Ripken streak impossible?

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Hmmm, I don't think that's entirely true.

What majesty95 is saying is that the game should recognize consecutive-game streaks and try to preserve them if possible. It doesn't really matter if the player who has the streak is Cal Ripken or Bill Pipkin or whatever, it's that OOTP should take into account that players and managers alike tend to want to preserve long consecutive-game streaks. This isn't about replicating history, it's about reflecting the way that the game is actually played.

But the game is not played that way. In the nearly 150-year history of baseball, a streak like that has happened exactly twice. So like you yourself said above, these streaks are actually statistical impossibilities. If Markus & Co. start trying to code the game to create things that happen so rarely that we can call them statistical impossibilities, then we're going to end up with a streak like this happening often enough that we'll have complaints on the other end of the spectrum that they're happening too often to be realistic.

I can understand the argument that if you start a historical game in 1990, the game should recognize that Ripken's streak is already one of the five longest in MLB history and that the game should try to preserve it. OOTP isn't created to do that sort of thing, but I can understand completely why someone would want that.

But to suggest that when a player goes a few seasons without taking a game off, the game should immediately preserve that streak at all costs is just not realistic. Do you know what the 30th-longest games played streak in MLB history is? It's Hideki Matsui at 519 games. That's three seasons and 37 games. That's all. Only seven players have every played in more than 1,000 consecutive games. According to Baseball Reference, there have been 19,429 players in MLB history. That means 0.036 percent of players in MLB history have played in 1,000 straight games. I'm not sure something that happens that infrequently can be referred to as "the way that the game is actually played."

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Hmmm, I don't think that's entirely true.

What majesty95 is saying is that the game should recognize consecutive-game streaks and try to preserve them if possible. It doesn't really matter if the player who has the streak is Cal Ripken or Bill Pipkin or whatever, it's that OOTP should take into account that players and managers alike tend to want to preserve long consecutive-game streaks. This isn't about replicating history, it's about reflecting the way that the game is actually played.

I understand the logic of this statement and don't take fault with it generally. But I think the point is that this is not how the game is actually played given that streaks like this are so exceedingly rare that almost never would managerial decisions be made based upon such a thing. At what point does a consecutive games played streak reach the level where the player and management become so conscious of it that it starts to (probably unwisely) dictate managerial decisions?
I would have no problem with the game finding some tipping point where this became a factor and proceeding accordingly, in theory. If there was an easy way to code this that took very little of the developers time, fine. But I personally wouldn't want them spending any more than a minimal amount of time on something that is such an outlier and that I believe falls outside the purview of what the game is really for and about.
And then the question becomes, at what point does a streak stop being statistical noise and become actionable? I suspect that like most everything else, if a level is set to trigger managerial decision based upon an existing streak, there will be many who feel it is the incorrect level. Not that one shouldn't do something because there won't be general agreement. It just seems like an unnecessary opening of a can of worms to me.
And do players and managers tend to want to preserve long consecutive game streaks? In Cal Ripken's case, yes. And it is indicated above that there were times late in Gehrig's streak that the team probably took special measures to preserve it. Beyond those two, are there examples of teams factoring this in when making lineup/managerial decisions in the history of the game? There may be, this isn't a rhetorical question. I would be happy to be educated about this. But I can't think of any.


Edit: Or what BIG17EASY said better than me which I didn't see until after I had posted this.

[eldur00]

I think things that can be seen as statistical anomalies should be left alone. Would it be cool if Ripken's streak could be replicated ? Sure, but then how do you justify spending resources to develop code on something that is meant to barely never happen ? And just where do you draw the line ? It only has to happen one too many time for it to not feel special and feel broken instead.

I started an historical game in 1991 with the Montreal Expos. I'm just past the All-Star break right now. In this game...

-Charlie Hough has already announced he's retiring, meaning he won't be available in the Expansion draft for the Marlins when they show up. Maybe OOTP should recognize that his longevity made it possible for Florida fans to be introduced to the knuckleball ;

-Craig Biggio will probably remain a catcher his entire career. Maybe OOTP should fix the code so that catchers can turn into 2B to recognize the fact it has happened with Biggio, despite how rare it is. I mean, who wouldn't like to have Piazza's bat at 2B...

-Jeff Fassero probably will remain a RP his entire career because he won't get the boost to Stamina he would need to be a SP.

