First impressions!

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by udbacker58

Gotcha.

I guessed it was that, since if one were "sowing" a different kind of "seed" I can't for the life of me figure out why one would be interested in OOTP then.

[professor ape]

Just ran a quick 2009 sim. Greinke had a 1.40 ERA through the end of May. My Cubs got swept in the first round of the playoffs again (SIGH) and the Yankees won the series.

Overall the first impression of the sim is solid. I am a bit concerned that no AL players hit over 36 HR. Maybe in the '80s but not today. Ryan Howard was the only player over 40 HR with 43. The league ERAs seem a bit low at around 4.24. Right now IRL the AL is around 4.56 and the NL is at 4.34.

[PhillieFever]

Awesome job guys,the game just has a quality feel all the way around.If there's any justice in the world,you guys will get your due.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

I wouldn't call this guy 'solid' to be honest... Also, the overall ratings are always relative to the league, so maybe the league is pitching dominated and this guy wouldn't make a team with his ratings.

I think what he was getting at is that surely the potential overall rating should be higher. Yeah, the current overall rating should suck, but the potential should be closer to 40, not 20. That is, the individual potential ratings are 50,45,40. Surely that shouldn't translate into an overall of the bare minimum of 20.

It's a pet peeve of mine as well. You get into the draft and it's like 80% of the players have 20 potential. Sure, most shouldn't be nowhere near good, but there should be a bit more differentiation than that with potential overall ratings. Otherwise, you have to spend a lot more time picking out who's better based on individual ratings.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Originally Posted by kq76

I think what he was getting at is that surely the potential overall rating should be higher. Yeah, the current overall rating should suck, but the potential should be closer to 40, not 20. That is, the individual potential ratings are 50,45,40. Surely that shouldn't translate into an overall of the bare minimum of 20.

It's a pet peeve of mine as well. You get into the draft and it's like 80% of the players have 20 potential. Sure, most shouldn't be nowhere near good, but there should be a bit more differentiation than that with potential overall ratings. Otherwise, you have to spend a lot more time picking out who's better based on individual ratings.

50 is generally regarded as major league average to scouts, so this pitcher is sub-average if OOTP aligns to this.

The following link has a helpful introductory discussion of scouting from the Baseball America Prospect Handbook:



I'll put up their definition of 20-80 potential ratings here to give you some context:

A player's overall future potential is also graded on the 20-80 scale, though some teams use a letter grade. This number is not just the sum of his tools, but rather a profiling system and a scout's ultimate opinion of the player.

70-80 (A): This category is reserved for the elite players in baseball. This player will be a perennial all-star, the best player at his position, one of the top five starters in the game, or a frontline closer. Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, and Johan Santana reside here.

60-69 (B): You'll find all-star-caliber players here: #2 starters on a championship club and first-division players. See John Lackey, Torii Hunter, and Carl Crawford.

55-59 (C+): The majority of first-division starters are found in this range, including quality #2 and #3 starters, frontline set-up men, and second-tier closers.

50-54 (C): Solid-average everyday major leaguers. Most are not first-division regulars. This group also includes #4 and #5 starters.

45-49 (D+): Fringe everyday players, backups, some #5 starters, middle relievers, pinch-hitters, and one-tool players.

40-44 (D): Up-and-down roster fillers, situational relievers, and 25th players.

38-39 (O): Organizational players who provide depth for the minor leagues, but are not considered future major leaguers.

20-37 (NP): Not a prospect.

If you used this system, that pitcher would be in the 40s, but the OOTP potential system seems to take the 38-39 potential group and lower and put them all as 20 potential. I like to think of these 20 potential guys as (at best) replacement-level players. I'd guess the game thinks this guy is no better than other AAAA-starter you could plug in there. That's debatable of course.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by professor ape

Just ran a quick 2009 sim. Greinke had a 1.40 ERA through the end of May. My Cubs got swept in the first round of the playoffs again (SIGH) and the Yankees won the series.

Overall the first impression of the sim is solid. I am a bit concerned that no AL players hit over 36 HR. Maybe in the '80s but not today. Ryan Howard was the only player over 40 HR with 43. The league ERAs seem a bit low at around 4.24. Right now IRL the AL is around 4.56 and the NL is at 4.34.

