Historical MLB/Minors roster and db issues go here

[Habsfan18]

At the 1965 draft with scouting set to 100% accuracy, I'm noticing Reggie Jackson is a 4 star potential player. If we're basing this potential rating of his real life MLB career performance, shouldn't he be 5 stars? I'm not too familiar with initial ratings in historical mode and how they're generated, but I've always assumed that to be the case.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by Autumn_Lion

pstrickert, yes, you're correct, I'm using single-season replay mode. So what you're saying is that the real-life records of these teams weren't really indicative of their talent level. I guess I can buy that, though in the case of the White Sox, I think their true talent level was WORSE than their real-life record of 77-77, not BETTER. After all, they were only two years away from the massive roster purge which followed the Black Sox scandal, and the next year, 1923, they lost 85 games ... so were they really better than a 77-win team in 1922? I'm skeptical. But I'll live with it. It's not like the 1922 season is super-important to me; I'm hoping to get into a league that replays all the 1920s seasons, and testing one of the early seasons in the decade was my starting point. Anyway, thanks for your input!

If you subscribe to the Bill James W-L formula, then you may be inclined to attribute (usually a small part of) a team's record to luck -- good or bad. Here's an explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_expectation

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by scott1964

I have two Jim H O'Rourke show up. One has his real life stats as his current stats (Id 217 o'rouji01) He signed on with Baltimore as 3B. The original is playing CF with Baltimore (Id 165 orourji01)

Found 65 of these Irishmen who are duplicated due to the ' and 52 with the exact same names but who are different human beings. They will be updated for Update 3.

[Habsfan18]

Simming a historical file with real minors and draft enabled to see results. I Started in 1920 and stopped at 1933 (plan to go to 2016) just to poke around and check a few things.

I noticed Joe DiMaggio was "purchased" by the Phillies organization back in 1931 as a 16 year old and played in the MLB at 17. Shouldn't he have gone into the amateur draft the same as everyone else? Looks like he was never drafted.

[actionjackson]

2015 Historical, and Pete J O'Brien is 147 years old. I should think he's gonna prone to broken hips and such.

[actionjackson]

I've just realized that it's quite possible that my above post (#225) is covered by Spritze's above post (#223). Please disregard if that's the case.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by Habsfan18

I noticed Joe DiMaggio was "purchased" by the Phillies organization back in 1931 as a 16 year old and played in the MLB at 17. Shouldn't he have gone into the amateur draft the same as everyone else? Looks like he was never drafted.

He was probably purchased by the Phillies from the San Francisco Seals, his original historic team. They were an independent unaffiliated team and got to do anything they wanted to back in the day.

[actionjackson]

2015 Historical, Will Harris (harriwi02) is given the name Willie Harris (harriwi01) and is also given Willie Harris' birthdate.

[Habsfan18]

Originally Posted by Spritze

He was probably purchased by the Phillies from the San Francisco Seals, his original historic team. They were an independent unaffiliated team and got to do anything they wanted to back in the day.

Makes sense, but with the amateur draft enabled, shouldn't all players generated by the historical database have to go through the draft?

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by Habsfan18

Makes sense, but with the amateur draft enabled, shouldn't all players generated by the historical database have to go through the draft?

No.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

2015 Historical, Will Harris (harriwi02) is given the name Willie Harris (harriwi01) and is also given Willie Harris' birthdate.

Probably fixed in next build. I'll check when it comes out. I'm 300 miles from my computer right now.

Fixed just now. Wasn't fixed for next build. Now it is.

There are 17 Will or Willie Harris's in the DB and a gianter bunch of William's and Bill's as well.

[Habsfan18]

Looking through past draft logs in league history, it appears the "ballplayer" players issue is still present. It's throughout many rounds, but here's a screenshot that shows it from 1932. I started the sim in 1920.

"Ballplayer Graham" was the 3rd overall pick..

I'm using the latest patch with the historical database update that Markus linked to.

[Ravi]

A question for Spritze, is it worth reporting minor league players that are misidentified by BBref (due to name mispellings,variations or other errors) and thus replicated by OOTP causing them to have multiple entries in the database? Or is that something you wouldn't want to change going forward?

