Mysterious Extra Stats

[tiax]

I'm playing an 1800s sim, and I noticed that in the 1877 draft class, there was a player with crazy good ratings - Bud Fowler, fowlebu98 / fowler004joh. The scouts think he's a 95-grade pitcher and an 80-grade hitter (80/20 scale), and the editor agrees. I went to check his real-life stats panel, and his batting and pitching stats looked perfectly normal, a season with the Stillwater team of the Northwestern League in 1884. No MLB appearances.


But then I looked at his Real Fielding tab, and he had 1544 MLB games, all for a team labeled "__NEL__", going from 1877 to 1899. He has a similar set of stats for Neutralized Batting and Neutralized Pitching. See screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/MCXcPvy


Are these the stats a bug? Are they the source of his astronomical ratings?


A few other notes:


-It doesn't seem like other players in this sim have a similar issue. Only Bud Fowler even has stats in Neutralized Batting and Neutralized Pitching at all.


-As far as I can tell, the phantom fielding stats don't belong to a real player, at least not an MLB one.


-I looked in the database and couldn't find these stats, although it's very possible I was not looking in the right place. It seems like something more than just an errant database entry.


-This is the real Bud Fowler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Fowler Unclear if him being a HoF member is a contributing factor if there's a bug or errant stat here. But he's not just a random no-name minor leaguer from the 1800s. He's a Hall of Fame minor leaguer from the 1800s!


-Similar stats for Bud Fowler are present in OOTP 26.

[luckymann]

You must be using the MLE equivalents for NeL players. The input stats for these guys with that setting selected appear as neutralized stats, not real-life, because they aren't.

[tiax]

Originally Posted by luckymann

You must be using the MLE equivalents for NeL players. The input stats for these guys with that setting selected appear as neutralized stats, not real-life, because they aren't.

Oh that's an interesting point.


I wonder if the source of the issue here is that Fowler is being incorrectly identified as having played in a negro league? Like maybe the code looks for players tagged as African American before integration to decide how to process their stats.


His Stillwater teammates (e.g. jamiso002wil) don't have the same issue - their real-life stats are all normal.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by tiax

Oh that's an interesting point.


I wonder if the source of the issue here is that Fowler is being incorrectly identified as having played in a negro league? Like maybe the code looks for players tagged as African American before integration to decide how to process their stats.


His Stillwater teammates (e.g. jamiso002wil) don't have the same issue - their real-life stats are all normal.

While he might not have an "official" Negro League career and associated stats other than a single season with the Page Fence Giants, Bud is seen as an integral figure in the early years of this narrative, and as such was included in this fantastic Negro Leagues mod.

That mod was subsequently adopted by OOTP as an alternative for those who wanted a more fulsome and well-rounded version of these players in the game. That is the version you are seeing here.

If you do not fall into that category, all you need to do is unselect the NeL MLE option in the HISTORICAL tab and you'll get the default crappy version of Bud and all his ilk from that era. Although you'd likely need to start a fresh game to get that version of him in. Or delete the MLE one and re-import him manually.

[tiax]

Originally Posted by luckymann

While he might not have an "official" Negro League career and associated stats other than a single season with the Page Fence Giants, Bud is seen as an integral figure in the early years of this narrative, and as such was included in this fantastic Negro Leagues mod.

That mod was subsequently adopted by OOTP as an alternative for those who wanted a more fulsome and well-rounded version of these players in the game. That is the version you are seeing here.

If you do not fall into that category, all you need to do is unselect the NeL MLE option in the HISTORICAL tab and you'll get the default crappy version of Bud and all his ilk from that era. Although you'd likely need to start a fresh game to get that version of him in. Or delete the MLE one and re-import him manually.

I see, so in other words, these stats are not a bug - they're intentional but fictional stats to make an important historical personality be more impactful. That explains why they don't match the (limited) real historical stats I was able to find.

I'm a little skeptical that I want Bud Fowler to be simultaneously the greatest pitcher and greatest hitter in all of baseball, but I'll see if I can just manually tone things down.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by tiax

I see, so in other words, these stats are not a bug - they're intentional but fictional stats to make an important historical personality be more impactful. That explains why they don't match the (limited) real historical stats I was able to find.

I'm a little skeptical that I want Bud Fowler to be simultaneously the greatest pitcher and greatest hitter in all of baseball, but I'll see if I can just manually tone things down.

I don't play pre-1901 so was unaware he had been given two-way stats. Not sure that's intended, hopefully LansdowneSt, who created the original mod, sees this and chimes in.

[LansdowneSt]

I'm not sure why the game thinks he's all that in 1877. These are the underlying stats:

In-game stats should be governed by these MLEs.

[tiax]

I tried importing every individual season of Bud Fowler into an 1877 start. It definitely seems like 1884 Bud Fowler is overtuned. 17 3B and 27 2B in only 323 AB makes him perhaps the best gap hitter in the league. And 55 BB in 383 PA makes him easily the best eye in the league. With single-year neutralized 1884 stats, he imports as:

75 Contact, 90 Gap, 70 Power, 95 Eye

I know he had some good seasons in real life in the Western League and International League, including leading the former in triples in 1886. While it seems reasonable to me to treat the later negro leagues as MLB-quality competition and make players like Bullet Rogan or Oscar Charleston into MVP-caliber players, the case for Bud Fowler being a baseball god seems little more suspect given that he was playing in legitimately lower-tier non-segregated (at least for him) leagues. I was expecting him to show up as maybe a borderline MLB talent.

[LansdowneSt]

He should be importing league average based on the stats I posted. I will need to see why he is not.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

He should be importing league average based on the stats I posted. I will need to see why he is not.

1884 does look a little wonky. It's a weird year in general with the UA in the averages but will look at that and XBT.

[LansdowneSt]

Went and redid Bud's MLEs but will take a few weeks to get into the game I reckon as it requires a patch. Appreciate the feedback

[tiax]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Went and redid Bud's MLEs but will take a few weeks to get into the game I reckon as it requires a patch. Appreciate the feedback

Awesome!