Stats only

[pitch62]

Thinking about playing stats only. looking for some insight as to how your playing stats only and if it's worth it.

[Hrycaj]

Semi-Stats only is my preferred way to play OOTP. (I leave "other ratings" on set to a 20-80 scale). Here are a few things I personally like about it:

It really makes me pay closer attention to everything in my organization. Ratings in my opinion make the game harder for me. I say this because I ignore the numbers at times because the ratings say for player ____ tell me he is supposed to be good. It also hampers my transactions. I'm less willing to move pieces because of the ratings. So the fog of war actually helps me because I'm not locked in on a rating, I'm simply using the numbers to make decisions. I'm looking at those stats in low A ball to determine if that player needs to move up a level or if he is simply on a hot streak as opposed to saying well his contact is at 50 time to move him up to AAA even though he is hitting a .135 in AA.

[NoOne]

stats are caused by ratings. so ratings are clearer (normal accuracy settings). stats have a lag time and more factors to consider as to why they may be off.

it will take more time to know if a player is good or not. you will be fooled by 1 year wonders, because there's not much else to go by if they have an amazing year early on. more uncertainty, more volatility in what hte numbers tell you compared to ratings.

you'll make all the same decisions based on the same factors, just with less certainty in the information that you have.

imo, it's closer to reality, but it's still off. when you look at a 5'10" guy and then look at a 6'5" behemoth, you have a good idea of relative strength... now, that doesn't translate perfectly in the field, but it's a strong correlation nonetheless.

my point is that it shouldn't be as clear as ratings, but it also shouldnt be completely void of common sense observations that can be made by looking at the players.

i've never played stats only.. i'd definitely wouldleave the speed stuff on if that's the "other" category. anyone with a stopwatch can measure that objectively. again, with defense it shouldn't be perfect, but you can still measure how fast someone reacts and what kind of routes they run to the ball. measuring inefficiency isn't difficult. we can know the players defense fairly well with a little observation.

imo, just crank up inaccuracy of ratings. stick to stats as you intended to for a stats-only run. you'll need them. the ratings will be a crapshoot, i bet. that'll be similar to RL. it won't be much different from stats only and you get some common sense with some players. the rest you need to work harder to guesstimate their skill from stats.

oh, and just forget about the minors. stats don't translate for a plethora of reasons. you'll have absolutely no idea who is good or not from their stats... very mediocre players can look good at any level of the minors... less so at AAA, but still there too.

it's those contexts that i don't like stats only because it removes all skill and turns it into a crapshoot. no skill because the info you have is so inaccurate and imprecise. not much of a %-success difference if you just picked a # out of a hat.

you won't know what you have in any way until they get 2-3 years in mlb, assuming they were fully developed, if not tack on 2-3 more years. a guy can hit 30hr at AA and then be a sub 1/2 scale power guy... that's what mil stats tell you... how they are relative to other very lowly rated palyers... it doesn't take any real potential to have more current ability while less than fully developed... more so at lower levels, of course.

now, that isn't an argument against it... it's just reality of the situation. what onen person find fun is upto them, lol. i just find it frustrating when i have no real way of influencing outcome beyond a fraction of a %.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by NoOne

oh, and just forget about the minors. stats don't translate for a plethora of reasons. you'll have absolutely no idea who is good or not from their stats... very mediocre players can look good at any level of the minors... less so at AAA, but still there too.

This is what people used to say about real life baseball, too. It's not true. My impressions are not going to be exact, and there are some AAA players who will have a big year and possibly fool you, just like there are major leaguers who will do the same thing.

But in general you can tell who is going to be good or what someone's capabilities are. Age is an important factor just like RL. Control of the strike zone, both as a hitter and a pitcher, gives you a good clue on if they can handle the next level. And of course you have to look at their stats relative to the league they're playing in. Pitchers might be thrown off because you have guys learning positions behind them, or players back there who wouldn't be good enough defensively to play in the majors. It's less about literal stats and more about things like OPS+ and ERA+ and FIP.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

This is what people used to say about real life baseball, too. It's not true. My impressions are not going to be exact, and there are some AAA players who will have a big year and possibly fool you, just like there are major leaguers who will do the same thing.

But in general you can tell who is going to be good or what someone's capabilities are. Age is an important factor just like RL. Control of the strike zone, both as a hitter and a pitcher, gives you a good clue on if they can handle the next level. And of course you have to look at their stats relative to the league they're playing in. Pitchers might be thrown off because you have guys learning positions behind them, or players back there who wouldn't be good enough defensively to play in the majors. It's less about literal stats and more about things like OPS+ and ERA+ and FIP.

i believe you are agreeing with me but seems like it's a debate? lol only one thing isn't in agreement with what i said above.

i think in RL we have access to a lot more to base decisions on than just stats and height/weight, which is all we are left with in ootp. (maybe?**)

it's not truly represented either way in the game. there's something missing or we are given too much accurate data or data that just can't be known but can be inferred with greater accuracy with time in RL.

