I noticed something when upgrading players

[Shadowz]

The developers are full of it. I agree with the person who started this thread. It happens every single time I buy a new player during the season. They completely suck and most of the time don't live up to potential in their first season. Half the time I leave them on the bench until the next season. This is in no way trolling, but when so many people post the same thing over an over it proves that it is true. This game is terribly unbalanced and almost unplayable. Most of it is random crap, especially the playoffs. I hope people keep coming on here and posting the truth about how unbalanced it is.

[joehart]

I added two better players towards the end of last season to my lineup and they delivered great results right away.

So my results are the exact opposite of the original poster (2-0 for better high end players).

It would be interesting to see valid statistical data for MLB that shows how new players perform in their first month or two on a new team. Or how they perform when also asked to learn a new position. Does learning a new position impact their hitting (...some mental aspect of the game) for a few month?

I just don’t see the developers add code that makes lower level players start hot while better rated cards start out cold.
If it was indeed true, why are we not seeing lots of championship winners that add bronze/silver players right near the playoffs?
Feel free to try...and share your playoff results.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

This is in no way trolling, but when so many people post the same thing over an over it proves that it is true.

Do you realize that at one time everyone agreed that the Earth was flat? Hearing the same thing over and over does not make it true. It just means that multiple people are making the same error.

[X3NEIZE]

Honestly, every upgrade I have ever made had a positive if not a game changing impact.... and I made a few!

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

The developers are full of it. I agree with the person who started this thread. It happens every single time I buy a new player during the season. They completely suck and most of the time don't live up to potential in their first season. Half the time I leave them on the bench until the next season. This is in no way trolling, but when so many people post the same thing over an over it proves that it is true. This game is terribly unbalanced and almost unplayable. Most of it is random crap, especially the playoffs. I hope people keep coming on here and posting the truth about how unbalanced it is.

Just the fact you won't let it go and entice others to do the same is, by definition, trolling my friend. If you think the game stinks, leave. It's that simple. There's things about the game I don't like either, but I'm not trying to start a riot about it.

[BMW]

I went back and looked at my OOTP20 team, and I see no pattern. About half the guys I buy mid-season meet or exceed my expectations that first year, about half don't.

[Findest2001]

Originally Posted by BMW

I went back and looked at my OOTP20 team, and I see no pattern. About half the guys I buy mid-season meet or exceed my expectations that first year, about half don't.

I'm not talking about even a full or half year. It's roughly 20 games after buying a card. Sometimes they get to -1.2 or -1.4 WAR before turning it around...

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Findest2001

I'm not talking about even a full or half year. It's roughly 20 games after buying a card. Sometimes they get to -1.2 or -1.4 WAR before turning it around...

That's something that is going to be very hard to research. The game doesn't keep stats of 20 game periods for past seasons.

I can find a few guys on my team that I bought at the tail end of a year that would qualify though, because I bought them very late at the season's end (all at the Gold level unless noted).

Rick Reuschel, 6 starts at the end of 2027: 0.4 WAR
Rob Dibble, 11 games at the end of 2026: 0.3 WAR
Dan Plesac, 16 games at the end of 2019: -0.2 WAR (Silver)
Jim Bottomley, 22 PA at the end of 2024: 0.1 WAR
Lance Johnson, 100 PA at the end of 2024: 1.3 WAR
Kal Daniels, 81 PA at the end of 2019: 0.0 WAR (Silver)

Think of what WAR is in this game. In reality, it's Wins Above Replacement Level. Replacement Level in PT is All-Star or MVP performance. Now the stat isn't calculated differently because of it, but the results that make up WAR sure are altered, when virtually (if not literally) every player you face is going to be an All Star, Cy Young, MVP or Hall of Famer.

So sure, any bad stretch by a Hall of Fame player who is playing solely against other Hall-of-Fame caliber players is certainly going to look like he's Steve Trout instead of Mike Trout.