My examples are not exactly the same, but they all meet the Ripken's streak at one common denominator - they would be almost impossible to code perfectly and have those occurrences happen at just the right rarity because Cal's streak and many other things happened not because of regular play (like hitting a carousel for example), but because of conscious decisions human beings made. We are not, in 2019, in a year where A.I. is capable of acting like a human being, and that much needs to be understood when playing a sim...you will always be limited by the A.I, because as much as one might dislike the answer, an A.I reads strings of Zeroes and Ones and give results depending on those readings.

Of course, code could be implemented to make it so that if it reads so many strings of Zeroes and Ones, then it means Cal's streak stays alive. And then it happens with John Olerud. And then with Ivan Calderon. And then with Craig Counsell. And then with Jose Bautista. And then it's not special anymore.

There are things that are better left for the commish role. Keeping Cal's streak going might be one of them.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

But the game is not played that way. In the nearly 150-year history of baseball, a streak like that has happened exactly twice. So like you yourself said above, these streaks are actually statistical impossibilities. If Markus & Co. start trying to code the game to create things that happen so rarely that we can call them statistical impossibilities, then we're going to end up with a streak like this happening often enough that we'll have complaints on the other end of the spectrum that they're happening too often to be realistic.

I'm not a programmer, but I would think there should be some way that the game can distinguish between a player who has played 1000 consecutive games and a player who has played 100 consecutive games. The former is a streak that the game should recognize as significant and should seek to preserve. The latter is not.

You mention the seven streaks of 1000 games or more. In each of those cases, the player was aware of the streak and sought to prolong it. So it does happen, and it's not random. The game should probably take that into account.

Do you want an example of a streak that was random? In 1892 Walter "Steve" Brodie had a streak of 574 consecutive games, which was just three games shy of tying the record at that time. So how did his streak end? He missed the final game of the 1892 season because he wanted to get back home early. Seriously. My guess is that he had no idea that he was close to setting the record - I'm not even sure if the guy who set the record (the immortal George Pinkney) was aware that he set the record.

So shorter streaks can, in effect, arise by chance. They're a result of being a good player who avoids injury over a long stretch of time. Nevertheless, there does comes a point at which there's a conscious effort by the player and his manager(s) to preserve that streak. What that tipping point is I don't know. It would make for an interesting study. But I suppose I have more confidence in the developers that they can make a distinction between an impressive streak that arises from chance and a truly epic one that is intentionally prolonged and program the AI accordingly.

[saturn2187]

Originally Posted by majesty95

You guys are kind of missing the point. Cal is not being seated because of injury. That I could deal with. They have ZERO recognition of the streak that was already started when the game began (7 years into it). So they are resting him by choice. That is my issue. That the game is ending the streak for no good reason other than it treats him as just a regular player

Ripken is just a number to the game.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

And do players and managers tend to want to preserve long consecutive game streaks? In Cal Ripken's case, yes. And it is indicated above that there were times late in Gehrig's streak that the team probably took special measures to preserve it. Beyond those two, are there examples of teams factoring this in when making lineup/managerial decisions in the history of the game? There may be, this isn't a rhetorical question. I would be happy to be educated about this. But I can't think of any.

I'd say that anyone who has a streak of 1000 or more consecutive games is absolutely conscious of the streak and seeks, by whatever means and with the complicity of his manager(s), to extend that streak. I remember when Billy Williams's streak ended - that was a big deal, because it was the NL record at the time. Ditto for Steve Garvey's streak.

The first person who probably was conscious of his streak was Everett Scott. His streak started in 1916, and his 1317 consecutive games is still the third-longest, behind Ripken and Gehrig. He knew he set the record, and he was on hand to witness Gehrig when the Yankee first baseman broke that record.

I'm not sure how much line-up juggling was done to keep these streaks going. If you look at the top 30 streaks, all of the players were above-average (9 are in the HOF), so there was always a good reason, apart from the streak, why they were in the line-up every day. It's not like Byron Buxton is going to be a threat to Ripken's record. With Williams and Garvey, for instance, not only were they very good players, but there was nobody better on the bench. It took injuries to get those guys out of the line-up.

