Suspended game

[slugga27]

Originally Posted by monkeystyxx

I'm not touching the suspended game argument with a bargepole (LGO does bring up some good points, though it feels odd to take a feature OUT of a game...). But I do have a semi-related question.

When a game suffers a rain delay, does OOTP simulate the fact that sometimes a pitcher won't continue the game, even though he would have otherwise?

I noticed there was a 44 minute rain delay in a recent game I simmed, half way through the top of the fourth. Gerrit Cole then came out and resumed pitching afterwards. Nothing wrong with that in isolation, it wasn't a terribly long delay and a very robust pitcher. But it got me wondering if it was something OOTP simulated?

I think this was changed in OOTP 16. It used to be that if there was a rain delay, it was 99% likely that both teams would change pitchers. Now, though, if it occurs before maybe the 5th inning, both pitchers are able to stay in the game. I wish this would go back to the pre-16 way...

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Additional reasons to not include them:

(1) The minors and majors use different rules for suspended games, which OOTP doesn't recreate (cue my longstanding "OOTP treats the minors as if they are just like the majors even though they're not" argument);

(2) There simply aren't that many suspended games in the majors - there have been just 35 in the past twenty-one seasons. That's less than two per season on average (OOTP seems to have far too many occurring). If suspended games are that rare in real life in the majors, then not including them isn't losing anything substantive (I don't have stats on the frequency of suspended games in the minors, though due to the more liberal rules they do occur more often; I can provide rates for the 2014-15 seasons.);

In addition, the majors didn't start suspending games until the 1930s. Before then, if a game was called on account of weather or darkness before it was an official game, it was simply considered "no game." If the game was rescheduled, it was played over from the start. If an official game was called on account of weather or darkness and the score was tied, it ended as a tie game, and it likewise would have been replayed in its entirety (the infamous "Merkle Game" in 1908 was an example of this). The introduction of night baseball made the suspension rule necessary because league officials feared that a home team would turn off the lights in order to end a game at an advantageous moment.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

In addition, the majors didn't start suspending games until the 1930s.

Technically, games could be considered suspended as a result of a protest that was upheld (and there are several cases of such).

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Before then, if a game was called on account of weather or darkness before it was an official game, it was simply considered "no game." If the game was rescheduled, it was played over from the start. If an official game was called on account of weather or darkness and the score was tied, it ended as a tie game, and it likewise would have been replayed in its entirety (the infamous "Merkle Game" in 1908 was an example of this). The introduction of night baseball made the suspension rule necessary because league officials feared that a home team would turn off the lights in order to end a game at an advantageous moment.

It should be noted as well that the parameters around when a game could be suspended have changed over the years as well. Originally, a game could not be suspended due to just weather, for example.

Retrosheet has a list of all the games in MLB history which have been suspended. There are 169 regular season suspended games (and 2 post-season games) over 103 seasons. That works out to an average of 1.64 suspended games per season.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Technically, games could be considered suspended as a result of a protest that was upheld (and there are several cases of such).

I disagree. The games were played to conclusion, not suspended. When the protests were upheld, the game was replayed from the point of the protest. Compare the published box score (7/6/1920 edition of the New York Tribune) of the July 5, 1920 game between Philadelphia and New York and the box score for the same game in Retrosheet:



As is evident, the game was not suspended. Retrosheet's reference to this as a "suspended" game is in error. The game went the full regulation length. At the time, there was no provision in the major-league rules for suspending games. Thus it was not a suspended game. Not even in a technical sense.

[Le Grande Orange]

Here's the article from the Aberdeen IronBirds of the New York-Penn League showing the strangeness that can result from the real-life suspended game rules:

The Oddities of a Suspended Game.