I don't see why players would have a larger chance of being bad their first 20-ish games unless they entered the games with Rust (which is a mechanic in the regular game). You would have to ask the developers if Rust is turned off for PT. It only accumulates in the regular game after months of non-use (like the offseason, or injuries) - and it certainly doesn't exist when a player is first created (if you pull a card from a pack and play it, that card I would imagine is effectively just spawned into existence.

[TroyF]

The two greatest pack pulls Ive had were both in the last couple of weeks. A 98 Randy Johnson in 20 and a perfect Mays in 19. Both started in bronze. Randy had a 7.88 ERA after 5 starts.

Mays hit 5 HR in his first 8 games. I think it is just confirmation bias.Baseball is a game of large sample sizes, not small ones. In a 20 game stretch, there will certainly be players who suck.

[Findest2001]

Originally Posted by TroyF

The two greatest pack pulls Ive had were both in the last couple of weeks. A 98 Randy Johnson in 20 and a perfect Mays in 19. Both started in bronze. Randy had a 7.88 ERA after 5 starts.

Mays hit 5 HR in his first 8 games. I think it is just confirmation bias.Baseball is a game of large sample sizes, not small ones. In a 20 game stretch, there will certainly be players who suck.

I finally bought a diamond Kiner, and he performed well in the first few games, so hopefully it has merely been an aberration. I mainly posted the thread because what I was noticing is that somewhere around the 75OVR mark there was a clear divide. Above that line they would play terrible (and I mean God-awful, doubling their average would almost get them to the Mendoza line, dumpster-fire terrible) for 20-ish games, and below that line they would play like the golds and diamonds should. Granted, they eventually reverted to the mean, but initially it was causing me to jump ship on investments early. They were so bad the one player was actually causing losing streaks.
Nonetheless, hopefully the Kiner will stop the streak so to speak. All I can do is keep my eyes open to confirm it was just a strange, random chance kind of thing.

[Argonaut]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Do you realize that at one time everyone agreed that the Earth was flat? Hearing the same thing over and over does not make it true. It just means that multiple people are making the same error.

Ironically, this too is an error that multiple people make.

There was never any common held belief that the earth was flat, at least since the time of the Ancient Greeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

I saw some dumb movie that Columbus was trying to explain to people and prove that the earth was round. Boy did that ever grind my gears.

BTW, in terms of this thread... I've also seen lots of cards put up big numbers in the first few games after adding them. So it all evens out.

[X3NEIZE]

I don't see this being an issue at all.... my latest addition, joined a couple of games into the season:



Clearly not slumping....

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by Findest2001

First off I'm not complaining. I've come to accept this is the way it is, but I'm curious if I'm the only one who experiences this.

Whenever I replace/upgrade a roster spot, if the replacement is a silver or higher, they automatically do TERRIBLE for anywhere from 5-10 games before playing like a card of that caliber should. However, when I put an iron or bronze card in as a replacement/improvement, they perform pretty impressively for maybe a month before their performance tapers off to the appropriate numbers.

Is there some "comfort factor" inherent within the game? I remember someone in PT19 saying that when you don't mess with a roster its almost as if the players get "comfortable" with one another and play commensurate with their abilities.

My statement applies to literally ALL roster improvements. Pitchers, catchers, position players. Even when it's a very solid diamond card they play god awful for a week or more before getting in the "groove" so to speak.

Anyone else?

There are easily hundreds of factors that are taken into consideration when determining why a player performs well or not. A comfort factor is not one of them. Joehart has done a great job of covering a small sample earlier in this thread.

[Findest2001]

Originally Posted by pappyzan

There are easily hundreds of factors that are taken into consideration when determining why a player performs well or not. A comfort factor is not one of them. Joehart has done a great job of covering a small sample earlier in this thread.

When it happens to darn near every player I buy or rip over a particular OVR threshold, it's not so small anymore. I understand small samples within an individual analysis of a specific player. Even over multiple players. I'm talking about (I admit I never counted so it's a rough guess at best) possibly 100 or more players over 15+ seasons. That's not a small sample.