As I mentioned above, I'm not sure where the tipping point is between an impressive streak and a great, potentially record-breaking streak. 1000 games might be the cut-off, but I'm sure good arguments can be made for other points. Just because it would be hard to draw the line, though, doesn't mean that it can't be done or that the developers shouldn't give it some thought. After all, the game already recognizes records and prolongs players careers so that they can achieve them. The AI, for instance, won't ordinarily retire a player who has 497 career home runs or 497 career wins. Those players typically hang around, waiting to get that milestone, until they're in their mid-40s. If the game can recognize those kinds of personal achievements, maybe it's not such a stretch to have the game recognize long consecutive-game streaks as well.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

I'm not a programmer, but I would think there should be some way that the game can distinguish between a player who has played 1000 consecutive games and a player who has played 100 consecutive games. The former is a streak that the game should recognize as significant and should seek to preserve. The latter is not.

You mention the seven streaks of 1000 games or more. In each of those cases, the player was aware of the streak and sought to prolong it. So it does happen, and it's not random. The game should probably take that into account.

Do you want an example of a streak that was random? In 1892 Walter "Steve" Brodie had a streak of 574 consecutive games, which was just three games shy of tying the record at that time. So how did his streak end? He missed the final game of the 1892 season because he wanted to get back home early. Seriously. My guess is that he had no idea that he was close to setting the record - I'm not even sure if the guy who set the record (the immortal George Pinkney) was aware that he set the record.

So shorter streaks can, in effect, arise by chance. They're a result of being a good player who avoids injury over a long stretch of time. Nevertheless, there does comes a point at which there's a conscious effort by the player and his manager(s) to preserve that streak. What that tipping point is I don't know. It would make for an interesting study. But I suppose I have more confidence in the developers that they can make a distinction between an impressive streak that arises from chance and a truly epic one that is intentionally prolonged and program the AI accordingly.

I'm not sure I posted anything that counters what you've said here. I wasn't talking about anything random. The long streaks are the exact opposite of random -- the player and team worked together to extend them. There's nothing random about that. If you want the game to take into account these streaks when you start a historical game, I won't argue that. There's a feature request thread for OOTP 20 where it can be posted and the devs will see it and possibly give their feedback.

As far as the devs programming the AI to recognize a "truly epic" streak, I'm not sure I agree with you. Again, I'm not a software programmer, but the AI is programmed to do what it thinks is best to win baseball games. As soon as something like this happens, where the AI would be purposely choosing an action that goes against that logic, it could introduce some problems. At the very least, we'll have users complaining that their star shortstop was in the lineup despite being fatigued because the AI was preserving a consecutive games streak, but ended up with a long-term injury in that game. Even if playing while fatigued didn't cause the injury, that's the conclusion people will come to.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

As far as the devs programming the AI to recognize a "truly epic" streak, I'm not sure I agree with you. Again, I'm not a software programmer, but the AI is programmed to do what it thinks is best to win baseball games.

I don't think that's always true. I gave one example above, where the AI won't retire a player who is close to a personal milestone. Another example is where a pitcher is pitching a no-hitter. The AI won't take that pitcher out of the game, even if he's tired. That's an example where the AI is not doing what's best to win the game.

So it's possible to factor in personal achievements, and those achievements sometimes override the AI's "prime directive" to win ballgames. How much programming would it take to recognize long consecutive-game streaks? I have no clue, but I think it's an option worth investigating.

[actionjackson]

Here's my Cal Ripken from a long running OOTP16 game. 3,020 games vs 3,001 IRL. It took him longer to get there, but he got there. His stats are pretty comparable to RL too. Not an exact replica, but a force to be sure. Quite easily the best SS in the 63 year history of this game.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

I don't think that's always true. I gave one example above, where the AI won't retire a player who is close to a personal milestone. Another example is where a pitcher is pitching a no-hitter. The AI won't take that pitcher out of the game, even if he's tired. That's an example where the AI is not doing what's best to win the game.

So it's possible to factor in personal achievements, and those achievements sometimes override the AI's "prime directive" to win ballgames. How much programming would it take to recognize long consecutive-game streaks? I have no clue, but I think it's an option worth investigating.

I haven't seen that with no-hitters. But I have pitch limits set in the player strategy screens for my pitchers, so that may be why. I'd also argue that the AI shouldn't do that because it's not true to life.

And I'm not sure the no-hitter example applies because they happen much more frequently (multiple times per season) then a consecutive games streak of any significance (less than 10 times in 150 years). And that's in-game logic vs. lineup/roster logic. But we can agree to disagree on the topic.