For example, the following 3 are all the same player:

Arthur "Tink" Riviere (rivieti01,rivier001art) - Tink Riviere Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com
A.Reviere, 1924 Houston Buffaloes (revier001a--) - A. Reviere Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com
Reviere, 1925 Dallas Steers (revier001---) - Reviere Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

See: Tink Riviere to be added to the Buffaloes, The Houston Post. (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 53, Ed. 1 Tuesday, May 27, 1924 (The Houston Post. (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 53, Ed. 1 Tuesday, May 27, 1924, Sequence: 10 | The Portal to Texas History)

What this means is that if you start in 1924 you would have rookie pitcher "A Reviere" on the Houston Buffaloes and after a year veteran Tink Riviere will populate the White Sox and rookie "Ballplayer" Reviere populates the Dallas Steers...

As you can imagine and just for the 1920s years I am looking at there are many other examples like this.

[Spritze]

So what exactly is the "Ballplayer" problem? Just means their first name is currently unknown. Does not mean they were a bad player. 1,743 "Ballplayer"s were combined with other "Ballplayer"s of the same last name and position and birth year who played at the same time. The more unusual the last name the more likely this was to happen.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by Ravi

A question for Spritze, is it worth reporting minor league players that are misidentified by BBref (due to name mispellings,variations or other errors) and thus replicated by OOTP causing them to have multiple entries in the database? Or is that something you wouldn't want to change going forward?

For example, the following 3 are all the same player

Arthur Tink Riviere (rivieti01,rivier001art) - Tink Riviere Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com
A.Reviere, 1924 Houston Buffaloes (revier001a--) - A. Reviere Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com
Ballplayer Reviere, 1925 Dallas Steers(revier001---) - Reviere Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

See: Tink Riviere to be added to the Buffaloes, The Houston Post. (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 53, Ed. 1 Tuesday, May 27, 1924 (The Houston Post. (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 53, Ed. 1 Tuesday, May 27, 1924, Sequence: 10 | The Portal to Texas History)

What this means is that if you start in 1924 you would have rookie pitcher "A Reviere" on the Houston Buffaloes and after a year veteran Tink Riviere will populate the White Sox and rookie Ballplayer Reviere populates the Dallas Steers...

As you can imagine and just for the 1920s years I am looking at there are many other examples like this.

I change these when they are pointed out. I created a SQL query to update the database to help keep these straight when found. We also have quite a few MLB players Lahman and BBref disagree on.

I doubt this will ever be error free unless we do it ourselves in OOTP. SABR, BBref and Lahman all seem not to care. We do.

[Habsfan18]

Originally Posted by Spritze

So what exactly is the "Ballplayer" problem? Just means their first name is currently unknown. Does not mean they were a bad player. 1,743 "Ballplayer"s were combined with other "Ballplayer"s of the same last name and position and birth year who played at the same time. The more unusual the last name the more likely this was to happen.

Sorry Spritze, I wasn't aware that the "ballplayers" were just players in the database with unknown first names. I thought something was going screwy in the database, especially when I saw one go 3rd overall.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Ravi]

Originally Posted by Spritze

I change these when they are pointed out. I created a SQL query to update the database to help keep these straight when found. We also have quite a few MLB players Lahman and BBref disagree on.

I doubt this will ever be error free unless we do it ourselves in OOTP. SABR, BBref and Lahman all seem not to care. We do.

That is awesome and as a historical player I reallly appreciate your response and dedication to building the most historically accurate database possible.

In that case, I will keep posting what I find, either here or in another thread if you prefer (there are going to be quite a few of these historical error cases and I don't want to derail this thread).

[Habsfan18]

Sorry for another post, but I just noticed something and wanted to see if you could clarify again for me.

Dutch Leonard, in real-life according to the database, first appeared in the minor leagues in 1932. Yet in my sim he was drafted in December of 1929 and appeared in a few innings in 1930. Just wondering why that is happening? If 1932 was his first baseball appearance in real life, why is he playing in 1930 in my game?

Thanks

[Spritze]

Dutch E Leonard or Dutch H Leonard?

[Ravi]

Originally Posted by Habsfan18

Sorry for another post, but I just noticed something and wanted to see if you could clarify again for me.

Dutch Leonard, in real-life according to the database, first appeared in the minor leagues in 1932. Yet in my sim he was drafted in December of 1929 and appeared in a few innings in 1930. Just wondering why that is happening? If 1932 was his first baseball appearance in real life, why is he playing in 1930 in my game?

Thanks

I assume you are talking about this Dutch Leonard (Dutch Leonard Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com). As you can see, he entered the minors in 1930, so I think that explains the draft.

And since you started your sim in 1920, you may also be seeing this Dutch Leonard in your game (Dutch Leonard Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com).