Sim Quality Worse?

polydamas · 03-14-2026, 07:09 PM

From a steam review:

OOTP never had perfect simulations, but by year two's all-star break I saw Ezequiel Tovar outslugging Nick Kurtz! and Kody Funderburke with a 2.29 ERA through 17 starts! Edouard Julien hit 17 HR! Michael Toglia has a higher BA and slug than Juan Soto! Like I know you want some degree of uncertainty, but it's really a vibe killer to have things that no sane human would ever think are possible happening all over your sim. My early impressions are that the MLB The Show chalky sims may actually be better than OOTP 27 because at least the outcomes aren't an insult to my awareness of baseball. Feel free to make fun of my and call me a dumb idiot if Nolan Gorman has a higher OPS+ than Judge, Witt, Soto, or Ohtani halfway through 2027 but it seems pretty unlikely!

Edit: ran through another half-season and saw Jacob Young outslugging James Wood 100 games into 2026 ya something is CLEARLY wrong with the sim. Jacob Young hit 7 HR in 100 games! My man has 5 HR in 300 career games!

Rain King · 03-14-2026, 07:21 PM

There are going to be outliers to any simulation and also once you start stimulating things are now fictional (players can develop/age, etc.).

Looking at players like Funderburke and Young those numbers are not in line with how they are initially rated, but things can (and should) happen in every simulation that are surprising.

LansdowneSt · 03-14-2026, 07:26 PM

No, that is not variance. That is something broken that needs repair or changed and needs to be rolled back.

Rain King · 03-14-2026, 07:31 PM

I just started a new game and simulated to the 2026 all-star game on default settings.

Tovar: .280/.321/.483
Kurtz: .275/.377/.531
Funderburk: 5.19 ERA in 17 games (4 starts)
Julien: .226/.347/.361
Toglia: .259/.351/.440 (in AAA)
Soto: .290/.405/.612
Gorman: .181/.261/.332
Judge: .283/.424/.603
Witt: .290/.349/.556
Ohtani: .297/.406/.562
Young: .243/.300/.312
Wood: .262/.371/.485

polydamas · 03-14-2026, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rain King

I just started a new game and simulated to the 2026 all-star game on default settings.

Tovar: .280/.321/.483
Kurtz: .275/.377/.531
Funderburk: 5.19 ERA in 17 games (4 starts)
Julien: .226/.347/.361
Toglia: .259/.351/.440 (in AAA)
Soto: .290/.405/.612
Gorman: .181/.261/.332
Judge: .283/.424/.603
Witt: .290/.349/.556
Ohtani: .297/.406/.562
Young: .243/.300/.312
Wood: .262/.371/.485

Thank you for your contribution, it is somewhat reassuring although it is a very small sample size.

Do me a favor and post the leaderboard for wOBA and wRC+ if you would

Rain King · 03-14-2026, 08:15 PM

I've attached the requested leaderboard (from the same season I pulled the stats from) but not really sure what that information from one season really gives.

Bagpipes5 · 03-14-2026, 08:21 PM

I saw too many players again this year with an OPS less than 650 and more than 450 PAs. I ran 1 sim and saw that there were 15 qualifying players with less than a .650 which is roughly twice what usually happens at in IRL MLB. One of those players was Aaron Judge who had a .350 slg pct at years end. Then Giancarlo Stanton posted a .197/.216/.368 slash and I requested a refund. Sorry, not this year OOTP.

DD Martin · 03-14-2026, 08:24 PM

I played half a season and the "Athletics" have the 3rd best record in baseball, clearly something is off

Just kidding I expect to see things like this because every season is a surprise. And if it makes you feel any better Jacob Young has only 1 HR so I guess he didn't do that off-season bulking up program like in your run. Juan Soto has 19HR and 55 RBI's.

I played through the full season Young hit 3 home runs and the A's won the AL West.

snepp · 03-14-2026, 08:28 PM

A handful of outliers from a partial season warrants a negative steam review?

Doesn't look like the basis of anything worth burning any braincells on.

DD Martin · 03-14-2026, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snepp

A handful of outliers from a partial season warrants a negative steam review?

Doesn't look like the basis of anything worth burning any braincells on.

Would agree.

MK_735 · 03-14-2026, 10:13 PM

Eh things like these happen and always have. I've noticed oddities all of the time that "don't make sense." That's just how it is with simulations. It's not perfect, impossible to be. But what is perfect? I think we'd all have different opinions on that.

JWay · 03-14-2026, 10:19 PM

Pretty insane thread here. Baseball is a bitch!

Poonox24 · 03-15-2026, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snepp

A handful of outliers from a partial season warrants a negative steam review?

Doesn't look like the basis of anything worth burning any braincells on.

This was the best post on this thread.

Sweed · 03-15-2026, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snepp

A handful of outliers from a partial season warrants a negative steam review?

