Team Chemistry

[emysdk]

Originally Posted by danjel

In cricket, an overly keen batter who doesn't really think about his teammates can make the following mistakes (to name a few):
- go for that extra run, wherever his teammate is up or down the pitch and wherever the ball happens to be;
- keep trying to hit the ball over the fence when it'd be safer to block or at least pop shorter;
- ignore advice or signals from other members of his team.

Yes, but those are all individual mistakes, and don't necessarily arise because of whether or not they like the other people in the team. They more likely to be errors in judgement on the part of an individual, or a fault in their temperament.

Fielding errors in baseball and cricket are also individual errors and have nothing to do with team chemistry. They affect the team's result, and they might change how much their team mates like the player in question, but the level of team chemistry won't have affected whether or not the player made the mistake in the first place. Unless they're incredibly insecure

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by danjel

Yes, you can't measure team chemistry with a number, but, yes, it does have an effect on the way the team handles.

I wouldn't argue that it has an effect on how a team handles. I would argue that it has a neglible effect on how a team *performs*.

As long as the numbers are going up on the boards, the rest of it is pretty much eyewash.

[cdheer]

If you cannot measure it with a number, then you can't really assert that it matters.

IMO chemistry is right up there with momentum and "knowing how to win" in terms of usefulness. Yes, selfish players can make mistakes, but that != chemistry.

--chris

[danjel]

Sure it is. All of those types of mistakes arise from an individual player thinking of himself above the team (ie, bad team chemistry).

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by danjel

Sure it is. All of those types of mistakes arise from an individual player thinking of himself above the team (ie, bad team chemistry).

And as long as the individual player is racking up OBP and SLG, who cares what he thinks? His job is to hit, not be a cheerleader.

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by andymac

Actually, I think there will be many who say clubhouse chemistry means very little. At the same time, I would definitely like to see "player personalities" mean more. However, I don't think they should factor in much (if any) in terms of winning. They should matter more as far as players' decisions on where to play.

""

[Malleus Dei]

You might pay attention to the fact that some of the most productive players in baseball history were (or are) utterly self-absorbed.

[cdheer]

Originally Posted by danjel

Sure it is. All of those types of mistakes arise from an individual player thinking of himself above the team (ie, bad team chemistry).

I guess it really depends on how you want to define chemistry. You can certainly morph the definition to fit whatever you want.

But you can have a team full of guys who hate each other but when out on the field are not selfish. You can also have a team full of selfish guys that get along.

As Mal said, so long as they're out there executing (viewed by stats, W-L, etc.) none of it matters.

--chris

[jaxmagicman]

I think the people that want Team Chemistry and How to Win intagibles need to buy Baseball Mogul and leave OOTP alone.

[RonCo]

Winning can create chemistry, but I can't see chemistry creating wins. I've played on teams that really got along well, but didn't perform. I've played on teams that got along well and performed. I've played on teams that didn't get along well and tanked, and I've played on teams that didn't like each other much and performed well.

None of that really matters, though, because those are just individual cases. At the heart of the discussion is whether chemistry helps on the average. To prove or disprove this would require a pretty sophisticated study. I've never seem one to date, so, all we've got is opinion. If anyone has a link to a conclusive investigation on clubhouse chemistry, I owuld be interested in seeing it.

At the end of the day, I would be against adding a chemistry element to OOTP as a performance modifier until someone can prove one way or another how chemistry works and how large the influence is. This is not as "out there" as it might sound.

[danjel]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

I wouldn't argue that it has an effect on how a team handles. I would argue that it has a neglible effect on how a team *performs*.

And the difference between "handles" and "performs" is... (without going into silly semantics games)

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

And as long as the individual player is racking up OBP and SLG, who cares what he thinks? His job is to hit, not be a cheerleader.

Did you just not read what I had posted before? Or is it that you lack imagination?

OK, let's look at a possible example. Runners on 1st and 2nd. Runners signalled to steal, but the runner on 2nd pulls back. Runner on 1st is more concerned with his own numbers and keeps going hoping to pressure the runner on 2nd to just keep going. ie, bad teamwork resulting from bad team chemistry. The quantative result is that they're caught stealing. ie, the qualitative poor team chemistry has an effect on the quantitative result under the Caught Stealing heading.

Another example? Say trailing by 1 in the bottom of the 9th, a batter comes to the plate, with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. The outfield of the opposing team is quite good, but the infield is terrible, so some sort of sacrifice play would probably be best, maybe a bunt. But the guy at the plate couldn't care less whether the team wins or not, he's aiming to be on the HR leaderboard so he strokes away with everything he's got. Hits it to fly out to the SS, and an opportunity to win is gone. Bad teamwork. Again, qualitative poor team chemistry having an effect on the quantative result in terms of wins, runs, etc. etc. and everything that leads on from those stats.

Do I need to keep going with possible scenarios where a poorly developed team culture can result in poor quantative results?

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by danjel

And the difference between "handles" and "performs" is... (without going into silly semantics games)



Did you just not read what I had posted before? Or is it that you lack imagination?

OK, let's look at a possible example. Runners on 1st and 2nd. Runners signalled to steal, but the runner on 2nd pulls back. Runner on 1st is more concerned with his own numbers and keeps going hoping to pressure the runner on 2nd to just keep going. ie, bad teamwork resulting from bad team chemistry. The quantative result is that they're caught stealing. ie, the qualitative poor team chemistry has an effect on the quantitative result under the Caught Stealing heading.

