I just can't win in the playoffs

[endgame]

Somewhat related and thought I'd share. I'm starting the equivalent of the World Series in my universe, the Covenant Accord. I thought, unusually, the matchup is extremely close in nearly all categories. In essence, it looks like the teams that should be there, are there. Thank goodness one of them is my team, a relatively bunch of average guys with great spirits who managed to put a great year together in the inaugural season of this league.

[evanbarth]

Has anyone heard from the Markus or Marc on this issue, whethere its a bug or not?

[Mntwins]

Lost again
13 trips to the playoffs and 1 series win.
Not trying to sound like I'm whining but I just find it unbelievable.
Oh well, I'll keep trucking along not giving up.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Mntwins

Lost again
13 trips to the playoffs and 1 series win.
Not trying to sound like I'm whining but I just find it unbelievable.
Oh well, I'll keep trucking along not giving up.

FWIW, completed my first season and did win the championship in seven games. My impression, for the most part, was that a lot of players on both teams played above my performance expectations of them. One of my starters (#2 for most of the year, but #3 as the end of the season approached) fell considerably short, gathering three losses spread over all of the playoffs with no wins. One of my longball stars only hit app. .140 until midway through the League Championship and then brought it up to standard by the end of the World Series.

I did see a couple of opponents along with, IIRC, one of my own who hit their first homers of the season during the playoffs. This, and all of the above, I'm able to conceive as the 'stuff' it takes to bring it under the pressures of the playoffs. No huge chokers, no unusual number of injuries just before the playoffs. It wasn't smooth, but it wasn't all an uphill climb or challenge. It was, however, suspenseful. Some very interesting games.

Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe it's a fluke? At the rate I play my games, it is possible I may only have one or two more seasons in before the next version. Given that, if I win them all, I'd be sure to let you know. But if I don't, I wouldn't be much help shoring up your argument as I'd only be 1 in 3-4 trips.

I'm guessing so many variables are different for all of us, it would be most difficult to pin down causal factors for playoff performances, either on the micro-player level or even from the macro league-setup perspective. I think RchW inquired about sample size, having played out 200+ seasons. I can't contend that that's enough, largely because they're all his seasons even if with different leagues. I'm no statistician, but intuitively, I'd wager that 200+ seasons with say, 50+ game-owners reporting similar results (a purely arbitrary number, but high enough ) is more aligned with a correlation that some yet-to-be defined aspect of this area is due more scrutiny.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by endgame

FWIW, completed my first season and did win the championship in seven games. My impression, for the most part, was that a lot of players on both teams played above my performance expectations of them.

Did you play with morale on? I think you were referring to that in your previous post.

The reason I am asking is, the more I think about it, the more I am starting to believe RchW's theory about the morale system being a significant determinant in the playoffs, with teams playing over (underdogs) and under (favorites) their heads accordingly. If so, it should be turned down in a patch, or off altogether as RchW recommends.

Congratulations, BTW.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Did you play with morale on?

Congratulations, BTW.

Thanks. Mixed feelings overall, but I can't complain. Maybe more on that later. Yes, I do have morale activated and I could only speculate that it served to drive some players to better performances in a playoff setting. Many were Great on both teams as a matter of fact. I think the lowest I noted was a Happy on either team, maybe one Good.

As goes so many things, only Markus knows the impact, and even that might be a maybe.

[Theonlystd]

My first year in the playoffs with my team.

96 Wins

Went 11-3 on the way to World Series Win

Remember alot of you prolly have 8 teams in the playoffs odds are you arent going to win even if you make the playoffs.And if 1 of the other 7 gets hot your going to have trouble .

[Metsvir2]

Here's my piece with morale on

I finished my fictional first season 2 days ago. Went 99-63 using smart small ball to finish with the 2nd best record in NL

I win the World Series. Took 5 games in the DS, and 6 game home dramatic finishes in the NLCS and the World Series. The Nats upset the NL 1 seed Reds in 5 games. Toronto beat the Al 1 seed Texas

The NLCS ended in the bottom of the 10th on a base hit, and the World Series on a wild pitch when the Yankees closer came in for the fourth time in five days.

