Historical Sims - Modern Day Prospects Potential?

[Willie M]

Is there a way to have it so modern day prospects who have debuted (Albies, Acuna, etc.) have their real potential ratings? If you do a historical sim and they get imported, they are 1-2 star players since they have no future stats to go by.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Willie M

Is there a way to have it so modern day prospects who have debuted (Albies, Acuna, etc.) have their real potential ratings? If you do a historical sim and they get imported, they are 1-2 star players since they have no future stats to go by.

Are you playing with player development on? If you are they will develop randomly, sometimes amazing, sometimes good, and sometimes not so good. I think it's unfair to ask the game to project what their careers will look like in the future when there's so little data to go on. Those 1-2 star players may develop from 5 star players all the way down to 1/2 star players, which is what should happen because the truth is we have no idea how the careers of these guys are going to turn out.

[actionjackson]

If you don't agree with me, look up the careers of Drew Henson, Jesus Montero, Delmon Young, Brien Taylor, Ruben Rivera, Fernando Martinez, Brandon Wood, Lars Anderson, Joel Guzman, Danny Goodwin, Josh Vitters, Shawn Abner, Bubba Starling, Donovan Tate, Greg Reynolds, Matt LaPorta, Lastings Milledge, Bill Pulsipher, Kyle Drabek et al. So many top prospects bust.

But Acuna and Albies were tremendous in their first MLB seasons you protest? Yes they were, but how about Walt Dropo, Harry Byrd, Jack Sanford, Don Schwall, Curt Blefary, Ted Sizemore, Earl Williams, Mark Fidrych, Herb Score, Dontrelle Willis, Bobby Crosby, Geovany Soto, Eric Hinske, Marty Cordova, Pat Listach, Bob Hamelin, Chris Sabo, Alvin Davis, Steve Sax, and Bob Horner? I'm sure more players that had very good debuts only to fizzle/get injured/not have the careers that one would expect them to have based on their beginnings can be found but that's probably enough for now. The point is we can't know what Acuna's and Albies' careers have in store for them at this very early stage. Anything can happen, which is why the randomness of the player development system makes sense. I would love to see them both go on to have fantastic careers, but at this point that is far from a guarantee.

[Willie M]

I have let OOTP determine their development on, but I'm under the impression since their potential ratings are all awful they will really never develop. Would prefer to have Acuna with 65/70/75 potential and then it's up to the game whether he gets there or not.

Instead, he has 50 potential across the board (his current ratings, since there's no future to predict) and is a 1 star potential player.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Willie M

I have let OOTP determine their development on, but I'm under the impression since their potential ratings are all awful they will really never develop. Would prefer to have Acuna with 65/70/75 potential and then it's up to the game whether he gets there or not.

Instead, he has 50 potential across the board (his current ratings, since there's no future to predict) and is a 1 star potential player.

And those ratings can go up or down based on the game engine as you move forward with your game I believe.

[Drstrangelove]

Originally Posted by Willie M

Is there a way to have it so modern day prospects who have debuted (Albies, Acuna, etc.) have their real potential ratings? If you do a historical sim and they get imported, they are 1-2 star players since they have no future stats to go by.

It sounds like retroactively changing ratings based upon "future" events or performance (which obviously had not happened, yet.) So, Koufax, instead of struggling and slowly developing from 1955-1959, would be turned into the "1965" Koufax, except back in 1955. Or maybe, Dave Stewart, instead of becoming dominant at age 30, became dominant at age 20. Not sure of that logic. Even if one knows Koufax' 1965 potential skill level, it wasn't the same then as it was as a rookie. Regardless, it's not inherently "real" anymore than Koufax' or Stewart's future skill was real were when they were rookies.