EDIT TO ADD/ASK: Do you know (or does anyone else know) if the game even tracks consecutive games played? It's been months since I looked at the area of the stats where current streaks are listed. If not, then the first step would need to be to just get the game to recognize the streak.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

EDIT TO ADD/ASK: Do you know (or does anyone else know) if the game even tracks consecutive games played? It's been months since I looked at the area of the stats where current streaks are listed. If not, then the first step would need to be to just get the game to recognize the streak.

Unless it's hiding it, the game doesn't track games played streaks. The game has tracked certain streaks (hits, homers, wins, etc.) for a very long time, and I am not sure the set of things it tracks has changed in any way.

All the streaks that it tracks are based on a player's performance in-game. This would be the first streak that would have to track what the player did when the player wasn't in the lineup. Would be interesting how you would even tackle complex things like:

• Being sent to the minors.
• Being designated for assignment.
• Being released.
• Being traded.
• If you're the manager and someone is at 1500 consecutive games and you bench him, do you get fired?
• Does the team take a popularity hit if a player with such streak is ended by manager's choice before the fans want it to be ended?
• How poorly does a player need to play before the manager / team / fans think it is justified to end the streak by manager's choice?
• Does the player revolt on the team (ask to be traded, extreme personality downgrades) if his streak is ended by manager's choice before he wants it to be ended?

If these seem like silly questions because "of course Ripken / Gehrig wouldn't be sent to the minors, released, traded, etc.", the point being is that you shouldn't be hard-coding the game to recognize who Cal Ripken Jr. is or who Lou Gehrig is. It needs to be coded so it works with the infinite possible permutations of all the historical and fictional leagues that people play.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by BMW

Unless it's hiding it, the game doesn't track games played streaks. The game has tracked certain streaks (hits, homers, wins, etc.) for a very long time, and I am not sure the set of things it tracks has changed in any way.

All the streaks that it tracks are based on a player's performance in-game. This would be the first streak that would have to track what the player did when the player wasn't in the lineup. Would be interesting how you would even tackle complex things like:
Being sent to the minors.
Being designated for assignment.
Being released.
Being traded.

That's what I suspected. I think it's been cleaned up in recent versions, but I know there used to be some wonky-ness when it came to tracking hitting streaks across seasons or when a player was demoted and then recalled. So it may be a case where tracking a consecutive games played streak isn't a simple thing on its own, let alone programming the AI to take specific actions if that streak reached a certain threshold. The devs can't be asked to program the AI to do that if it can't be guaranteed that the streak is tracked properly.

[BMW]

I expanded the list of complex things to consider like:

• Being sent to the minors.
• Being designated for assignment.
• Being released.
• Being traded.
• If you're the manager and someone is at 1500 consecutive games and you bench him, do you get fired?
• Does the team take a popularity hit if a player with such streak is ended by manager's choice before the fans want it to be ended?
• How poorly does a player need to play before the manager / team / fans think it is justified to end the streak by manager's choice?
• Does the player revolt on the team (ask to be traded, extreme personality downgrades) if his streak is ended by manager's choice before he wants it to be ended?

If these seem like silly questions because "of course Ripken / Gehrig wouldn't be sent to the minors, released, traded, etc.", the point being is that you shouldn't be hard-coding the game to recognize who Cal Ripken Jr. is or who Lou Gehrig is. It needs to be coded so it works with the infinite possible permutations of all the historical and fictional leagues that people play.

[wallewalls]

It's been said before but when you start a new game, even a historical one, once you press "advance day" for the first time, the game becomes a fictional one. maybe you can create a backstory or something for why ripken might have missed a game. maybe he overslept and missed the game, maybe the manager is benching him for something he did off the field, maybe he wanted to attend a school function for one of his kids or literally anything else you can think of.

also, if you start a historical game in say, 1987, does that mean that the red sox and cubs should not win the world series until 2004 and 2016 respectively? those were pretty notable streaks too

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

I haven't seen that with no-hitters. But I have pitch limits set in the player strategy screens for my pitchers, so that may be why. I'd also argue that the AI shouldn't do that because it's not true to life.

Really???

[Drstrangelove]

In a league I simmed out 21 years, I had 2 batters retire with 746 and 742 homers respectively, each finishing less than half a season away from what was still the record. One player hit 28 HR (152 games, 116 OPS+) his last year. The other hit 36 HR (142 games, 104 OPS+) his last year. The AI chose to retire them.


One of the players incidentally, had 12 consecutive 162 game seasons sandwiched between two 160 game seasons. No game logs, but it's possible he played as many as 2,264 games played in a row.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Really???

