The Turn DP rating—does it do anything?

[Furious]

Originally Posted by brotherblues

Have you guys run the same test in OOTP 22?

I don’t have 22 yet. Not sure when I’ll be getting it, but when I do, I could run the test again.

[brotherblues]

I think I'll make a league where every team has the exact same roster, every pitcher is the same, every hitter and fielder is the same for every team, no ratings change/development, no injuries, no fatigue, same ballparks etc. One caveat: A quarter of the shortstops will have red DP rating, another quarter will have yellow, another green, another blue. Make it run 1k games or so.

[Furious]

Originally Posted by brotherblues

I think I'll make a league where every team has the exact same roster, every pitcher is the same, every hitter and fielder is the same for every team, no ratings change/development, no injuries, no fatigue, same ballparks etc. One caveat: A quarter of the shortstops will have red DP rating, another quarter will have yellow, another green, another blue. Make it run 1k games or so.

That’s pretty much what I did in 21. I hope you’ll let us know the results.

[brotherblues]

Made a 16 team fictional league with all teams having identical rosters (clones). No fatigue, no injuries, etc.

Then I went and changed the DP rating on the shortstops so as to have:

3 SS with 11 DP rating
3 SS with 28 DP rating
4 SS with 51 DP rating
3 SS with 71 DP rating
3 SS with 100 DP rating

Then I set the schedule to 500 games and let it rip. Results on attached image.

Player last name is his DP rating

[brotherblues]

Let me know what you think.

[brotherblues]

Summarizing a bit:

Rating scales 1-100 on full accuracy.

100 DP Rating resulted in 81 DPs per 100 games
71 rating was 71.7
51 rating was 66
28 rating was 56.7
11 rating was 48.2

My personal conclusion is that a rating of 50 DP shouldn't keep you from putting a guy at SS, but I wouldn't go lower.

[Rain King]

Seems like this was addressed.

Thank you to those who brought it up and thank you to the Devs for listening!

[Furious]

The results in 22 certainly look different from the tests that I ran in 21.

Thanks, brotherblues, for running your tests, and thanks, OOTP, for addressing the issue.

[cyrusb]

Originally Posted by quillenl

...

No real point to the above numbers other than I found them interesting. I do, however, believe you can break any game when you start trying things in unintended ways. It's doubtful the game is balanced in any way for a 16/100 player (30 in the editor) to play 2nd. It would be nice to see that work better... but it's sort of a non issue to me since we're talking about a player with a 1 rating at 2B...

Read this whole thread. Strong points made on both sides of the debate (about whether there is "something wrong" with the DP rating in OOTP). But the above quote really cuts the heart of things, and seems like the appropriate conclusion to me.

[cyrusb]

Originally Posted by Isryion

...

I think the reason the league totals aren't super useful here is that we're seeing these totals in a modern league already and the concern is at the low end of the scale, so lowering the league totals just shrinks/increases the scale we're talking about when the concern is the low end in modern leagues.

Doubling the scale would increase the number for both types of players and obviously increase the gap, but it would also create an unrealistic situation and I'm not clear how it would show these players with minimal rating aren't turning too many double plays. I think it's clear that changing the league totals would change the spread.

So the reason league total modifiers could be relevant here is this:

The game engine will attempt to produce the specified number of total double-plays over the course of the season. Let's say the mark is to reach 500 total double plays. Ratings will influence how the engine attempts to distribute the target amount of double plays

But the engine does not put runners on base simply in order to get them out via double-play. It takes the opportunities that are generated by other events, like singles, walks, etc.

If we're looking at a league 5 second-basemen, and four of them are excellent turners of double-plays, and one of them is terrible, then the engine would probably love to give as much of those 500 total double-plays to the "good" 2nd basemen as possible.

But if those "good" 2nd basemen only end up seeing 450 opportunities, then maybe the engine is going to have to settle with giving them ~425 double-plays.

But the target DP total was 500! So how is the engine going to make up the difference of 75 double plays? Well... it only has one choice. It has to give 75 double-plays to the "bad" second-baseman with terrible DP rating.

The more interesting experiment would be to reduce the league totals for double-plays and see if the "good" second-baseman gobble up all the available double-plays and leave few for the baddies to turn.

[SR000]

Not all ratings are equal obviously. It's up to a GM/manager to decide what they want and what is more important. It is hard to imagine a guy with a strong arm not being good at turning DPs so we are dealing with the pivot here is my guess. Every player knows where to throw the ball. Just like a guy with 1 speed still knows where the next base is. Overall, the turn DP probably does affect bang-bang plays at first but if you have just one 2B or SS that is good at DPs, you've already cut down the number you might miss substantially.

The flip side is while season numbers are something you can look at, you still play the games one at a time. Let's say there is a difference of 10 turned in a year. Probably not a big deal unless five of them cost a run in a game you lost by one. Maybe the runners scores from third when you fail to turn two or the guy you don't get out rides home on a double or HR by the next batter. Difference between a championship team and a wild card one. But overall not a big deal compared to other factors and probably isn't one in major league baseball either. Is the difference really obvious in real life games we watch that we could rate a guy a 6 or an 8 at turning DPs?