This is worth keeping an eye on. I noticed (when I simmed a few historical seasons the other day) that the league BA and ERA in the NL was right on target. But the AL invariably underperformed offensively.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by udbacker58

I'm still trying to figure out what sowing is?

Aren't you from Iowa? Haven't you ever seen a farm before?

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by professor ape

Overall the first impression of the sim is solid. I am a bit concerned that no AL players hit over 36 HR. Maybe in the '80s but not today. Ryan Howard was the only player over 40 HR with 43. The league ERAs seem a bit low at around 4.24. Right now IRL the AL is around 4.56 and the NL is at 4.34.

2008 AL Home Run Leaderboard

1. Cabrera (DET) 37
2. Quentin (CHW) 36
3. Rodriguez (NYY) 35
4. Dye (CHW) 34
4. Thome (CHW) 34
6. Sizemore (CLE) 33
6. Cust (OAK) 33
8. Giambi (NYY) 32
8. Huff (BAL) 32
8. Hamilton (TEX) 32

2007 AL Home Run Leaderboard

Home Runs
1. Rodriguez (NYY) 54
2. Pena (TBD) 46
3. Thome (CHW) 35
3. Ortiz (BOS) 35
5. Konerko (CHW) 31
5. Morneau (MIN) 31
7. Hunter (MIN) 28
7. Dye (CHW) 28
7. Ordonez (DET) 28
10. Guerrero (LAA) 27

[MizzouRah]

Well, it's fixed the issue I had with ootp9 and CPU utilization at 100%.

I'm going to be up late tonight...

[MidnightPyro]

The same thing happened to me that happened last year that I keep getting stuck on. Not a bug, not a glitch but...

I sit there wondering, now that I have the game...what kind of league am I going to start? Seriously. Maybe by the world series I'll have decided between Fictional or Real.

Actually I was thinking about converting the ABA to a modern-day league.

[dingus4ever]

Bizarre.

I just had a rookie go 5-5 and hit the cycle. When reporting the game mentioned the 5-5 and went into each hit but didn't mention that he hit the cycle in the news item. Not a big deal just odd. Ah they made a 2nd news item for it instead of doing just 1. Got it.

[Joaker]

Game is definitely running faster than the OOTP8 game that I was playing. Well done guys.

[dingus4ever]

The speed is nice.

Injuries are too high. I really hate changing the setting because then I feel as though I am cheating the game.

1st month of season I have my entire OF on DL and one of them came back and was injured the next game. My starting 2B is also injured now. As is my CL. Oh and my back up catcher too!

[dingus4ever]

Awesome I got fired because my best players all got hurt at once. Now I am being offered a job with our lowest level farm team. ! We went 7-25! We were 1 game out of the playoffs last season. Oh with me.

[J.R. RichardFan]

I gave up on OOTP after version 8, not because I didn't appreciate the game....it was great, but it didn't allow me to create my own baseball world, which I have played forever using BBW. I could not input my own players using stats derived from BBW in past played seasons.

When I received news that OOTP 10 would allow fictional player input, I quickly pre-ordered, thinking this would allow me to build my own world within the confines of a much better game.

Well, colour me disappointed at what OOTP's definition of player creation is.

First of all, you cannot make a player out of thin air. You have to alter a fictional player. Also, the stats you can input make no sense in deriving any usable ratings.

I guess I was hoping for something like a APBA Wizard. You define the league numbers, then the software creates ratings based on individual stats in relation to the league stats.

But then again, I may be missing something...

[kq76]

Originally Posted by injury log

I tested injury frequency and severity in one of the last beta builds, and the ratio of short term to medium term to long term injuries in OOTP was dead on accurate. The number of injuries on 'Normal' was quite a bit lower than in real life, however - on 'High', the number is close to right. In 2007 MLB, during the regular season only, there were 1353 injuries in total (counting all those reported in rotoworld's daily reports). Of those, 65% were less than 14 days in duration, 29% lasted between 2 weeks and 3 months, and 6% lasted longer than 3 months. There are a ton of injuries in real life, far more than most people would expect. It was interesting during beta - someone commented on the number of injuries in the game, and on the same day, in real life Oakland had five players leave a single game with an injury.

