"Pitch to Contact" leading to unrealistic BB/9 stats

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Not only significantly higher slugging, worst in the league by .014 on average is not "slight", but massively, massively less K's as well as you point out. The low K's are a direct result of your strategy, and they only make sense. You're trading walks for K's and getting hit hard.

I don't think there's an issue here to be honest. You're simply willing to make a trade-off that real teams won't make, almost no walks in exchange for almost no K's and getting hit harder.

I'm pretty sure real teams could do this, they just choose not to because it doesn't work. And your results would tend to back that theory up, it's not like your team is winning all its games or getting great results, you're simply picking your poison, and would likely be far, far better off with a more traditional strategy.

Actually this is a strength of the game, not an issue, that you can sandbox crazy strategies and tactics and see how they play out in a believably realistic way

His OPS looks pretty solid. This strategy looks viable (based upon OPS, RA, and ERA), yet IRL, I think it would be much uglier than what OOTP is yielding. IRL, I'd expect the SLG% to be much higher than the current .14 above.

Advance-scouts would catch on very quickly and the team, IMO, would get hammered a lot more than OOTP is calculating.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn

OPS looks pretty solid. This strategy looks viable (based upon OPS, RA, and ERA) yet IRL I think it would be much uglier. IRL I'd expect the SLG% to much more than the current .14

Advance-scouts would catch on very quickly and the team, IMO, would get hammered a lot more than OOTP is calculating.

Agreed. I suspect that as is pointed out in a later post, the op's team is actually getting very lucky in regard to BABIP and if he keeps up the strategy, he will start getting hammered even worse.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Agreed. I suspect that as is pointed out in a later post, the op's team is actually getting very lucky in regard to BABIP and if he keeps up the strategy, he will start getting hammered even worse.

True.

This is a very interesting thread. I would like to see a lot more data on this.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by kcharles520

yes i want to reduce walks...but i don't want to *eliminate* them from happening entirely.

Except that by doing this literally every time a pitcher gets to three balls, your strategy really is to eliminate walks. If that's not what you wanted, you wouldn't do this every single time, right? If it was 3-2 or you had a good control pitcher pitching you'd take the risk of an occasional walk in exchange for the reward of a K or weak contact and play it straight up. Or am I missing something here

Originally Posted by kcharles520

so in a way, the "pitch to contact" option nullifies the whole purpose of having a "control" rating to begin with IMO.

One more point. This doesn't nullify the control rating, since the control rating is directly responsible for how many 3 ball counts your pitchers get into in the first place, thus how often they have to sacrifice K's and throw meatballs based on your no-walk strategy.

Pitchers with better control will get into the no-win situation of having to give up on every ab at 3 balls much less often than those who have worse control.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Another point (suggestion?) would allow the AI to look at the GM's/managers strategy and respond accordingly. i.e. the take-pitch cheat with the AI responding with more 1st pitch and 2nd pitch strikes.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Of course adding the HR derby is more-important.

[TribeFanInNC]

Great points above lukas. Hit it right on the money.

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Agreed. I suspect that as is pointed out in a later post, the op's team is actually getting very lucky in regard to BABIP and if he keeps up the strategy, he will start getting hammered even worse.

I forget exactly where BABIP gets statistical significance. But it seems like it could be real. Has me thinking why it would be low. I wonder if the game has to lower the BABIP to keep the hit totals right because the team is putting an abnormally high number of balls into play (i.e. low BB and K rates). Though as everyone points out, it could just be lucky and correct itself too.

I totally agree that the unusual tactic is producing unusual numbers, but doesn't really appear to be helping the OP.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

I forget exactly where BABIP gets statistical significance. But it seems like it could be real. Has me thinking why it would be low. I wonder if the game has to lower the BABIP to keep the hit totals right because the team is putting an abnormally high number of ball into play (i.e. low BB and K rates).

That actually seems like a possibility. Not sure how to test this out without taking far too much time and playing out every game in a season or two though, which ain't happening Maybe Markus or Matt will have an idea on that.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Great points above lukas. Hit it right on the money.



