Please take a good hard look at POWER vs CONTACT balance

[SF Giants]

Originally Posted by RonCo

To SFGiants 100 power example/question, the answer is: it depends on which pitchers the guy faces, the ball parks they play in, and some random luck

Obviously it isn't that random that pitchers and ballparks wouldn't matter. Yet, this whole thread proved that these aren't the only things which decide the final output and that's where my question aims to -> ceteris paribus what will happen to 100 power hitter ?

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by SF Giants

Obviously it isn't that random that pitchers and ballparks wouldn't matter. Yet, this whole thread proved that these aren't the only things which decide the final output and that's where my question aims to -> ceteris paribus what will happen to 100 power hitter ?

The HR that the 100 Power Hitter will wind up hitting will depend on the pitchers that the hitter faces. That's basically it. This is true whether every other hitter is rated with a Power of 160, or every other hitter is rated with a Power of 10.

Stats are not "distributed" among hitters. Stats are created by the pairing of pitchers and hitters, with league average rates defined by the league totals.

[RonCo]

It is true that, assuming the pitching they face is equivalent, and the ballpark effects are equal, Power Hitters rated 120 will hit more home runs than power hitters rated 100, but that's because a 120 Power Hitter is better than a 100 Power Hitter.

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

I'm not trying to wade into a philosophical debate about the relative merits of contact vs. power in real life baseball. Certainly, players of both varieties have left their mark on the game throughout history. So I strongly believe that both types of players should be viable options in PT.

It's just a matter of balancing the game properly. If one side is too obviously strong there's no tradeoff to consider, no interesting decision to make. Just take the contact & range every time. It's boring.

It may be boring but a team full of aces in the rotation & the pen might produce different offensive numbers than in Major League Baseball where most teams have plenty of holes in both their rotation & their pen, ...& most sluggers take advantage of that.....moreso than the best contact hitters I'd guess.

Or...if it's impossible to say hit better than .250 off of Kevin Brown at his best, & a team could hit .310 against weak pitching...that's the same as a slugger who usually hits 31 home runs being limited to 25. Or is it? We don't know. ...Do we?

[dbqs]

One question now after thinking about normalization in PT, that may have already been addressed - do the individual ballpark factors add on to the normalized numbers, or does the normalization sum up the entire league including ballpark factors?

Because I think it would be better if, say for sake of easy math, half the league has set right-handed HR factors of 1.1 and the other half has 1.0, that the total number of right-handed HRs would be 1.05 the normalized amount for that league. Takes away from the impact of strategically planning your park if it's the other way around in order. More variability is fun!

[SF Giants]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Stats are not "distributed" among hitters. Stats are created by the pairing of pitchers and hitters, with league average rates defined by the league totals.

It is true that, assuming the pitching they face is equivalent, and the ballpark effects are equal, Power Hitters rated 120 will hit more home runs than power hitters rated 100, but that's because a 120 Power Hitter is better than a 100 Power Hitter.

Most certainly you are right that stats are created based on pairing pitchers and hitters. Yet, given your second reply, you aren't willing to understand what I am talking about. Let me be more exemplary for you even though I already found the answer from data - if a cap is introduced into this equation and hitters face the same pitchers then the question is how it effects the output? E.g.:
//Power and HRs are distributed based on exponential function//

• a hitter nr.1 with power rating 100 will hit 125 homers
• a hitter nr.2 with power rating 80 will hit 64 homers
• a hitter nr.3 with power rating 60 will hit 27 homers

-> in one season they produce all together 216HRs.
If the cap is introduced to 100HRs in total then there are three (to simplify) possible outcomes:

• winner takes it all and as such the best hitter hits 100HRs others 0
• all hitters share the decrease in linear proportion: nr.1 hits 57; nr.2 hits 30; nr.3 hits 13
• decrease of the hits is based on the function: nr.1 hits 65; nr.2 hits 27; nr. 3 hits 8

[dkgo]

Take two leagues with the same pitchers and ballpark factors. If one has all hitters with 120 Power and the other has all hitters with 80 power, they will still hit the same number of homeruns.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by SF Giants

Most certainly you are right that stats are created based on pairing pitchers and hitters. Yet, given your second reply, you aren't willing to understand what I am talking about. Let me be more exemplary for you even though I already found the answer from data - if a cap is introduced into this equation and hitters face the same pitchers then the question is how it effects the output? E.g.:
//Power and HRs are distributed based on exponential function//