That said, there are likely areas that can still be improved in OOTP. I need to break down the batter/pitcher data from OOTP again, but in real life, batters only rarely suffer very long-duration injuries. Not counting Juan Encarnacion's injury, the 23 longest injuries in 2007 were all to pitchers, and only two of the top 30 were to batters (Tony Graffanino's torn ACL, and Juan Castro's Tommy John). There were only about 10 injuries in total that sidelined batters for six months or more (there were more than 40 to pitchers). That probably needs some further adjustment in the game. I also suspect, though it would take quite a while to test, that regular players suffer more injuries in OOTP than in real life. In real life, while many players are injured in games, many others are injured in workouts or bullpens, while in OOTP, almost all injuries occur during games. Because of that, the guys who play a lot are quite a bit more likely to be injured than guys who don't. I'm not sure that's as true in real life.

Of course, if you want fewer injuries, you can set injury frequency to 'low'. The number of long term injuries on 'normal' should match what occurred in OOTP9, but there should be more short term injuries than before, as in real life. Note, however, that unlike in OOTP9, short term injuries don't often lead to long term potential loss - as a GM, your main concern is finding someone to fill in for the guy during the time he's going to miss.

With the many changes to the injury model this year, I'm sure some further adjustments are likely to be needed, and I'll be looking at the game output and comparing with real life data to see what could be further improved.

IL, I was wondering if you could elaborate on how injury frequency was fixed in OOTPX. In our online league it became evident that with OOTP9 there were too many 60day plus injuries while too few couple day injuries with the former causing a great deal of frustration. And while simply dialing up or down injuries would make one or the other better, it'd make the other worse. I was hoping the frequencies would be fully customizable, but we've known for awhile that they wouldn't be. If you're happier with the new frequencies then we should end up being happier too, but I'm wondering if Markus did tweak it in the directions that a lot of us were previously complaining about or if something else was done.

Thanks for your thoughts on the differences in frequencies between pitchers vs batters and starters vs bench players. That's definitely something for us all to keep in mind.

[Joaker]

I love the new 20 person top prospects list.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by udbacker58

I can assure you that the personality ratings factor very little into potential for players, if at all. But there does seem to be a snafu with the pitcher potential. Haven't been able to pin it down yet though. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the relationship of stuff, velocity, and stamina. But have found nothing concrete yet. I'm sure it will be an easy fix once we can pin it down.

Interesting. In our online league pitchers' potential ratings are generally a fair bit worse than our batters' potential ratings. I at first thought it might be because several seasons ago we increased the creation/dev modifiers for batters, but I checked the modifiers were all set to 1 and I still saw it in this last year's draft. This was with OOTP9, but it sounds like it's still an issue.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

2008 AL Home Run Leaderboard

1. Cabrera (DET) 37
2. Quentin (CHW) 36
3. Rodriguez (NYY) 35
4. Dye (CHW) 34
4. Thome (CHW) 34
6. Sizemore (CLE) 33
6. Cust (OAK) 33
8. Giambi (NYY) 32
8. Huff (BAL) 32
8. Hamilton (TEX) 32

2007 AL Home Run Leaderboard

Home Runs
1. Rodriguez (NYY) 54
2. Pena (TBD) 46
3. Thome (CHW) 35
3. Ortiz (BOS) 35
5. Konerko (CHW) 31
5. Morneau (MIN) 31
7. Hunter (MIN) 28
7. Dye (CHW) 28
7. Ordonez (DET) 28
10. Guerrero (LAA) 27

I stand corrected on the HR fromt. I do think that it is leaning a bit towards the pitchers.

[Rondell Tate]

Where's the gloat button? What's the point of getting it two days early if there's no gloating to the unbelievers?

Seriously, though. Nice crisp look (except that opening screen ... the whole mini-Yankee fetish is going too far).

Evaluation of game play coming when I come up for air ... Friday, maybe.