Does the engine limit "outliers"?

[HoustonGM]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Well, you can only go so high at the top end of the scale before things start to get a little crazy and you get unintended consequences.

And besides, I doubt there are more guys than this you'd actually give 70+ ratings to in MLB now (which would be two standard deviations or more above average).

If anything, those listed numbers might be too many highly rated guys, not too few, if you compare to real life top of the scale rated players and how many real life guys you'd actually hang that sort of grade on.

Well, at least in terms of starting pitchers, 4 does seem low to me. Just off the top of my head of current pitchers I'd expect Wheeler, Cole, Scherzer, deGrom, Bieber, Burnes, and Buehler rated 70+. Given that I have not noticed these sorts of discrepancies with position players or relievers, I think it's likely that for one reason or another the development engine isn't keeping enough starting pitchers at that elite level - whether it's injuries or something else.

[HoustonGM]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Well, at least in terms of starting pitchers, 4 does seem low to me. Just off the top of my head of current pitchers I'd expect Wheeler, Cole, Scherzer, deGrom, Bieber, Burnes, and Buehler rated 70+. Given that I have not noticed these sorts of discrepancies with position players or relievers, I think it's likely that for one reason or another the development engine isn't keeping enough starting pitchers at that elite level - whether it's injuries or something else.

Just as a sanity check, I loaded up the file I used initially (I create copies of my initial league file before starting long term sims) - it was a live start created in mid-May, and there's 15 starting pitchers rated 70+. There's 60 such players in all (13 rated an 80). Now in 2028, there's only 37 at 70+ - there's a similar amount at that max 80 rating (11) but fewer overall elite level players, especially starting pitchers in particular.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

What the beta testers are talking about has to do with historical play, not fictional and not really so much to do with outliers in general but with certain specific pitchers who tended to consistently outpitch their FIP related stats in real life not getting that 'extra' boost in OOTP because it's not actually reflected in the stats we use to model them. Mariano Rivera or Catfish Hunter etc.

As far as fictional play, if there are any issues with outliers not happening enough there, this is the first I've heard of it. I'm not aware of any issues there (Doesn't mean there aren't any, of course).

OK, if this is a separate issue... I can tell you straight off, with Mariano Rivera his BABIP is lower than you expect and I think the reason it's lower is that he's a one pitch pitcher. This has very little to do with this issue of course but *any* pitcher that throws one pitch the vast majority of the time seems to have a lower BABIP than expected IRL. Also, pitchers who throw a lot of Ks, which I think y'all also don't model.

Catfish is a different animal; it looks like he had a lower than normal BABIP throughout his career, like 30 points lower, and he wasn't a 1 pitch guy like Rivera. He *was* basically a 2 pitch guy; according to Neyer and James, it looks like although he's listed with "4" pitches, he basically never threw 2 of them (a change and a curve; he notes that in his perfect game he threw those two pitches combined 4 times) and then on top of that it looks like he mostly used his fastball situationally.

Originally Posted by A's pitching coach Wes Stock, per Neyer and James

You try to judge Hunter on his fastball and you're missing the point. The man is an artist. He is always ahead of the hitter because he's always got his control. Usually he doesn't show the fastball until he's got the hitter off balance. Then he pops one and it's strike three.

It's implied that he used the slider the way Charlie Hough used his knuckleball or Mariano Rivera used the cutter, which is to say "all the time unless he needed to get something over the plate". That said, I'm not sure how you can reconcile that with the way you've modeled pitching currently.

The only other non-knuckleballing starter I can think of who just went out and threw one pitch over and over again was Steve Stone in 1980. While Stone's lifetime BABIP numbers are pretty well within statistical noise of average (.275 career in a league that averaged .281 overall), his 1980 season, which was the one where he just threw nothing but a curveball over and over again, his BABIP was a low-ish .265.

But yeah, all of that has little to nothing to do with the issue we're looking at here, which is that the distance between average and great tends not to be far enough with pitchers and kind of only with pitchers. I've stated my theory but I do wonder if, if nothing else, the BABIP bonus from having unhittable stuff getting implemented / having a bigger impact might help with that.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Just as a sanity check, I loaded up the file I used initially (I create copies of my initial league file before starting long term sims) - it was a live start created in mid-May, and there's 15 starting pitchers rated 70+. There's 60 such players in all (13 rated an 80). Now in 2028, there's only 37 at 70+ - there's a similar amount at that max 80 rating (11) but fewer overall elite level players, especially starting pitchers in particular.

Yeah, like I said, my theory anyway is that the game churns out the "right" number in the draft / scouting discoveries / etc., but they get whittled away by injury to a far greater extent than with other players and as a result they're just plain underrepresented compared to other positions (or even relievers, who don't seem to get hit by the injury issue as often, probably because they're rarely asked to pitch much when exhausted).