**stats only has scout feedback still? if that's still there, nevermind. that's enough info to focus attention on the few out of hundreds in mil system. they guys with crazy stats that don't level out are the surprises that are not predictable, but should happen at a certain rate.

---- side note aobut the last paragraph

if those things throw off the the stats that are used to comute ops+ and era+, how does that make them better? poop in, poop out is a good thing to remember with stats. the 'literal' stats that you say it isn't about are exactly what era+ and ops+ are calculated from.

and that stuff isn't bad to compare within that 1 specific league at all. it's when you try to compare to another mil league or more so the MLB. tells of current ability relative to competition only. a couple of the things you touched on are the causal reason for this, among many other factors.

e.g. a large number of high-performing players at AA never can play in the majors. heck, they can consistently look like babe ruth in AAA and still be total trash in majors.

in RL i think you can infer more, but it's not limited to stats and measurables. it's augmented by numerous qualatative assessments that aren't in OotP.
----

no matter what this will happen when using stats only --

slower decisions with reduced knowledge and certainty. this is due to requiring sufficient sample sizes in majors and the fluidity of ratings in the minors.

very limited notion on actual potential beyond draft position and ?? that's about it.

stats can definitely tell you when to promote in the minors, but tells nothing of potential. reaching "35/100" current ability gives no clue to potential. still just left with when they were drafted in game -- stale info before long.

none of this is necessarily a bad thing, even though it may sound like a criticism. it's not. it's just reality of math/contexts. it may be a preference for any multitude of people who will find it even more intersting and fun than playing any other way..

[Hrycaj]

To the op. Give it a shot. You may like it. Stats only folks have always been the black sheep of ootp players. Many have left the forums at this point.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

To the op. Give it a shot. You may like it. Stats only folks have always been the black sheep of ootp players. Many have left the forums at this point.

yes, which I never understood why they would leave the forums over something like this!! lol To me the debate was half the fun!

[Mr. Marlin]

As a frequent participant in the threads/ flame wars that this subject has inspired I think what drove people nuts was the notion that it made the game more challenging. And it does. In much the same way it is more challenging to walk around your house blindfolded. It does not make the game harder if you know what I mean by the distinction. Having played as many games one way as the other I'd say my winning percentage is only slightly less with stats only.

I adopted this play style a few years ago and I've never looked back. The biggest benefit to it is you will appreciate the stat line in real life baseball more playing OOTP this way. It forces you to actually THINK about what these number mean (if they mean anything). Players who play with ratings on are still looking at stats. It is just one data point of several. With stats only it is one data point of a smaller set of data points so it becomes more important. Plus you end up relying on written scouting evaluations more. I mean really reading them. I like that aspect as well.

The drawback with this is drafting. The auto generated stat lines of draft pool players are meaningless IMO. If you are going to play stats only you need feeder leagues to make your draft pool. Then each pool player has a stat history to evaluate. Otherwise every pick is a crap shoot.

Give it a try. you are not married to it. Those ratings are still there and you can turn them back on at any time.

[NoOne]

because large portions of personalities drawn to message boards and such are Nick Burns the IT Guy"

move! thank you!

edit: on both sides, and they rub each other the wrong way.

fwiw, both ways require thinknig. that's the very type of attitude that divides, lol. the causes don't change, so it's fundamentally the same decisions with slightly different info. adding more uncertainty isn't the same as adding skill or more thought. whether or not the sophistication of translating stats is greater than translating ratings would be difficult to measure and significant difference. one way isn't better. it's not more realistic, because both are not. it's just a personal choice of play. no one is better or worse for their decisions (skill or just being) relative to others.

[Mr. Marlin]

Well, The Wolf took a rather absolutist position on stats only and how realistic it is. Like No One said it isn't any more than colored rating bars are because we can't actually watch these little guys play and see their stance, swing, etc. Height and weight in OOTP is pretty much window dressing with no real impact on play. OOTP is THE most realistic baseball sim I've ever played or heard of but it IS still a sim not real life. The eyes are a wonderful scouting tool and you don't get to use them in ootp. The ratings are there to sort of make up for it.

But it's hard to argue it isn't more of a challenge without them. Since when is doing with less easier? But that does not make it more realistic and that was the claim that set folks on edge.