Doesn't look like the basis of anything worth burning any braincells on.

It's posts like this that make me miss the "Thanks" button. Please accept my manual Thanks.

dannibalcorpse · 03-15-2026, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bagpipes5

I saw too many players again this year with an OPS less than 650 and more than 450 PAs. I ran 1 sim and saw that there were 15 qualifying players with less than a .650 which is roughly twice what usually happens at in IRL MLB. One of those players was Aaron Judge who had a .350 slg pct at years end. Then Giancarlo Stanton posted a .197/.216/.368 slash and I requested a refund. Sorry, not this year OOTP.

yeah it’s crazy, I had a similar player go from .260/.356/.536 with 38 HR in one season to .159/.292/.277 with only 11 HR in 496 PAs. another guy went from a .732 OPS and 26 HRs in 524 PAs to a .539 OPS and 16 HR in 522 PAs (with a .168 BA to boot!)

oh wait, my mistake. that first guy was real life Adam Dunn’s 2010 & 2011 numbers, and the second guy with Chris Davis’ real life 2017 & 2018 seasons.

but the game clearly isn’t realistic at all

jcard · 03-15-2026, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bagpipes5

I saw too many players again this year with an OPS less than 650 and more than 450 PAs. I ran 1 sim and saw that there were 15 qualifying players with less than a .650 which is roughly twice what usually happens at in IRL MLB. One of those players was Aaron Judge who had a .350 slg pct at years end. Then Giancarlo Stanton posted a .197/.216/.368 slash and I requested a refund. Sorry, not this year OOTP.

Thanks for posting this. I have noticed this phenomenon in virtually every online league S+, but in those cases it’s hard to account for user skill and interest ranges. In general, though, your brief post touches on some of the impressions I have developed:

1) Too many ultra-low RC+ among qualified hitters; OPs+ range has too long of a left tail

2) Elite players have very few off years; carbon copy MVP and stat leaders board

3) Average to good players (like Stanton) far more likely to have terrible season than career-type year

4) Prevalence of left-end defensive spectrum players among top hitters and and right-end spectrum players among worst hitters (and, again, at a level of worst below MLB qualified hitter lows) seems like a true generality made too dominant (probably in player creation formulae).

Enough for now. Again, I want to emphasize these are IMPRESSIONS arrived at honestly but not systematically. As such, I do not need the “small sample size” rejoinder from a group that is happy to avail themselves of this rebuttal with no idea about how the math actually works and where “small” starts to become “smaller than ideal”, treating the data invariably as having ZERO value until the sample surpasses some arbitrarily comfortable standard of “largeness” in their binary evaluative calculus. I am sure that others have their own perceptions, and do not claim any superiority (or even parity) for mine.

EvvCat · 03-15-2026, 08:46 AM

Yeah, if these guys made a college football sim they'd probably have something unrealistic happen like the team with the most losses in history suddenly winning the national championship.

cheddah · 03-15-2026, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snepp

A handful of outliers from a partial season warrants a negative steam review?

Doesn't look like the basis of anything worth burning any braincells on.

Absolutely, and on top of that, there's not a single rating or park factor or setting or any other data point other than names and stats. Worthless.

malor · 03-22-2026, 10:22 AM

In my first SIM of the new version. I saw the Dodgers finish in last place. Thought that was strange. Looked closer. Injuries everywhere. Their older overworked talent went down hard and scrubs ending up playing a lot of games. 4 out of 5 starting pitchers out for most of the seasons. Big bats down at same time.

Second Sim, they won the world series.

Third through Fifth sims was wild card loss, lost in division series and another World Series. Lots of variability. That is why this game is the best.

As others have said, once you click the button to start simming, you are in a fantasy world and OOTP engine takes over. Never expect players/teams. to play like you would in real life. In my 12 sim, the Athletics won the WS. It was an outlier, but the made wild card and just kept winning playoff rounds. Nice to see that it can happen.

WhiskyTango · 03-22-2026, 04:42 PM

Thing is, no one is going to run 10-20 100-season test sims to find out what is normal and what is outlier. What one will do is spend hours / days building their leagues, get everything ready to go, and then spasm when they see results like this.

03-14-2026, 07:09 PM	#1
polydamas All Star Reserve Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 604	Sim Quality Worse? From a steam review: OOTP never had perfect simulations, but by year two's all-star break I saw Ezequiel Tovar outslugging Nick Kurtz! and Kody Funderburke with a 2.29 ERA through 17 starts! Edouard Julien hit 17 HR! Michael Toglia has a higher BA and slug than Juan Soto! Like I know you want some degree of uncertainty, but it's really a vibe killer to have things that no sane human would ever think are possible happening all over your sim. My early impressions are that the MLB The Show chalky sims may actually be better than OOTP 27 because at least the outcomes aren't an insult to my awareness of baseball. Feel free to make fun of my and call me a dumb idiot if Nolan Gorman has a higher OPS+ than Judge, Witt, Soto, or Ohtani halfway through 2027 but it seems pretty unlikely! Edit: ran through another half-season and saw Jacob Young outslugging James Wood 100 games into 2026 ya something is CLEARLY wrong with the sim. Jacob Young hit 7 HR in 100 games! My man has 5 HR in 300 career games!

