For those who suspect the game secretly protects the HR record...

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I think I get it. Neutralization is the numbers a player's real life career would have produced in a neutral park. If in OOTP you put him in his historic park his rated performance matches historical, if in another park it doesn't.

So this leaves the question about what are real stats because to me yours are as real as it can get.

So this leads to my - perhaps elementary - question: How do I know if park factors are in play in my historic game? Are they, by default?

[Brad K]

I believe park factors are in play by default. How to confirm that I don't know.

I recall a mention of someone (perhaps Garlon) making a all neutral park factors file available to use if park factors are not wanted. To be sure check your file era_ballparks file in the database folder.

[Reed]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I think I get it. Neutralization is the numbers a player's real life career would have produced in a neutral park. If in OOTP you put him in his historic park his rated performance matches historical, if in another park it doesn't.

So this leaves the question about what are real stats because to me yours are as real as it can get.

From the manual
Real Stats: The "standard Lahman" option. Current player ratings will be assigned based on a player's historical statistics. So, in this case, a player who played in a hitter-friendly park throughout his career could end up with inflated ratings.
Neutralized Stats: The "Garlon and Spritze" option. Current player ratings will be assigned based on a player's neutralized statistics, giving perhaps the most accurate assessment of individual player ratings on an even playing field.

PS YouTube has video of Maris’s 61 homer. It was a pretty big deal at the time since he was chasing “The Babe’s” record. He was under a lot of pressure the last couple months of the season and started losing his hair. My 1st major league game was July 1961 WhiteSox vs Yankees and Maris did hit a homer to right field. I think he also had a triple and a single that game. White Sox we’re up by 4 runs but Yankees came back to win it by 1. When I was home with Covid I found a radio broadcast of the game on the internet and listened to it, that was fun. Yes I am old.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Reed

From the manual
Real Stats: The "standard Lahman" option. Current player ratings will be assigned based on a player's historical statistics. So, in this case, a player who played in a hitter-friendly park throughout his career could end up with inflated ratings.
Neutralized Stats: The "Garlon and Spritze" option. Current player ratings will be assigned based on a player's neutralized statistics, giving perhaps the most accurate assessment of individual player ratings on an even playing field.

PS YouTube has video of Maris’s 61 homer. It was a pretty big deal at the time since he was chasing “The Babe’s” record. He was under a lot of pressure the last couple months of the season and started losing his hair. My 1st major league game was July 1961 WhiteSox vs Yankees and Maris did hit a homer to right field. I think he also had a triple and a single that game. White Sox we’re up by 4 runs but Yankees came back to win it by 1. When I was home with Covid I found a radio broadcast of the game on the internet and listened to it, that was fun. Yes I am old.

If that's true then why does the game default to real stats? It doesn't seem that's what a historical player would want.

Interesting that you were able to find the Maris HR broadcasts. I like the Immaculate Reception much more than the Maz HR. But then I saw the IM on TV as it was happening, an experience my cousins who live in Pittsburgh did not have since the broadcast was blacked out there.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by Brad K

If that's true then why does the game default to real stats? It doesn't seem that's what a historical player would want.

In a game that has been adding options for 24 years, it becomes a whole other issue as to which should be defaulted and which should be optional. Personally, I'm satisfied the options exist - I simply have to understand which one does what.

[Reed]

Originally Posted by Brad K

If that's true then why does the game default to real stats? It doesn't seem that's what a historical player would want.

Interesting that you were able to find the Maris HR broadcasts. I like the Immaculate Reception much more than the Maz HR. But then I saw the IM on TV as it was happening, an experience my cousins who live in Pittsburgh did not have since the broadcast was blacked out there.