Imo, potential doesn't mean "real" future skill as if it's locked in and unchangeable. People gain and lose potential all the time naturally. Koufax (as he was in 1955) didn't have the potential to be the 1965 Koufax. In his own bio, he was clear that he changed his approach to pitching and learned a lot more to have that potential. He changed. Similarly, Harper might be a great player, but his performance in 3 of the last 5 years has been mediocre. No one knows. Puig was outstanding his first 1,000 PAs. People even thought he was a sure hall of famer. He's been nothing close to that however, the last last 4 years. So, there's no way to say what a player's ratings "should be" in the past based upon what he did in the future.

[BMW]

This inspired me to post this as a feature request:

Recognizing historical prospects that failed in real life, but allowing them to pan out
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=297257

[Willie M]

Originally Posted by Drstrangelove

It sounds like retroactively changing ratings based upon "future" events or performance (which obviously had not happened, yet.) So, Koufax, instead of struggling and slowly developing from 1955-1959, would be turned into the "1965" Koufax, except back in 1955. Or maybe, Dave Stewart, instead of becoming dominant at age 30, became dominant at age 20. Not sure of that logic. Even if one knows Koufax' 1965 potential skill level, it wasn't the same then as it was as a rookie. Regardless, it's not inherently "real" anymore than Koufax' or Stewart's future skill was real were when they were rookies.

Imo, potential doesn't mean "real" future skill as if it's locked in and unchangeable. People gain and lose potential all the time naturally. Koufax (as he was in 1955) didn't have the potential to be the 1965 Koufax. In his own bio, he was clear that he changed his approach to pitching and learned a lot more to have that potential. He changed. Similarly, Harper might be a great player, but his performance in 3 of the last 5 years has been mediocre. No one knows. Puig was outstanding his first 1,000 PAs. People even thought he was a sure hall of famer. He's been nothing close to that however, the last last 4 years. So, there's no way to say what a player's ratings "should be" in the past based upon what he did in the future.

I guess the point was lost, and now becomes a question of whether potential changes greatly or not.

If you start a historical league, and sim to modern day, and then run a draft for 2018, every draft prospect will have 1 star potential since there's no future stats to project potential and the game uses their current ratings (which are low). The draft classes would be complete bombs.

I'm not asking for the players to hit their potential, I'm asking if there's a way other than editing ratings to give them what their current potential is suggested to be.

I am assuming it's very unlikely any of the modern day rookies who debuted in 2018 will become anything in a historical sim since their potential ratings are just their current ratings.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Willie M

I guess the point was lost, and now becomes a question of whether potential changes greatly or not.

If you start a historical league, and sim to modern day, and then run a draft for 2018, every draft prospect will have 1 star potential since there's no future stats to project potential and the game uses their current ratings (which are low). The draft classes would be complete bombs.

I'm not asking for the players to hit their potential, I'm asking if there's a way other than editing ratings to give them what their current potential is suggested to be.

I am assuming it's very unlikely any of the modern day rookies who debuted in 2018 will become anything in a historical sim since their potential ratings are just their current ratings.

To my knowledge, no, and I've dug around a lot in the backend of the system and know the exported data tables very well.

The only way to tell OOTP that a player has high potential is to manually edit his potential ratings. Or to manually access the master database (which isn't accessible and would theoretically be harder than manually editing the player potentials). Which is why logged that feature request above.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Willie M

I guess the point was lost, and now becomes a question of whether potential changes greatly or not.

If you start a historical league, and sim to modern day, and then run a draft for 2018, every draft prospect will have 1 star potential since there's no future stats to project potential and the game uses their current ratings (which are low). The draft classes would be complete bombs.

I'm not asking for the players to hit their potential, I'm asking if there's a way other than editing ratings to give them what their current potential is suggested to be.

I am assuming it's very unlikely any of the modern day rookies who debuted in 2018 will become anything in a historical sim since their potential ratings are just their current ratings.