• a hitter nr.1 with power rating 100 will hit 125 homers
• a hitter nr.2 with power rating 80 will hit 64 homers
• a hitter nr.3 with power rating 60 will hit 27 homers

-> in one season they produce all together 216HRs.
If the cap is introduced to 100HRs in total then there are three (to simplify) possible outcomes:

• winner takes it all and as such the best hitter hits 100HRs others 0
• all hitters share the decrease in linear proportion: nr.1 hits 57; nr.2 hits 30; nr.3 hits 13
• decrease of the hits is based on the function: nr.1 hits 65; nr.2 hits 27; nr. 3 hits 8

You can play around with this concept by cranking up a new league in the base game, choose a year for totals and set your league total modifiers, then fire up the sim module and look at the resulting stats from that. Change league totals and/or modifiers, rinse and repeat, then compare results.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Stats are not "distributed" among hitters. Stats are created by the pairing of pitchers and hitters, with league average rates defined by the league totals.

This is the correct answer, and what I said about league totals falling between a range of X/Y is wrong. I don't know what crack I was smoking earlier but RonCo's statement here is correct, league average rates are defined by league totals.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Take two leagues with the same pitchers and ballpark factors. If one has all hitters with 120 Power and the other has all hitters with 80 power, they will still hit the same number of homeruns.

Assuming the league totals of each league are also the same, this is not true.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by SF Giants

Most certainly you are right that stats are created based on pairing pitchers and hitters. Yet, given your second reply, you aren't willing to understand what I am talking about.

I am understanding what you are talking about, but your assumptions are not correct.

Let me be more exemplary for you even though I already found the answer from data - if a cap is introduced into this equation

There is no cap. There are league totals by which league averages for various rates are calculated. These averages are then used in the clash between pitchers and hitters. It's like a gravity well rather than a cap.

and hitters face the same pitchers then the question is how it effects the output? E.g.:
//Power and HRs are distributed based on exponential function//

• a hitter nr.1 with power rating 100 will hit 125 homers
• a hitter nr.2 with power rating 80 will hit 64 homers
• a hitter nr.3 with power rating 60 will hit 27 homers

-> in one season they produce all together 216HRs.
If the cap is introduced to 100HRs in total then there are three (to simplify) possible outcomes:

• winner takes it all and as such the best hitter hits 100HRs others 0
• all hitters share the decrease in linear proportion: nr.1 hits 57; nr.2 hits 30; nr.3 hits 13
• decrease of the hits is based on the function: nr.1 hits 65; nr.2 hits 27; nr. 3 hits 8

Again, there is no "cap." If, however, you change league totals to reduce the likelihood of HR, then all hitters will be affected to that same degree.

A league will create stats based on the ratings of players in that league, the league totals, and the park factors they play in. Make every hitter a 200 power hitter in one league, and every hitter a 10 power hitter in another league (with the same pitchers, ballparks, and totals), and the home run output will be dramatically different.

Go find Bill James' old Log5 equations, and use the league's League Totals to calculate "average rates" and you will get the idea.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

It may be boring but a team full of aces in the rotation & the pen might produce different offensive numbers than in Major League Baseball where most teams have plenty of holes in both their rotation & their pen, ...& most sluggers take advantage of that.....moreso than the best contact hitters I'd guess.

Or...if it's impossible to say hit better than .250 off of Kevin Brown at his best, & a team could hit .310 against weak pitching...that's the same as a slugger who usually hits 31 home runs being limited to 25. Or is it? We don't know. ...Do we?

did you see my previous comment where I looked at Barry Bonds production vs. the elite pitchers of his era?

[RonCo]

Similarly, drop all park factors from 1.00 (or whatever) to 0.001, and you will have almost no home runs, regardless of what your league totals are.

[Syd Thrift]

In the actual game, and I assume this is the case for PT as well, it does 3 sims of the league, adjusting the league totals modifiers each time to triangulate it closer to the overall averages it's looking for. So, if you start a league where everyone has 120 Power, have the game adjust the LTMs, and then play out a season, then yes, you'll wind up with exactly as many HRs as a league where everyone has 80 Power. What RonCo is saying is that the only reason why this is the case is that the LTMs were adjusted. If you don't run those, the league does... whatever the modifiers that are there right now, plus the park factors, plus the pitcher and hitter ratings, plus everything else.