My staff went like this.

The Dodgers

NLDS Game 1, Solis my ace because he was 13-0 at home W
NLDS Game 2, My 3rd pitcher Botterli cause he was 11-3 at home L
NLDS Game 3, My 2 Casillian cause he was 12-4 on the road W
NLDS Game 4, My midseason callup Danny Wilber because my regular season 4 has a near 5 road ERA and his ERA is 3.20 L
NLDS Game 5 Solis undefeated decisions at home, won 1-0

The Nats

NLCS Game 1, Boterril cause Solis was used amd 11-3 at home W
NLCS Game 2, Danny Wilber cause he has lower home ERA than Casillian, 1 hitter to the 9th W
NLCS Game 3, Solis cause he's fully rested and i went up 2-0 without him looking to drop the hammer. L on that one though
NLCS Game 4, the road warrior Casillian all year throwing an 8 inning gem, won 1-0.
NLCS Game 5, Danny Wilber on short rest to save the 2 home bullets at home, lost on a walkoff homer
NLCS Game 6, Jacob Botterill went 10 innings 3 runs. Won 4-3 on a single by Gene Lamere with runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out

The Yanks

Game 1, Solis pitches a complete game gem to win 4-2 in the last start of the year
Game 2, Danny Wilber cause Botterill's not rested and wanted to save the road warrior.
Game 3, The road warrior wins again. The Yanks closer's 1st of a what would be 4 games in 5 days, the road warrior's last start of the year
Game 4, My number 4's only start of the postseason cause no one else i wanted was ready and Botterill's not as good on the road. Got killed 8-2, but made it 8-7 until the Yanks closer kept it from a sweep
Game 5, Danny Wilber on short rest. Took a 7-6 lead to the 8th and wanted to stretch him to 8 but gave up 2 runs. I could have ended it here, but this was his last start of the season. Yanks closer's 3rd game in a row
Game 6, Botterill's last start of the year. went 9 innings, kept him in the game with 2-2 in the ninth only to give it up, but the Yanks closer was so worn out that he walked 2 gave up 2 hits, and just as he might get the game to extras after 2 bases loaded force plays, his first pitch was wild and the Mets win it all.

So all my playoff starters outside of Game 4 of the World Series up 3-0 were based on on who had the best home/away splits of that day. That meant not using my number 2 at home and not using my number 3 on the road all playoffs. They proved the splits they put in the regular season to a tee.

[SWardle]

Oakland A's anyone? You guys act like this kind of stuff never happens in the real world when it happens ever single year. Rarely does the team with the best record win the WS. And there are plenty of juggernaut teams in the regular season that don't win the WS. The A's of the late 80's and early 90's and the A's of the Beane era. Just look at last year's champs. The Cardinals were awesome from 03-05 but were swept in the WS one year and knocked out earlier in the playoffs the other years. Then turn around and win the WS when they had their worst season to date... and they knocked out 95+ win team one after another.

I think the main thing that makes playoff baseball so unpredictable (both in and out of the game) is that when you talk about... say, a 90 win team and a 100 win team, the difference just isn't that great when you're talking about a 162 game season. It basically comes down to the 100 win team winning an extra game every two weeks. When you cut the difference between the two teams down to 5 and 7 games, we're talking a fraction of a game difference between the two over the course of the season.

Long story short... these things happen. Deal.

[Left-handed Badger]

Dont know if been addressed. But, I never sim a playoff game for my team. I've learned throughout OOTP playing experience. That I never win those. If I sim I'll be sweeped in first series. But, if I play them out I usually do if not well, at least put up a good fight. I tend to have more of a good pitching/defense team that is fair-to-middlin on offense, but is at least extraodrinarily tenacious. I keep trying to find new ways to get the win. I even used my back-up C one time as a PH just to sac bunt (he had a high rating in that area). Only appearance he made in the series. It moved the eventual tying run up a base. I won that game and won the next to win 5-game series in 5. LCS I got crushed though.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by RchW

You may well be right. As one of the main plaintiffs in the case of "Disgruntled team owners (not game owners) vs OOTP Morale System", I don't rule out that it is all in my mind.