One thing that never has been resolved is do stats follow ratings or vice versa. In my own experience (take it for what that's worth) ratings follow stats/performance. So when you focus on stats you are looking at what the player is doing right now. There is a great line from the Moneyball movie "If he's such a good hitter why doesn't he hit good?"

But as Orcin pointed out they all just data points. How you use them is up to you. If your scout sucks your ratings are skewed so even that becomes a misleading (read challenge) metric to work around.

But if you are playing with scouting accuracy at 100% then don't ask about making things more challenging. You're clearly not into that!

[One Post Wonder]

The way I play is thus:

Get an AI GM who thinks the same way I do, and let him draft. There is no way to get a decent draft otherwise. Even with feeder leagues playing 162 games, you're only going to pick players with the highest current rating at best. I don't mind giving up drafting because the draft bores me.

Leave speed/defense turned on. Not knowing a players speed is ridiculous IMO.

Change the AI settings on judging players to something like 10/65/25/5

I use 'managerial feedback', which people might argue is sort of cheating, but that's the way I choose to play. So if I think a player looks good but the manager is using him as a 4th outfielder, he needs to rake before I bring him up to the next level. I think that getting feedback from the guys who see a player every day is realistic, without providing the exact data that ratings might provide.

Myself, I'm not some stats-only "guru" like that guy Wolf was painted as. I play some variation of stats only half the time, and the rest of the time I use 50 team leagues or make some weird indie league structure, or do promotion/relegation.

For me it's all about having a challenging game... while leaving the AI trade settings on 'Average'. I hate setting the AI trade settings to hard because IMO it doesn't make the AI smarter, just more stubborn and ridiculous. So I get that challenge from stats-only or having so many AI teams that at least a few of them are going to be really, really good.

With the earlier 'debates' I don't see how a discussion over how someone chooses to play the game can really get heated, even in this place. Someone on one side or the other must have been a real ass.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Mr. Marlin

Well, The Wolf took a rather absolutist position on stats only and how realistic it is. Like No One said it isn't any more than colored rating bars are because we can't actually watch these little guys play and see their stance, swing, etc. Height and weight in OOTP is pretty much window dressing with no real impact on play. OOTP is THE most realistic baseball sim I've ever played or heard of but it IS still a sim not real life. The eyes are a wonderful scouting tool and you don't get to use them in ootp. The ratings are there to sort of make up for it.

But it's hard to argue it isn't more of a challenge without them. Since when is doing with less easier? But that does not make it more realistic and that was the claim that set folks on edge.

One thing that never has been resolved is do stats follow ratings or vice versa. In my own experience (take it for what that's worth) ratings follow stats/performance. So when you focus on stats you are looking at what the player is doing right now. There is a great line from the Moneyball movie "If he's such a good hitter why doesn't he hit good?"

But as Orcin pointed out they all just data points. How you use them is up to you. If your scout sucks your ratings are skewed so even that becomes a misleading (read challenge) metric to work around.

But if you are playing with scouting accuracy at 100% then don't ask about making things more challenging. You're clearly not into that!

as long as it's the same for all participants, it's slower and more tedious, which can be thought of as harder. (tedious may have a negative connotation to some, not intimated here.. merely an accurate description. you must wait for data to accrue before you can act. everything you do lags behind the actual change (like development or aging) or cause (anything else my little mind can't think of right now.)

concpetually, it's not more difficult and you are making the same decisions for the same reasons.

you will be wrong more often about players and take longer to identify which players are solid without any ratings whatsoever. this will be equall for all, unless you have a better system or understanding of what's going on of course, but that's a seperate issue.

is that harder? i think of it as a level playing field that all have to overcome, so as far as competition they are on the same footing. slightly different dynamic without any ratings, but same concepts applied. it has to be.

heh, i thought of a better way to put it: no matter how you play, it still takes the same degree of difficulty and same level of expertise to squeeze every win possible out of a team. you have to do the exact same thigns to do so, but in a slightly different way as far as data collection or which data set you have access to (stats or both). not knowing how to do these numerous 'things' will still result in fewer wins relative to any setting.

it's more bout personal knowledge and behaviours whether or not you succeed with any particular settings...

while i don't play stats only, i am confident i can make the same decisions based on the things with strong correlations that i always do. the dynamics may result in fewer wins relative to other settings, but my choices are what maximizes wins within any set of rules. apples and oranges to compare wins or winpct between 2 rule sets. within any 1 rules set you can compare to baseline and know if you are in the top 1%... which is likely just as difficult to reach as any other rule set. this is why i say the difficulty remains the same.. the curve is merely shifting left or right.