What hitter type appears to affect

gmo · 04-23-2004, 02:03 PM

A while back I asked whether "hitter type" (pull, normal, or spray) affected anything in the game. I knew what those types ought to mean, but I was thinking it was not actually functional in the game. Seeing this just popup in the current DIPS thread of interest spurred me to bring this up again since I took another look at it recently.

Basically I took a test league and found that though hitter handedness very much mattered, hitter type had no effect on the direction on outs. Here's the link to the thread.

I only showed outfield putouts, but infield assists show the same result. Outs are distributed in the same proportions for RH hitters on OF fly balls and IF ground balls regardless of hitter type. Same of course for LH hitters, just with a pair of different ratios. Explanations included hitter type just being eye candy and that it did affect the direction the ball is hit but not on everything.

I went back to the data from that OOTP5 league and also did a couple of tests with an OOTP6 league. What I looked at this time was outfield assists. From my experience looking at the game's fielding data, the number of double plays outfielders get is small relative to their assist numbers, maybe 20% max overall. So, I assumed that few outfield assists came from "catch the fly ball, throw the tagging runner out", but mostly from "track down a hit and throw out a runner trying to take an extra base". This needs to be correct because my conclusion here is based on it.

Outfield assists do show variation with hitter type. For just RH hitters in the OOTP6 tests, pull hitters had about a 4/2/1 ratio of LF/CF/RF assist proportions, normal hitters had compared to pull about 10% less from LF and 10% more from RF, and spray hitters had about equal numbers of OF assists from each OF position.

So as I think someone tried to explain in the thread I referenced above but I did not understand at the time, it appears hitter type in the game does not affect where outs are made, but it does affect where hits (perhaps excluding HR) are determined to go.

CareyScurry · 04-25-2004, 01:56 AM

that's interesting - thanks!

04-23-2004, 02:03 PM	#1
gmo Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2002 Location: Longmont, CO Posts: 3,309	What hitter type appears to affect A while back I asked whether "hitter type" (pull, normal, or spray) affected anything in the game. I knew what those types ought to mean, but I was thinking it was not actually functional in the game. Seeing this just popup in the current DIPS thread of interest spurred me to bring this up again since I took another look at it recently. Basically I took a test league and found that though hitter handedness very much mattered, hitter type had no effect on the direction on outs. Here's the link to the thread. I only showed outfield putouts, but infield assists show the same result. Outs are distributed in the same proportions for RH hitters on OF fly balls and IF ground balls regardless of hitter type. Same of course for LH hitters, just with a pair of different ratios. Explanations included hitter type just being eye candy and that it did affect the direction the ball is hit but not on everything. I went back to the data from that OOTP5 league and also did a couple of tests with an OOTP6 league. What I looked at this time was outfield assists. From my experience looking at the game's fielding data, the number of double plays outfielders get is small relative to their assist numbers, maybe 20% max overall. So, I assumed that few outfield assists came from "catch the fly ball, throw the tagging runner out", but mostly from "track down a hit and throw out a runner trying to take an extra base". This needs to be correct because my conclusion here is based on it. Outfield assists do show variation with hitter type. For just RH hitters in the OOTP6 tests, pull hitters had about a 4/2/1 ratio of LF/CF/RF assist proportions, normal hitters had compared to pull about 10% less from LF and 10% more from RF, and spray hitters had about equal numbers of OF assists from each OF position. So as I think someone tried to explain in the thread I referenced above but I did not understand at the time, it appears hitter type in the game does not affect where outs are made, but it does affect where hits (perhaps excluding HR) are determined to go.

04-25-2004, 01:56 AM	#2
CareyScurry Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: NC Posts: 109	that's interesting - thanks!