But, as has been stated previously in the thread it's possible it was confirmation bias once I realized the pattern I was looking for it more intently. Nonetheless the last couple players I bough started average to above average based on their ratings vs my expectations, so it was either the aforementioned confirmation bias, or merely just an anomaly.

[Charlatan]

In the greater scheme of things that IS still a small sample. I mean, you could probably find examples of 100 players who were purchased and immediately did well on their new teams - I'll throw out my own anecdotes - I purchased Billy Williams, Cecil Cooper, and Kirby Puckett for my Motown team last year and they all hit like gangbusters. Maybe I said it here earlier but Cooper had a 21 game hitting streak after appearing in only 23 games, so he obviously got off to a great start.

Venusville purchased Jose Reyes for DH and he hit something like .350 for them in 50 games - he had I think 40 doubles in that span. So he did really well.

You need to understand there are thousands of teams and maybe ten-thousand players being purchased and deployed over a season. Out of that large number, some of them are going to do terribly, for sure. But others will do great. And maybe you're just a super unucky guy and the players you bought all did poorly - but I guarantee the results you're seeing are part of the overall spectrum of performance. Not to mention that there are a ton of factors here ... the player's cards, the level of competition, the random game generation ... heck, given the variance in baseball games you'd be hard pressed to get similar stats from two identical players, so you might even see Wade Boggs #1 do great and Wade Boggs #2 do poorly.

Go to one of your leagues and do the "Player Comparison" - scroll through the league and you'll notice a number of the same players. If you check 2 or 3 or 4 of the same card in any league, some will be doing great and some will be doing badly. It's all random variance. If you think card performance is guaranteed and you get disappointed because it doesn't live up to your expectations, well then you're in for a lot of disappointment.

[Findest2001]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

It's all random variance. If you think card performance is guaranteed and you get disappointed because it doesn't live up to your expectations, well then you're in for a lot of disappointment.

Fair enough. I'm not disappointed as much as I am curious. It seemed very odd without the inclusion of a "rust" or "morale" factor. Some on the PT19 boards have even theorized about how players tend to do better if you just let them play and don't mess with a roster too much. I don't confirm or deny that as I honestly have no idea. Maybe even a "new guy" bias. I don't know. I'm just throwing ideas out. Nonetheless, as I stated I believe the anomaly has been figured out somehow. The last 3 diamonds I bought all hit like crazy. So even if the next 15 do terrible it doesn't mean there's anything wrong. It's just my luck, I guess.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by Findest2001

When it happens to darn near every player I buy or rip over a particular OVR threshold, it's not so small anymore. I understand small samples within an individual analysis of a specific player. Even over multiple players. I'm talking about (I admit I never counted so it's a rough guess at best) possibly 100 or more players over 15+ seasons. That's not a small sample.

No, no that's not at all what I'm talking about. Joehart has laid out in his posts a small sample of all the possible variables that can come into play to determine a card's success/failure. Many, many, many variables plus RNG play a role.

[Findest2001]

Originally Posted by pappyzan

No, no that's not at all what I'm talking about. Joehart has laid out in his posts a small sample of all the possible variables that can come into play to determine a card's success/failure. Many, many, many variables plus RNG play a role.

Ahh. Apologies for my terrible misunderstanding of that. Thanks for the explanation.

[GlassGuyBob]

I tinker a great deal with my 3 teams and it really goes both ways. Players will start ice cold or red hot. Seems random to me. Occasionally it will feel like my moves aren't working out because I get poor performances. Other times it seems like I'm pushing all the right buttons.

I opened a Perfect Lee Smith and he got BOMBED right away and for weeks. I opened a John Henry Lloyd and he hit nearly .500 the first month I owned him.

Tinker enough and you'll realize that it is variance. If you flip coins over and over sometimes it might seem like there's a pattern, too.

[Orcin]

Well, I put my new perfect Boggs in and he went 0-4 in his first game. So I guess the OP is right here. I should probably sell the card quick.