And yeah, there is absolutely no "cap". Another way you can see this is if you were to set up a league, bench all your high-Power players in place of low-Power guys when your league simulates (this happens during the sim before Opening Day) and then put the power hitters back in your lineups. Because the LTMs didn't take those players into account your league totals will skyrocket (and those hitters will probably have way outsized HR totals, especially if you're running, for instance, a historical league in the early 1920s).

[RonCo]

Here is a 12-year-old post that gets into the guts of league totals (and even includes a specific calculation of HR rates for individual at bats that is representative of SF Giant's question). If you can follow it, you'll understand what I mean when I say stats are not capped, but are somewhat anchored by the league totals.

And, yes, I'm of the belief that Syd is right when he says the PT game most likely does a few trial sims to get an idea of what "league average" is, and then attempts to make adjustments to the league totals that will result in the league in question (with all it's ratings) will result in stats output that is close.

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...Aramis+Ramirez

[QuantaCondor]

This is really interesting. I wonder if a few collaborating players could shift the entire balance of the effectiveness of POW or EYE or whatever in, say, PL, by rostering something crazy before placement and then rolling out the proper team after the first sim.

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

If you insist on bringing it back to real baseball and not talking about game design, here's some interesting info: https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players...r&type=Batting

Here are some of Bonds's OBPs versus various elite pitchers of his era:

- Maddux: .370
- R. Johnson: .452
- Glavine: .442
- Schilling: .410
- Gooden: .440
- Smoltz: .467
- K. Brown: .483
- Martinez: .448
- Saberhagen: .429

But do go on about how his skill set doesn't translate against elite pitching.

OK, the game is not perfect. Maybe it's a wording problem: Perfect Team. Because otherwise, wouldn't you wait until you had pretty sure slam dunk ideas for improvements if you're not a developer? I pay a sort of lackadaizical attention to the sims but I base gameplay based on being very attentive to real Major League Baseball...and the game is amazing that way just as it is at simulating possibilities in a real professional baseball game...I don't pick at every detail but what I wouldn't do...is play the game if it didn't closely resemble real-life results...in paying close attention to Major League Baseball, I'm constantly surprised by outcomes, but can sometimes guess what will happen in a given match-up. OOTP is a bit different but it simulates the real thing to the point I don't have anymore than a complain about Shoeless Joe Jackson & Lou Gehrig striking out too much regarding my team.

I can see what you're saying about Bonds, maybe, but do you have his HR numbers against elite pitchers? OK, if they are spectacular as well, I have 2 more things: Bonds was a great hitter, not just an all or nothing guy like Dave Kingman. Kingman, when he did hit the ball, could hit the ball as far as anyone but often could not hit it at all...I have to guess these were the toughest pitches to hit & normally from the toughest pitchers. 2 is just kind of a sidenote & it's that my memories of Bonds are him coming up in the playoffs against Bobby Jones and John Franco and NOT coming through when the Giants needed him. I could swear he was a better player as a young Pirate sometimes...

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

did you see my previous comment where I looked at Barry Bonds production vs. the elite pitchers of his era?

The one warning here is that at the sample sizes of single hitter to single pitcher, one always questions significance. If you scan through Bonds' career numbers you can find great pitchers he hit well, and poor pitchers he didn't hit at all. If the game engine is properly random you will see that happen...which you do.

[chazzycat]

Agreed. That's why I was trying to stay focused on discussing this from a game design point of view, not get drawn into real baseball arguments. But I couldn't resist responding.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Agreed. That's why I was trying to stay focused on discussing this from a game design point of view, not get drawn into real baseball arguments. But I couldn't resist responding.

Well, yeah. That's good.

But do try to remember that the whole point of the game design is that the game should represent "real" baseball well enough that general baseball knowledge is enough to compete well.

One of the issues with these "All-Star/Multiple-Era" kinds of games, however, is that there is no "real." Every era is different, sometimes dramatically so. Would Barry Bonds have been able to hit the spitball? Maybe. Except, of course, socially he wouldn't have been allowed to so we really have no idea what the stats output of a game environment of that era would be if all the best players had been allowed to compete. Would Josh Gibson have bested Babe Ruth? If Ruth played today, would he even be able to compete at that body type? How fast were pitchers of his day? Could he catch up to a steady stream of 99 MPH pitchers who are learning rapidly with advanced science at their backs? Who knows? But the game serves to create this "what if" scenario in which there literally is no "real" to compare with beyond our own imaginations--of which there is no common consensus.