03-14-2026, 07:26 PM	#3
LansdowneSt Global Moderator Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: From Duxbury, Mass residing Baltimore Posts: 8,114	No, that is not variance. That is something broken that needs repair or changed and needs to be rolled back. __________________ Complete Universe Facegen Pack 2.0 (mine included) https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi...k_2.0.zip/file Just my Facegen Pack: https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi..._Pack.zip/file

03-14-2026, 08:15 PM	#6
Rain King Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 3,323	I've attached the requested leaderboard (from the same season I pulled the stats from) but not really sure what that information from one season really gives. Attached Images

03-14-2026, 08:24 PM	#8
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,025	I played half a season and the "Athletics" have the 3rd best record in baseball, clearly something is off Just kidding I expect to see things like this because every season is a surprise. And if it makes you feel any better Jacob Young has only 1 HR so I guess he didn't do that off-season bulking up program like in your run. Juan Soto has 19HR and 55 RBI's. I played through the full season Young hit 3 home runs and the A's won the AL West. Last edited by DD Martin; 03-14-2026 at 08:34 PM.

03-14-2026, 07:21 PM	#2
Rain King Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 3,323	There are going to be outliers to any simulation and also once you start stimulating things are now fictional (players can develop/age, etc.). Looking at players like Funderburke and Young those numbers are not in line with how they are initially rated, but things can (and should) happen in every simulation that are surprising.

03-14-2026, 07:31 PM	#4
Rain King Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 3,323	I just started a new game and simulated to the 2026 all-star game on default settings. Tovar: .280/.321/.483 Kurtz: .275/.377/.531 Funderburk: 5.19 ERA in 17 games (4 starts) Julien: .226/.347/.361 Toglia: .259/.351/.440 (in AAA) Soto: .290/.405/.612 Gorman: .181/.261/.332 Judge: .283/.424/.603 Witt: .290/.349/.556 Ohtani: .297/.406/.562 Young: .243/.300/.312 Wood: .262/.371/.485

03-14-2026, 08:21 PM	#7
Bagpipes5 All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: TX Posts: 502	I saw too many players again this year with an OPS less than 650 and more than 450 PAs. I ran 1 sim and saw that there were 15 qualifying players with less than a .650 which is roughly twice what usually happens at in IRL MLB. One of those players was Aaron Judge who had a .350 slg pct at years end. Then Giancarlo Stanton posted a .197/.216/.368 slash and I requested a refund. Sorry, not this year OOTP.

03-14-2026, 08:28 PM	#9
snepp All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,797	A handful of outliers from a partial season warrants a negative steam review? Doesn't look like the basis of anything worth burning any braincells on.

03-14-2026, 10:13 PM	#11
MK_735 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Mar 2017 Posts: 37	Eh things like these happen and always have. I've noticed oddities all of the time that "don't make sense." That's just how it is with simulations. It's not perfect, impossible to be. But what is perfect? I think we'd all have different opinions on that.

03-14-2026, 10:19 PM	#12
JWay Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sioux Falls, SD Posts: 5,031	Pretty insane thread here. Baseball is a bitch!

03-15-2026, 08:46 AM	#17
EvvCat Minors (Single A) Join Date: Apr 2017 Posts: 83	Yeah, if these guys made a college football sim they'd probably have something unrealistic happen like the team with the most losses in history suddenly winning the national championship.

03-22-2026, 10:22 AM	#19
malor Major Leagues Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 482	In my first SIM of the new version. I saw the Dodgers finish in last place. Thought that was strange. Looked closer. Injuries everywhere. Their older overworked talent went down hard and scrubs ending up playing a lot of games. 4 out of 5 starting pitchers out for most of the seasons. Big bats down at same time. Second Sim, they won the world series. Third through Fifth sims was wild card loss, lost in division series and another World Series. Lots of variability. That is why this game is the best. As others have said, once you click the button to start simming, you are in a fantasy world and OOTP engine takes over. Never expect players/teams. to play like you would in real life. In my 12 sim, the Athletics won the WS. It was an outlier, but the made wild card and just kept winning playoff rounds. Nice to see that it can happen.

03-22-2026, 04:42 PM	#20
WhiskyTango Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2025 Posts: 314	Thing is, no one is going to run 10-20 100-season test sims to find out what is normal and what is outlier. What one will do is spend hours / days building their leagues, get everything ready to go, and then spasm when they see results like this.