However I suggest that people would post if they consistently won championships with an inferior team. It seems to me that such results would cause threads complaining that the game was too easy and that 86-76 teams should not win 3 WS in a row. Although there have been posts claiming that the game is too easy, they generally come from people who also have dominant teams.

What would be an appropriate sample size? I have approx. 200 seasons played in various solo leagues (most of them defunct now) and I've yet to see consecutive WS won by a team in my control without turning off morale. I only count seasons where my team is clearly dominant and would be seeded 1 or 1A going into the playoffs.

As it stands now I think the morale system may exert just a bit too much influence on playoff results. However I'd rather fight that, than win 5 consecutive WS with no opposition.

Since this post, I lost out in two seasons then made the WS three years in a row, winning the last two. Although I still have the best team in MLB, they are not nearly so stacked as many of my past teams. I really did not expect to win these last two, well maybe I should have expected the last one as I got back a dominant SP from an 11 month injury in August.

There have been a couple of beta patches applied throughout this run so I could claim that Markus has tweaked morale slightly.

Otherwise my case is not so strong now. If I win three in a row, it's toast.

[Cork55]

I have also experienced this as well. 14 playoff appearances (12 with the best record) and only 2 championships. What bothers me the most is that my key starters suddenly stop being aces and get pounded. My teams offense also dips as the opposing 2 star pitchers suddenly become Cy Young.

I wonder if the game resets something after the regular season ends that introduces the chance for a lot more variation in player performance. This would be akin to how players perform at the start of spring training.

-Cork55

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Cork55

I have also experienced this as well. 14 playoff appearances (12 with the best record) and only 2 championships. What bothers me the most is that my key starters suddenly stop being aces and get pounded. My teams offense also dips as the opposing 2 star pitchers suddenly become Cy Young.

If 8 teams are making your playoffs, then you'd only really expect to win 14/8 = 1.75 championships if the playoffs are random. The playoffs aren't random, of course, but they're close, so winning twice in 14 years isn't so bad. If only 4 teams make your playoffs, well, that's a different story.

Originally Posted by Cork55

I wonder if the game resets something after the regular season ends that introduces the chance for a lot more variation in player performance. This would be akin to how players perform at the start of spring training.

I've at times suspected that streaks and slumps reset at the beginning of the playoffs, even if the icecubes and flames are still printed on the lineup screen, so that players who have put up monster stats because of a year-long streak can suddenly turn into mediocrities once the playoffs start. Have never looked into this closely, however.

I'm still not convinced there's a game issue, since I think most of the results people have seen can come from small sample size. Like other posters in this thread, I've certainly had very long championship droughts in OOTP with great teams, but I've also had runs with three or four WS wins in a row (often with lesser teams).

[Cork55]

Originally Posted by injury log

If 8 teams are making your playoffs, then you'd only really expect to win 14/8 = 1.75 championships if the playoffs are random. The playoffs aren't random, of course, but they're close, so winning twice in 14 years isn't so bad. If only 4 teams make your playoffs, well, that's a different story.



I've at times suspected that streaks and slumps reset at the beginning of the playoffs, even if the icecubes and flames are still printed on the lineup screen, so that players who have put up monster stats because of a year-long streak can suddenly turn into mediocrities once the playoffs start. Have never looked into this closely, however.

I'm still not convinced there's a game issue, since I think most of the results people have seen can come from small sample size. Like other posters in this thread, I've certainly had very long championship droughts in OOTP with great teams, but I've also had runs with three or four WS wins in a row (often with lesser teams).

In my league only 4 teams make the playoffs. The 3 division winners and a single wild card team. The thing that I really notice in the playoffs is how many opposing average pitchers seem to be come 5 star aces and how fast my 4 star pitchers start looking like 1 star duds.

As others have said many times in this thread, something just feels "off". To me it seems like the players are getting reset to the beginning of the year and that their season performances are forgotten. This might explain how great teams suddenly come up flat while lesser teams come up huge time and time again.