Just a guess but when OOTP was being developed, the real stats were more complete and readily available. The Garlon/Spritze neutralized stats came later. Until a few years ago, there were things in neutralized stats I didn’t like for example if a regular player missed a season IRL they (Spritze) would average out the before and after season and give the batter 250 ABs. Garlon has done a lot of work on it the past 2-4 years.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by Reed

Just a guess but when OOTP was being developed, the real stats were more complete and readily available. The Garlon/Spritze neutralized stats came later. Until a few years ago, there were things in neutralized stats I didnÂ’t like for example if a regular player missed a season IRL they (Spritze) would average out the before and after season and give the batter 250 AB. Garlon has done a lot of work on it the past 2-4 years.

Ironically, I regret the removal of this feature, especially given the minor impact the updated neutralization methodology has on ratings for the vast majority of players in the database. The bridge season fill-ins, however crudely constructed, offered more flexibility in dealing with the ramifications of the draconian (and especially crude) Adjust / Weaken operations.

No right answer, obviously. Rather another reality check to not presume my preferences are universal (regarding OOTP, or anything else).

[tayloraj]

The idea that the game somehow protects the HR records is diametrically opposed to my experience of 24 so far. I'm running a no-recalc, dev-on historical league and my league (started 1901, currently 1988) has had twelve 60+ homer seasons, two 70+ homer seasons, and one 87(!) homer season.

I don't know if I got a setting wrong somewhere, but I'm more or less ready to give up on this particular playthrough due to the crazy HR numbers.

[Brad K]

There was talk a couple of years ago about real stats being adjusted against something but I don't recall the details. I'll try to find it.

[Brad K]

Here we go. Garlon from

see post 73




The game will be using the park factors regardless of whether you select neutralized stats or real stats when you create the game. The difference is that with real stats an additional HR power reduction is applied to players so that single season HR totals are not too extreme.

[Garlon]

The new versions of the neutralized stats are better than they used to be. The old versions were last updated around OOTP10. Those older versions were quadratic run method neutralized stats. They put players into a neutral run scoring environment and formatted to 750 runs per team. The new version is park adjusted for BABIP, 2B, 3B, HR individually for RHB and LHB.

You can work around the gap seasons by using 5yr recalculate. I do this when unplayable and there are no issues.

[Brad K]

Clearly five year recalc reduces the chances of outliers on top of outliers. Do you consider three year recalc reasonably effective at doing this?

[jcard]

Originally Posted by Garlon

The new versions of the neutralized stats are better than they used to be. The old versions were last updated around OOTP10. Those older versions were quadratic run method neutralized stats. They put players into a neutral run scoring environment and formatted to 750 runs per team. The new version is park adjusted for BABIP, 2B, 3B, HR individually for RHB and LHB.

You can work around the gap seasons by using 5yr recalculate. I do this when unplayable and there are no issues.

Thank you for that. Yes, 5-year recalc was my presumed best option. Also, I hope my comment did not appear disparaging of your efforts. As I said, just preferences. Not to mention, it was your time and effort- and it is with reason he who pays the piper calls the tune.

[Garlon]

With 5yr try using 200/100 for batters and 50/25 for pitchers. You will get good results for 50hr seasons and 300 game winners and .400 batters.

[jcard]

I am not sure that protecting HR records is the proper frame here, though that may be an effect. It may be that for any season, OOTP forces the data as nearly as possible onto the same distribution. This would only really effect far outliers, whose deviation from the median in real life is greater than the maximum deviation on the distribution used by the game.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Here we go. Garlon from

see post 73

The game will be using the park factors regardless of whether you select neutralized stats or real stats when you create the game. The difference is that with real stats an additional HR power reduction is applied to players so that single season HR totals are not too extreme.

That's the add'l info that further complicates things. IOW, you can choose real stats, and then when go into the editor, you're not seeing real stats. And it's not just the HR totals that are not real. It's pretty much everything.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by thehef

That's the add'l info that further complicates things. IOW, you can choose real stats, and then when go into the editor, you're not seeing real stats. And it's not just the HR totals that are not real. It's pretty much everything.

Statz Whiz. Made with real stats like Cheez Whiz is made with real cheese. (10% as I recall.)