[brotherblues]

To me it's always been a common theme dating back to older versions of ootp. After a certain amount of seasons the number of superstars just nosedives. The talent distribution goes away from the pareto principle (reality) and more towards unrealistic parity.

[andyhdz]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah, like I said, my theory anyway is that the game churns out the "right" number in the draft / scouting discoveries / etc., but they get whittled away by injury to a far greater extent than with other players and as a result they're just plain underrepresented compared to other positions (or even relievers, who don't seem to get hit by the injury issue as often, probably because they're rarely asked to pitch much when exhausted).

I would tend to agree as well. You get very good pitchers in OOTP but not superstars and even those they just don't last very long. You'll get a solid 5 or 6 years if you are lucky out of them.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Those functions are for historical play though, right? My observation is about current+future play

Your question was about the engine. The engine is the same.

Changing player ratings to reduce the chance of outlier events isn't the same as an engine that prevents them.

[HoustonGM]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Your question was about the engine. The engine is the same.

Changing player ratings to reduce the chance of outlier events isn't the same as an engine that prevents them.

I'm not following. IRL stats influencing ratings year by year and the settings for controlling the effect partial seasons have on ratings aren't present in fictional/future sims.

I understand that the answer to the specific question "Does the engine limit outliers?" is "No" in that there isn't anything specifically coded to prevent outlier outcomes, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a part of the engine that's causing what I and others have noticed regarding top level starting pitcher performance.

[HoustonGM]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Just as a sanity check, I loaded up the file I used initially (I create copies of my initial league file before starting long term sims) - it was a live start created in mid-May, and there's 15 starting pitchers rated 70+. There's 60 such players in all (13 rated an 80). Now in 2028, there's only 37 at 70+ - there's a similar amount at that max 80 rating (11) but fewer overall elite level players, especially starting pitchers in particular.

Curious if this helped shed any light potentially. I have the development settings at default too - that's relevant obviously to a potential issue with the distribution of ratings as a league develops.

[KBLover]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

My gut feeling is that there's some part of the engine that keeps the leaguewide stats accurate based on the modifiers has a side effect of normalizing individual performances, making truly standout seasons rarer.

I haven't seen that.

Case in point, the league's best pitcher last year in my save is pictured in the attachment.

In case you can't see it because the font is too tiny - 254 ERA+, 12.8 WAR, 1.77 ERA, 417 K

This was after a "down" year of 125 ERA+ and "only" 9.0 WAR, the year before he had a 206 ERA+

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by KBLover

I haven't seen that.

("that" is the engine limiting outliers)

It doesn't. See post 13 in this thread.

[HoustonGM]

It seems those that have agreed with my perception have also been doing modern day leagues. I understand that there isn't a part of the engine that says "Don't allow outliers." That doesn't mean that there isn't something that is having the effect of limiting elite pitchers. In my sim and tests, there are simply fewer elite pitchers 5-10 years into the future than there are at the 2022 start.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

It seems those that have agreed with my perception have also been doing modern day leagues. I understand that there isn't a part of the engine that says "Don't allow outliers." That doesn't mean that there isn't something that is having the effect of limiting elite pitchers. In my sim and tests, there are simply fewer elite pitchers 5-10 years into the future than there are at the 2022 start.

Hopefully some of the player creation adjustments we made in 68 may help a bit with that (I'm not certain they will, but it's definitely possible).

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

I'm not following. IRL stats influencing ratings year by year and the settings for controlling the effect partial seasons have on ratings aren't present in fictional/future sims.

I understand that the answer to the specific question "Does the engine limit outliers?" is "No" in that there isn't anything specifically coded to prevent outlier outcomes, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a part of the engine that's causing what I and others have noticed regarding top level starting pitcher performance.

There’s not really a mechanism to do this, at least regarding LTMs, is the thing. The process of coming up with those is pretty transparent and has been the same for like a decade…

- The game sims a season on the “night” (when you click to finish the day) of Opening Day. That sim uses whoever is currently on the roster in the roles you’ve set and with no injuries.

- The game goes in and checks the league totals against what the league totals are supposed to be (this is on a rate basis, not an absolute one of course). If there were 10% too many HRs, the game will set the LTM for homers to 10% lower and so on.

- The game does this process 2 more times for 3 sims in total.

The LTM side of things doesn’t really “care” if there are people 2 or 3 standard deviations from the norm so long as the totals themselves come out right.

As noted, I have my theories as to why elite pitchers are under represented, although perhaps over representing them in the initial draft pool, which seems to be what OOTPD has come up with to fix this, will also rectify this issue. There’s also that anecdote by Bill James from back in the day that most pitchers have the stuff to be successful but are either too young, are pitching injured, or are recovering from an injury. Perhaps having more top level guys up front will make that anecdote more of a reality.