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OOTP 16 - Historical Simulations Discuss historical simulations and their results in this forum.

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Old 07-19-2015, 01:02 PM   #1
Syd Thrift
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Fixing historical and historical fictional leagues

I've been messing around with a 19th century league in this version.in the past I've always been dissatisfied with creating a long league history for the following reasons:

1. The highs and lows aren't as extreme in early leagues as they ought to be. The dead ball era in particular was a time when even though the league hit .250 or lower, .400 hitters were not uncommon.

2. To exacerbate this, managers in the game platoon guys and put them on regular "start and sit" rotations all the time, meaning that instead of getting 150 games and 550+ PAs a season, everyone but superstars in their prime top out in the 120s in games played and 450 or so PAs. This may not seem like a big deal but over the course of a career his might cost a potential Hall of Famer 1200 or more PAs and be the difference between a 2700 hit career and breaking 3000.

3. On the flip side I see way too many pitchers with losing or near losing records and close to 250 career victories. If you look at guys who fit these criteria in real life baseball you'll see this is mostly a late 20th century phenomenon.

4. Generally speaking, pitchers hit too poorly during this period relative to the league and as a result the game tends to compensate by making most starting caliber players at least adequate at the plate. Max Bergen types are basically non- existent - a player might hit that poorly for a season but they'll quickly be benched.

So, all that being said, I feel like the way I'm running this league could be implemented in the game and eliminates much of issues 2 and 3 and also has some of the lower end players in the league to aid in issues 1 and 4 (although ultimately I think tho only way to fix those is to change player creation and development algorithms). What I am doing:

- No platooning, period. IRL platooning didn't seem to occur at all until the 1910s and then, after 5 or 6 years, mostly went away again until Casey Stengel brought it back to the Yankees in the 40s.

- very limited use of regular games off. Basically I have backup catchers start every 3rd or 4th game and that's about it. There's ample evidence that catchers didn't play as often before chest protectors and shin guards were a thing. Otherwise, every other position's backup starts when tired or never.

- Very little changing of starters during the season. Teams would often purchase guys to look at them for a few games in September but generally speaking if you were the starter on Opening Day you were the starter in September.

- For pitchers, base a guy's position from year to year on won lost records much more than is done currently. This actually isn't a terrible strategy for dead ball era leagues, as a guy with a decent-ish ERA and a bad won-lost record is just as likely to be earned run lucky as win unlucky. On top of that, with so many more balls put into play during this time, the chances that a given pitcher might otherwise be a good player but just not be a fit for his team (for instance a fly all pitcher with a bad outfield) are a lot higher.

- Cut waaaaay down on trades. I like to base all my leagues transactions on actual trades and purchases conducted by the league in a given season and one thing I've found is that in the dead ball era in particular teams simply did not trade as much as they do now. Even the Very Low setting produces too many of them. A lot of the time a team with a gaping hole at a position would just sign a minor league free agent or at most purchase a player from the minors, especially if they weren't a big city club. Sometimes the Louisville Colonels had to live with an average field no hit shortstop for years at a time (well, the real life Colonels developed Honus Wagner but you get the idea).
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Old 07-19-2015, 03:03 PM   #2
joefromchicago
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Originally Posted by Syd Thrift View Post
1. The highs and lows aren't as extreme in early leagues as they ought to be. The dead ball era in particular was a time when even though the league hit .250 or lower, .400 hitters were not uncommon.
This has long been a problem, not just with 19th century players.

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Originally Posted by Syd Thrift View Post
2. To exacerbate this, managers in the game platoon guys and put them on regular "start and sit" rotations all the time, meaning that instead of getting 150 games and 550+ PAs a season, everyone but superstars in their prime top out in the 120s in games played and 450 or so PAs. This may not seem like a big deal but over the course of a career his might cost a potential Hall of Famer 1200 or more PAs and be the difference between a 2700 hit career and breaking 3000.
How big are your rosters? A typical 19th century club might have carried as few as 12 players. That's not possible in OOTP - the roster minimum is 15, but that should probably be the roster limit at least until the 1890s. And how long are your schedules? Only one player who played his entire career in the 19th century had over 3000 hits - Cap Anson. Nobody else even came close.

I do agree, however, that OOTP platoons players like it's 2015 even if the league settings are for 1885. Not knowing anything about computer programming, I don't know if that's something that's easy to fix or not, but there hasn't been a whole lot of interest in modifying strategy settings to replicate deadball-era baseball.

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3. On the flip side I see way too many pitchers with losing or near losing records and close to 250 career victories. If you look at guys who fit these criteria in real life baseball you'll see this is mostly a late 20th century phenomenon.
I've seen that too. Not sure how to fix that. It may have more to do with injury ratings as with anything else.

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4. Generally speaking, pitchers hit too poorly during this period relative to the league and as a result the game tends to compensate by making most starting caliber players at least adequate at the plate. Max Bergen types are basically non- existent - a player might hit that poorly for a season but they'll quickly be benched.
I've never noticed this.

