MLB live starts

[louisvillec271]

The rosters on the live starts have noticeable flaws. Jacob Miserowski isn't on the Brewers ML roster, he's down at AAA. Grant Taylor isn't on the White Sox roster, he's in AA. There's more examples but live start is supposed to be one of the games main features. If the rosters aren't correct in the live starts the incentive to utilize live starts is diminished.

[Bagpipes5]

They could use a clean up for sure. Teams like my Astros have lots of injuries but their live roster is also not correct. If one of MLBs marquee teams over the last decade and a current first place team isn't correct, I can imagine how others look.

[crashsports1]

yea I had this happen too. They had Clarke Schmidt out for 3 weeks. Unless he has a magical UCL and a surgeon that could put both Dr James Andrews and Dr ElAttrache to shame, I don't think Tommy John is less than a month recovery.

[louisvillec271]

Additional issues.

Max Scherzer should be on Jays roster, he's at AAA.

Brandon Woodruff not on Brewers active roster, he's also at AAA.

These are two high profile players who are somehow not on accurate rosters in the live start. There are plenty more examples, mostly injured players but this is an issue that should be addressed. Otherwise live starts aren't worth using.

[BillKnowsAll14]

I’m hoping that the draft order gets updated too since the Orioles traded for a competitive balance pick from the Rays.

[Bagpipes5]

When I checked yesterday the Astros were missing Zach Short, Cooper Hummel, and Kaleb Ort. Brice Matthews, Astros #1 prospect and #98 overall, also made his debut yesterday but is not on the Live Start. Yordan Alvarez was also on the MLB roster and injured for 3 days, he's not scheduled to be back until the Trade Deadline at the earliest.

But what I really didn't like is no 40-man roster at all. Jeremy Pena, World Series MVP and should've/could've been an All-Star this season, is injured and assigned to AAA, not on the 40-man roster at all. There were others that followed this pattern as well. Kind of crazy because you can go to MLB.com and look at the 40-man roster for every MLB team.

Ultimately this annoys uses such as myself because there is so much to be done in OOTP and under that consideration things should be set up to be as 'on-rails' as possible. It is tiresome spending a session fixing things and cleaning things up (like a Linux user) instead of actually enjoying the game (like a Windows user).

[LansdowneSt]

The Live Start data is fed by a third-party. It's not Lukas or Matt sitting up late at night moving players around. To the extent one is frustrated, surely so are they.

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

The Live Start data is fed by a third-party. It's not Lukas or Matt sitting up late at night moving players around. To the extent one is frustrated, surely so are they.

I’ve notice the IL stuff is all over the board. I’m not certain what 3rd party feed OOTP uses, but typically ESPN or CBS are fairly well updated on injuries as they happen, and expected time out.

Live start is great for updated stats and standings, but injuries and players assigned to wrong team are super frustrating.

[ChrisG]

Is there a particular reason why injured players are never on the ML IL and are instead in the minors? Having to fix that every time is kind of annoying lol.

[Lukas Berger]

There's a lot going on here, some of which is more controllable on our part and some of which is not.

Regarding injuries, this does come from a third part data provider, Chadwick who provides the data to B-Ref. Why the injury data is not getting updated properly is definitely something we are looking into, whether that's a data issue, or how the code is reading the data.

If for whatever reason it's not possible to get this in better shape directly, potentially we might even be able to override this in cases like Schmidt by entering some major injuries manually.

Pena and Woodruff are in AAA because live start assigns injured players to AAA. (Woodruff shouldn't be injured but that's part of the above issue). That's harder to fix than it looks in the code, but we're looking into if it's possible to fix that and properly assign injured MLB guys to MLB.

The players being on the right roster stuff is a lot more complex and realistically, probably not something that will be fixable as such. This basically dates back to what we always tell people about the OD rosters, that there is no way for the game to create 100% accurate rosters, the AI will assign players where it thinks they belong, which may not be the same as in real life.

Part of the issue here is the question of how much to adjust the ratings based on performance. For some of the guys mentioned here, someone like Misiorowski or Grant Taylor, both start off rated as AAish players based on their pre-season projections.

Live start buffs those ratings a bit based on their performance, but neither has particularly large sample sizes, and so Live Start only gives them very modest buffs, which still does not make them MLB caliber.

A team like the Astros is a particular challenge here, because they have an unusual amount of players, particularly pitchers, playing way, way, way over their projection (base ratings) levels.

You might say, why not boost them more? The problem is, if we give quicker boosts based on small sample sizes, then that brings other unintended consequences that are much greater than not having a player like Misiorowski, who has actually spent all of 5 games in MLB, on an MLB roster.

You then go to the other end of the coin, where Yordan Alvarez is below replacement level, and so applying heavy boosts based on the half-season would then turn a player like Alvarez into a replacement player who likely ends up as a AAAA guy. Obviously, that's a far worse outcome than a Misiorowski taking a few months to build up into an MLB guy.

We're at the point in the season now where the sample size is enough that it does make sense to manually boost some guys base ratings, to get your Misiorowskis and Taylors having better base rating than their projections. We're already in the process of working through that, which with the live start ratings updates, should hopefully help things out in the upcoming patches.

[Bagpipes5]

I see what you are saying. Perhaps the answer would be to raise the abilities of the Astros coaching staff in the default save? Last I checked they weren't rated very well but year in and out they do out perform projections and I believe coaching is a huge part of that.

Thanks for the information on the rosters but Live starts it would be nice to have the actual 26 for each team on that day be accurate and exploring a way for IL players to get on the ML roster is a great step forward.

[Bagpipes5]

Also, I see what you are saying with Alvarez and replacement level players but as it stands it Pena is usually the one who ends up becoming a replacement level player. Especially if you start now, close to the deadline, and the AI asks itself if the Astros need a shortstop, look and see a decent but injured guy at AAA, and determine the answer is yes.

[louisvillec271]

Thank you Lucas for addressing this issue.