You've never seen a team pull a pitcher with a no-hitter going? The Dodgers had a no-hitter last year where they used FOUR pitchers. So yes, it's unrealistic for the AI to always leave a pitcher in with a no-hitter.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

You've never seen a team pull a pitcher with a no-hitter going? The Dodgers had a no-hitter last year where they used FOUR pitchers. So yes, it's unrealistic for the AI to always leave a pitcher in with a no-hitter.

Well, you're moving the goalposts there. First you said that it was unrealistic for the AI to keep pitchers in the game if they were throwing a no-hitter. Now you're saying that it's unrealistic for the AI always to leave the pitcher in the game. But OOTP does pull the pitcher in certain rare circumstances, so you're swinging at a strawman here.

That combined no-hitter you're talking about was the result of a starting pitcher coming off of Tommy John surgery who was on a strict pitch-count. Was that typical? Well, it was the first combined no-hitter in Dodgers' franchise history, stretching back over 100 years, and only the twelfth combined no-hitter in MLB history. So it was even rarer than someone playing in over 600 consecutive games.

You apparently want the AI to handle this incredibly rare situation accurately. So do I. But then I'd also like to see the AI handle long consecutive-game streaks accurately, which you say is too rare for the developers to bother with, even though they're not as rare as combined no-hitters

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Well, you're moving the goalposts there. First you said that it was unrealistic for the AI to keep pitchers in the game if they were throwing a no-hitter. Now you're saying that it's unrealistic for the AI always to leave the pitcher in the game. But OOTP does pull the pitcher in certain rare circumstances, so you're swinging at a strawman here.

That combined no-hitter you're talking about was the result of a starting pitcher coming off of Tommy John surgery who was on a strict pitch-count. Was that typical? Well, it was the first combined no-hitter in Dodgers' franchise history, stretching back over 100 years, and only the twelfth combined no-hitter in MLB history. So it was even rarer than someone playing in over 600 consecutive games.

Like I said before, I don't have experience with OOTP leaving pitchers in because I use pitch counts. So I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that you were saying that the AI always leaves a pitcher with a no-hitter in the game. If that's not the case, then disregard what I wrote.

But I will point out that while there have been only 12 combined no-nos, there are other instances of a pitcher being taken out and then the reliever giving up a hit. I'm not saying there's a lot of them, but there are some. So if the AI is, in fact, always leaving a pitcher in the game with a no-hitter (when the user doesn't have a pitch limit set), then I stand by my comment that it's not realistic. And unless the AI is recognizing when a pitcher is returning from injury, then it doesn't matter why Walker Buehler was pulled in that real-life example, only that it happened.

And this doesn't even factor in the minor leagues, where this type of thing happens much more regularly because of the suppression of pitch counts for young pitchers. So unless OOTP has different in-game AI logic between the minors and majors, there's one more reason the AI shouldn't always be leaving a pitcher in with a no-hitter going.

(Again, if I'm incorrectly assuming that you're saying that the AI always does this, then just ignore my blabbering.)

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

You apparently want the AI to handle this incredibly rare situation accurately. So do I. But then I'd also like to see the AI handle long consecutive-game streaks accurately, which you say is too rare for the developers to bother with, even though they're not as rare as combined no-hitters

As far as this part of your post, I do want both handled realistically. When talking about consecutive games, you yourself said that many of the streaks that rank in the top 30 happened by accident and even gave an example of one that ended just shy of breaking the record because a player wanted to go home. So how does the dev team code the AI to behave "realistically" when history shows that the way consecutive games streaks are handled varies widely? They can't, because there's no real-life logic, so letting each situation play out "organically" is the only way to allow that to happen. Perhaps there's a way to get the game to produce more streaks that range from 200-500 games, but to suggest that once a player reaches a streak of X, then he should never be removed from the lineup except for injury is going to produce unrealistic results.

Plus, we're beating each other up over something the game doesn't even track right now, as discussed above.

[KGAGE]

If the game does not track\notice something (such as consecutive game streak), there is no way for the AI manager to notice it either.

This basically comes down to a discussion of what the game can/should track. If the game is tracking it, it usually reacts to it in some way.

Cal Ripkin played 8,264 consecutive innings (besting George Pinkney’s mark of 5,152 from 1885-1890) which is not nearly was well known as his consecutive game streak basically because baseball fans have decided to track the game streak over the inning streak.