 348 PA and .184/.290/.298 with a 45 OPS+.

I appreciate the follow up test. His line at AAA is certainly not the same as a 1/600 player, but his performance is still insanely good for a player with the current ability of a middle schooler considering many 14 year olds in the future draft pools will have current ratings in the mid-hundreds

[Garlon]

I did a second test and set Leo Jimenez to 1/599 for batting ratings.

He finished the season with 357 AB .263/.391/.406 with 96 OPS+.

Matt would need to verify if this is intended or not. Maybe something weird is happening once you pass 500 potential ratings? Maybe the game is not handling such a wide gap between current and potential.

As for the 1 batting rating being able to produce a .184 BA, I suspect there is some type of floor at the minor league levels holding up the player performance with respect to their potential rating where the game possibly does not see 1 any different than it sees a 90 or something. Whereas if you put that player with a 1 rating at the MLB level that floor will go much lower to like .050 BA and it be propped up by potential ratings.

If there is a floor at the minor league level maybe this is intended so that other players do not end up with weird stats. For example, if you were to move a ton of these types of players into all the AAA teams and have them face a legitimate MLB ready SP, maybe that pitcher would have like 19 K per 9 innings or something because he is not facing players who are legitimately at a comparable level. While you might say that is realistic, it would make it just as difficult to make a stats only decision on such a pitcher because he was not really facing AAA competition.

Maybe there are floors in place at various levels to prevent generating outrageous stat results.

There may also be something happening with respect to potential ratings above 500 (or maybe it is 550 I do not know where the problem begins) that is raising the floor of the player. Maybe this is to guarantee development at extreme levels or maybe it is just some overflow bug as Brad K suggested.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Garlon

As for the 1 batting rating being able to produce a .184 BA, I suspect there is some type of floor at the minor league levels holding up the player performance with respect to their potential rating where the game possibly does not see 1 any different than it sees a 90 or something. Whereas if you put that player with a 1 rating at the MLB level that floor will go much lower to like .050 BA and it be propped up by potential ratings.

That's not it at all. As already pointed out in this thread, the potential rating is driving up in-game performance. Consider these two players. One is a 1 current, 1 potential for all hitting ratings and the other is 1 current, 600 potential.

The guy with only 1 potential performed as you would expect someone with no ability to perform, though I'd still argue he had much better performance than he should have, but the difference is clear

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

That's not it at all. As already pointed out in this thread, the potential rating is driving up in-game performance. Consider these two players. One is a 1 current, 1 potential for all hitting ratings and the other is 1 current, 600 potential.

The guy with only 1 potential performed as you would expect someone with no ability to perform, though I'd still argue he had much better performance than he should have, but the difference is clear

That's a good comparison, jpeters. I wonder if, whatever the system mechanics are (floors, etc.), OOTP just measures how it's working by results. That is, in the MiLB, there is some mechanic that blends current/potential ratings to drive the stats output, such that the gameplay results in those players with promise performing well better (and inclined to advance) and those that have no hope to (current's being equal between the two) falling back.

If that's the intent and it works, it's a conversation about how we thought it worked vs how it actually worked. The problem isn't after all, that gameplay resulted in a bunch of 1 current 600 potentials advancing to AAA. Heck, I changed Roman Anthony to 1/600 and he was in single A the next day. It's the idea of how one thought it worked that isn't holding.

If you are stats only, I don't think you are being tricked into liking a 1/600 player because you have none in AAA unless you force it. I just think you are inclined to see better stats from players with more promise. That seems fine (if not outright desired - that the flashes of hidden promise show through a bit in the stats among equally hidden current current ratings). Because it would just be a bit because these extremes don't actually play beside each other unless you edit them and lock them to the level (or so I found trying to keep Roman in the lineup at AAA).

Whenever Matts comes around we'll see if it is some intentional, gameplay-desired output that requires this blend or floors or whatever, or if there is something amiss in the minors statistical output.

[OutS|der]

There should be no scenario where a 1 rating should be competing in any level over Rookie if even that, I'd put them more in HS/College.

I'm hoping basing my minors on current ratings will remove that nonsense

[WhiskyTango]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

That is, in the MiLB, there is some mechanic that blends current/potential ratings to drive the stats output....

I think this is what it's about.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by WhiskyTango

.

Needs the preceding speculative sentence for context.

.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

I'm hoping basing my minors on current ratings will remove that nonsense

That's a pretty easy test to run yourself, but spoiler alert... that setting only controls lineups, i.e. starting a player with more potential over one with more current ability. It does not affect the sim engine.