Your assumption is wrong. Some will expand their potential to HoF heights. Some will become All-Stars, but not quite HoFers. Some will occasionally be All-Stars, and maybe on the outskirts of the running for awards occasionally. Some will be average major leaguers. Some will be quality backups. Some will be 25th guy on the roster types, and some will bust completely. For me, that is a true representation of the game of baseball. Player development has never been linear in the entire history of the game, nor should it be in OOTP.

Don't take Drstrangelove's or my word for it though. Test it for yourself. Go into your saved_games folder and make a .zip file of your current game, and cut/paste it into an external hard drive or a thumb drive. Re-name the game in your saved_games folder somehow, so you can distinguish it from your current game. Use the re-named game to zoom ahead 10 to 15 to 20 years or so, and check in on your 2017 debut guys. Now, extract the .zip file from the external HDD/thumb drive, and compare and contrast. I'm pretty sure you're going to see a reasonably normal distribution: very few will become cream of the crop guys, and there'll be a lot of flame out/cup of coffee types, with a bunch of players in between the two extremes. That's normal distribution in baseball. That's why the RL HoF is so special.

In OOTP16 (a while ago I know, but I think the example holds up), the final historical year was 2014 (three versions ago = three years before OOTP19's final historical year of 2017). Michael Wacha had two seasons worth of RL stats to go on (2013 and 2014: 171.2 total IP worth), and he wound up in my HoF (91.2 WAR, 122 ERA+ in my game). Patrick Corbin had an extremely good career: 54.3 WAR, and a 117 ERA+ in my game in just 13 seasons of pitching (injury setbacks forced his retirement at 33), and he only had two seasons worth of RL stats to go on (2012 and 2013, missed all of 2014 IRL: 315.1 IP). Yan Gomes had a terrific career. IRL, he had just 951 PA to draw from, yet he wound up with 45.9 WAR, and a 112 wRC+. Corey Kluber wound up in my HoF despite only 450.1 RL IP to draw from (70.4 WAR, 126 ERA+). Devin Mesoraco had a very good career with 44.1 WAR, and a 126 wRC+ despite only 1,029 RL PA in his career up to that point. Scooter Gennett had a very good career despite only 704 RL PA to go on. He wrapped it up with 42.6 WAR, and a 107 wRC+, with 9 GG at 2B.

On the other side of things, Clayton Kershaw started off extremely strong, and then sagged, was a reliever for his age 31, 32, and 33 seasons and was out of the game after his age 33 season. At that time, his RL numbers ran through his age 26 season. One of the most painful injury setbacks resulting in the end of a career happened to Sandy Koufax (not a modern player, but an all-time great whose RL career was a tale of two different careers) in the middle of his age 23 season. Them's the breaks man. When it comes to modern players, the player development system giveth, and the player development system taketh away, which is exactly how it should be.

[actionjackson]

I should mention that all of those player records from my OOTP16 game were from a random debut that has now stalled out at 63 seasons (1901-1963). I don't know if there is a difference between random debut historical player results, and straight up historical player results. I shouldn't think there would be, but maybe someone with a little bit of insider knowledge can comment on that. You can find out for yourself by testing as I indicated in my above post. I should think it will go well for you, and you'll be surprised in a good way. At least I hope so, because if not something has changed between OOTP16 and OOTP19, and not for the better.

[BMW]

Are you saying though, that given a draft class that is filled with nothing but one-star potential players - that this draft class will produce a similar number of elite talent players as a normal draft class (with guys spanning 1-5 stars)?

I mean, I get that the development engine is certainly capable of taking a 1-star guy and making him into a 5-star and eventual HOF guy. But I wouldn't want to be drafting from 1000 near-identical talents and just hoping that a random pick becomes good. People want to draft players in the first round that look and feel like first round players.

Willie M is interested in Acuna having the potential that he knows is reasonable to expect from Acuna as of 2018 - not drafting Acuna and hoping there's a 1 in 1000 chance that his potential becomes Acuna-like.

I'm not totally discounting your idea - the development engine is cool in action and it can create legends from humble 1-star beginnings, but that's not what Willie D was after here.