-Cork55

[Elendil]

Well, the game never "remembers" performances, in the sense that past performance has no causal influence on future performance. The game generates outcomes from the true player ratings, but a "hot" player is no more likely to do well than a "cold" player, all else equal. That's as true during the regular season as it is during the playoffs.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Cork55

I have also experienced this as well. 14 playoff appearances (12 with the best record) and only 2 championships.

So in other words, you're your league's version of the Atlanta Braves (1991-2005: 14 division titles, 5 league titles, 1 World Series title).

[Cork55]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

So in other words, you're your league's version of the Atlanta Braves (1991-2005: 14 division titles, 5 league titles, 1 World Series title).

Unfortunately we are.

-Cork55

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by Mntwins

Lost again
13 trips to the playoffs and 1 series win.
Not trying to sound like I'm whining but I just find it unbelievable.
Oh well, I'll keep trucking along not giving up.

You know, I won 3 World Series in five years. I took 10 years off and came back to GM and I haven't won a World Series yet, despite being able to get to the playoffs.

I like the idea that it's not as easy as buying all of the best players, going to the playoffs featuring the best teams and having maybe a team that isn't the "best" on paper, but meshes and gels well to win it all.

I mean, would the Marlins of '03 have really won the World Series if we were drawing it up on paper? No way.

I think the game is doing a much better job of the playoffs by and large than in past years.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by Cork55

In my league only 4 teams make the playoffs. The 3 division winners and a single wild card team. The thing that I really notice in the playoffs is how many opposing average pitchers seem to be come 5 star aces and how fast my 4 star pitchers start looking like 1 star duds.

As others have said many times in this thread, something just feels "off". To me it seems like the players are getting reset to the beginning of the year and that their season performances are forgotten. This might explain how great teams suddenly come up flat while lesser teams come up huge time and time again.

-Cork55

So in other words, precisely like real life. I've seen guys over a 10 year period who have come up huge year after year, while other guys come up completely lame. Or have one bad post-season that causes my team not to win. I think it's perfect the way it is, because there is no correlation between regular season performance and playoff clutch'ness'.

[Cork55]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

So in other words, precisely like real life. I've seen guys over a 10 year period who have come up huge year after year, while other guys come up completely lame. Or have one bad post-season that causes my team not to win. I think it's perfect the way it is, because there is no correlation between regular season performance and playoff clutch'ness'.

Since the game does not differentiate between regular season games and post season games, there should be a reason why certain players repeatedly compile excellent regular seasons year after year, but suddenly get hammered in the playoffs year after year. Why are these players not getting hammered a lot during the regular season?

It's almost like clockwork with my team now. I could go 110-52 and dominate every statistic in the league and once the playoffs start, suddenly my team starts playing completely different against the same teams they dominated during the regular season. I could understand this a bit more if the game differentiated regular season and post season, but for a game that takes place 2 days after the regular season ends, it does not make sense. It's like the game wipes all player performance and goes into spring training mode where you always see good players perform badly because they are rusty.

This should not happen in the playoffs in a game that does not distinguish between regular season games and playoff games. I understand and accept getting upset, but my ace pitchers are getting hammered pretty badly against the same lineups that they dominated all season long. They are not pitching well and simply losing, they are getting rocked for 5, 6, 7 runs inside of 3 innings quite often. That is what has me wondering what is going on. The frequency at which I am seeing this is a bit too high in my opinion. Since my hitters also cool off, I end up losing games by scores of 10-2, 12-4, 9-1. I can handle losing, but not when every game is so lopsided.

I have run 5 leagues now for a total of over 200 seasons and this has repeatedly happened time and time again when I manage the team. I did notice that when the PC runs the same team, that they do not suffer the severe performance swings that I see whan I actually play out the games. There is a big difference between a good team getting upset when they play well versus a good team getting crushed time and time again by lesser teams. Upsets are part of the game and I can handle them, but the latter leaves me wondering what is happening.

-Cork55