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- Cut waaaaay down on trades. I like to base all my leagues transactions on actual trades and purchases conducted by the league in a given season and one thing I've found is that in the dead ball era in particular teams simply did not trade as much as they do now. Even the Very Low setting produces too many of them. A lot of the time a team with a gaping hole at a position would just sign a minor league free agent or at most purchase a player from the minors, especially if they weren't a big city club. Sometimes the Louisville Colonels had to live with an average field no hit shortstop for years at a time (well, the real life Colonels developed Honus Wagner but you get the idea).
You're right - trading was an innovation that a lot of people, at first, didn't even think was possible, either legally or according to league rules. Peter Morris in A Game of Inches says that trades were "pretty much unheard of" until 1883, so trading should be disabled until then and set at "very hard" thereafter.
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Old 07-19-2015, 04:34 PM   #3
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Max Bergen types are basically non- existent - a player might hit that poorly for a season but they'll quickly be benched.
Max Bergen? Do you mean Marty Bergen? He was a decent hitter. Mentally unhinged, to be sure, but a decent hitter.
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Old 07-19-2015, 05:56 PM   #4
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You're right - trading was an innovation that a lot of people, at first, didn't even think was possible, either legally or according to league rules. Peter Morris in A Game of Inches says that trades were "pretty much unheard of" until 1883, so trading should be disabled until then and set at "very hard" thereafter.
The earliest 'trading' involved one club paying another a sum of money to release a player, then the paying club would sign that player. Assuming, of course, the player didn't sign with another club first. The clubs often had a 'gentlemen's agreement' not to sign a player if his release had been purchased with the intent of that club then signing him. It was some time before the rules involving trading were solidified. Even then, the rules have evolved.

There was, for example, no trade deadline at all until the NL implemented one in 1917. Such a deadline was adopted because of the fear of a tail-end club trading or selling its players to a contender, thus messing with the pennant race. The AL adopted its own trade deadline in 1920. In 1921 the two leagues agreed on an August 1st deadline, which was moved up to June 15th in 1923 (and where it stayed through 1985).

Waivers also played a role. League waivers were only needed after the trade deadline from 1917-33. In 1934 interleague trades were restricted by requiring league waivers all year round (intraleague trades only required waivers after the trade deadline). Interleague trades became even more limited in 1953 when such a trade after the trade deadline required interleague, rather than league, waivers. This was eased somewhat with the adoption in 1959 of an waiver-free interleague trading period during the off-season; a second waiver-free period was added in the spring in 1977. This lasted until 1986, when the entire system was streamlined, the restrictions against interleague trades dropped, and the deadline moved back to July 31st.
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Old 07-19-2015, 11:33 PM   #5
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Max Bergen? Do you mean Marty Bergen? He was a decent hitter. Mentally unhinged, to be sure, but a decent hitter.
Charlie? Marty's brother was one of the worst hitting position players of all time.
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Old 07-20-2015, 01:31 AM   #6
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The earliest 'trading' involved one club paying another a sum of money to release a player, then the paying club would sign that player. Assuming, of course, the player didn't sign with another club first.
Which is where things got complicated. The rule was that a released player couldn't sign a contract until ten days had elapsed. I assume the rule was designed so that all the teams could learn of the release and make their best offers, preventing any team from getting the jump on all the others. In practice, though, this meant that a team interested in obtaining a released player would hide him - often literally - from all the other clubs for that ten-day period. Before the1885 season, Tony Mullane, a serial contract-jumper, was sequestered in a hotel by the Browns after he was released by the floundering Toledo AA club. But Mullane managed to sneak out and ink a deal with Cincinnati, even though he had signed a notarized statement saying that he would play for St. Louis. For that little escapade, Mullane got suspended for a year, even though it was really the Browns' owner, Chris von der Ahe, who should have been punished for flouting the ten-day rule.

Of course, OOTP can't handle those kinds of archaic rules. The best option is to turn off trading until at least 1883.
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Old 07-20-2015, 01:34 AM   #7
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Charlie? Marty's brother was one of the worst hitting position players of all time.
You mean Bill Bergen. Yes, he must have been a helluva catcher to play in 947 major league games while compiling a lifetime .170 batting average.
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Old 07-26-2015, 12:21 AM   #8
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I've played 19th century a dozen times, a dozen different ways. Depends on how real you want it to be. I can turn off all transactions and injuries and then I control how much or little a player plays. A player who only played half a season spends half the season on the Reserve List. I've gone so far as mapped out the entire National Association League. Rosters are at 9 players and they play the exact amount of games they did IRL. Doesn't always play out as it did.This also allows a pitcher who didn't pitch every single game to play the outfield as happened often. It is time consuming to do this, but that's my favorite. I've also had trades off till 1886, injuries off from time to time, any way till Sunday. In fact I've haven't played a game beyond 1938 since OOTP 11.
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