Another example? Say trailing by 1 in the bottom of the 9th, a batter comes to the plate, with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. The outfield of the opposing team is quite good, but the infield is terrible, so some sort of sacrifice play would probably be best, maybe a bunt. But the guy at the plate couldn't care less whether the team wins or not, he's aiming to be on the HR leaderboard so he strokes away with everything he's got. Hits it to fly out to the SS, and an opportunity to win is gone. Bad teamwork. Again, qualitative poor team chemistry having an effect on the quantative result in terms of wins, runs, etc. etc. and everything that leads on from those stats.

Do I need to keep going with possible scenarios where a poorly developed team culture can result in poor quantative results?

I would ask that you stop with the examples because they are not helping your case.

[danjel]

Originally Posted by jaxmagicman

I would ask that you stop with the examples because they are not helping your case.

Wow. That's a fantastic counterargument right there. Well done. Your friends must call you Aristotle, right?

[Gastric ReFlux]

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by danjel

Wow. That's a fantastic counterargument right there. Well done. Your friends must call you Aristotle, right?

Well, I didn't want to embarrass you. But if you must be embarrassed.

Neither one of your examples point to bad chemistry. Both of your examples (your second one really holds no water because I have no idea what hitting a pop-up to the shortstop has to do with trying to hit a homerun) are not bad chemistry they are bad baseball plays. Everyone makes them. If a person goes for second and there is someone standing on second then it wasn't bad chemistry at play, it was a moron move. Thinking of yourself first does not make you make moron plays. In the end it only makes you look bad. I can't think of one person in major league baseball that makes these types of plays on a regular basis. Hell, I can't think of one person in my softball league that makes these plays on a regular basis. And if a person does make these types of plays it has nothing to do with them trying to "force the other player to run", it has more to do with the fact that they thought they did run or they got their signs mixed up. If someone made it a habbit of running to second when someone is standing there you can bet he wouldn't be playing. And if someone made it a habbit of swinging for the fences when the coach told them to bunt you can bet he will be sitting on the bench. So your examples are just you mandering in the hopes that maybe someone will see it and think that maybe you are not a complete looney toon.

[emysdk]

danjel - Those aren't really examples of bad teamwork (where a team work together to achieve something), they're examples of someone being a bad team player (putting themself first). I'm not sure if that's due to team chemistry.

Chris is right, I think. The problem here is how we're defining chemistry. You're saying it's putting a team first (which, IMHO, has nothing to do with how much people like each other and everything to do with professionalism), and I'm saying it's about a team gaining tangible benefits from how well they get on and work together.

[andymac]

danjel,

Your examples are individual instances that if they ever occurred would be dealt with quickly by a team. None of those things are going to cause a team to overall perform worse than they would have or affect how other individuals on the team perform, or whatever. So, what you are asking is for players to misbehave once in a while or something?? I would not call that "team chemistry", but once again something that goes into "player personality". I wouldn't mind seeing that...having coaches bench players once in a while or the like. I definitely don't see it as an important addition, though.

[cdheer]

Originally Posted by danjel

Wow. That's a fantastic counterargument right there. Well done. Your friends must call you Aristotle, right?

OK.

Your examples show up in measuable ways -- fielding stats, hitting stats, and so forth. If a player's selfishness really has an effect, then over the course of his career it will manifest in his stats.

So why consider chemistry at all? The stats will tell the story.

--chris

[danjel]

andymac, the reason why examples are important is because anecdotal data is about half of what qualitative study is all about. That's why academics usually prefer quantitative data whenever they can find it.

Originally Posted by cdheer

Your examples show up in measuable ways -- fielding stats, hitting stats, and so forth. If a player's selfishness really has an effect, then over the course of his career it will manifest in his stats.

So why consider chemistry at all? The stats will tell the story.

Consider this: the idiot mentioned in my first example is probably going to have a fair few CS's on his record, but that might not really reflect his talent for stealing and running between bases. Take him out of an environment where he's having trouble connecting with the team (for whatever reason), and put him into another team where he does connect, and his statistics are going to be better. That's where team chemistry comes into play.

The only problem is that the degree to which his statistics will be better will be difficult to impossible to measure because the nature of team chemistry is that it is qualitative and it's overall effect on an individual or team's statistics is to difficult to measure other than on a word scale of "good" vs. "bad".

That being said, that it is difficult to measure doesn't mean that it shouldn't be in the game. Arguably, certain variables (again probably qualitative in nature) will have an effect on team chemistry: winning (as mentioned above), the skill of coaches and leadership individuals on and around the team, media attention positive or negative, etc. etc. So it pretty much all comes down to a random x property that, hopefully, Markus can approximate into an equation of some description (because computers unlike humans do need concrete numbers). I hope he does.

[danjel]

Oh... Something separate that I forgot to comment on above.

Originally Posted by andymac

So, what you are asking is for players to misbehave once in a while or something?? I would not call that "team chemistry", but once again something that goes into "player personality".

I would agree that player personality would probably be something that would be interesting. Team chemistry is essentially the more global amalgam of the personalities of the team, their running mood, the effects of any leaders etc.