I forget exactly where BABIP gets statistical significance. But it seems like it could be real. Has me thinking why it would be low. I wonder if the game has to lower the BABIP to keep the hit totals right because the team is putting an abnormally high number of balls into play (i.e. low BB and K rates). Though as everyone points out, it could just be lucky and correct itself too.

I totally agree that the unusual tactic is producing unusual numbers, but doesn't really appear to be helping the OP.

Good defense or luck. Or park factors.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

I forget exactly where BABIP gets statistical significance .

It's here: Sample Size | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

That actually seems like a possibility. Not sure how to test this out without taking far too much time and playing out every game in a season or two though, which ain't happening Maybe Markus or Matt will have an idea on that.

it's a volatile stat. it's within reason to deviate that much for a season, let alone 40-some games or whatever.

if you get an answer to relay, please say that it all adheres to the law of independent results

Edit:

he's got a .265 babip, league looks like a typical mid-to-upper .290's babip. so, they are .030 points down. their .384 slugging already leads the league. if the babip was "average" and in proportion as it is currently, the slugging would be .420, blowing away the league not just leading it. that is in Slugging Against. not a good category to be leading.

it's all relative... in this league .384 looks top-tier. although, few games have been played.

it's possible it's a low babip team, too... just going on the information given. even so, i'd expect a bump by season end, if not ensuing seasons assuming the team remains mostly intact.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

It's here: Sample Size | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library

Thx goo. He's over 50% of the way there (2000 BIP) in 40+ games, but not there yet.

We've been talking about SLG - but I just noticed the HR allowed (38) is WAY above the other teams. Next few teams are in the 27-29 range and lg avg is more like low 20s. That's bordering on double the HRs you would expect.

Again, there are other explanations. But basically I still agree with lukas that the game is compensating for the tactic in a realistic manner that really doesn't give the end user a distinct advantage. Pretty amazing stuff.

And basically, I think the OP has to finish this season so we see what happens...

(EDIT: I guess I mean the end user doesn't get any distinct advantage over time. Obviously in any one instance, you might get an advantage, that's why you might do it. But not an obvious game breaking advantage.)

[injury log]

Good BABIP usually means good defense. A normal defensive team would look worse using this strategy.

And the OP already said his pitchers have bad Control overall. His team's K-rate is very low -- sure, he's giving up the opportunity to K guys when they get to 3 ball counts, but he isn't giving up on strikeouts on 0-2, 1-2 or 2-2 counts. That's a lot of strikeout opportunities, yet his K rate is still very low. So his pitchers presumably have bad Stuff overall too. I assume his pitchers are good at something, or else why are they pitching at all, so I'd guess they have very good Movement. Which means the HR allowed looks lower here than it would on a normal team also.

It's not really a strategy at all unless it does something. It appears to be working: pitching to contact you don't give up many BBs, but you give up a lot more hits and HRs. I'd think that's what users would expect the option to do?

[RchW]

So is this a managed exploit?

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by injury log

Good BABIP usually means good defense. A normal defensive team would look worse using this strategy.

And the OP already said his pitchers have bad Control overall. His team's K-rate is very low -- sure, he's giving up the opportunity to K guys when they get to 3 ball counts, but he isn't giving up on strikeouts on 0-2, 1-2 or 2-2 counts. That's a lot of strikeout opportunities, yet his K rate is still very low. So his pitchers presumably have bad Stuff overall too. I assume his pitchers are good at something, or else why are they pitching at all, so I'd guess they have very good Movement. Which means the HR allowed looks lower here than it would on a normal team also.

It's not really a strategy at all unless it does something. It appears to be working: pitching to contact you don't give up many BBs, but you give up a lot more hits and HRs. I'd think that's what users would expect the option to do?

LoL i was looking at pitching stats and attributing it to offensive stats of the team, wasn't i?

sorry. all the other stuff stands though. by implementing this strategy you are getting your pitchers creamed in the long-run. it's not game breaking, it's detrimental to winnnig ootp baseball games.

[kcharles520]

i restarted the season, stopped using "pitch to contact" entirely and am getting stats more in-line w/ the league averages.
i'm enjoying the game alot more as a result, just feels more realistic.

[NoOne]

i'm curious if you are bettern than a .500 team while not using that strategy. also, have your SP done better... although comparing to 40-some games won't tell us much with certainty... still curious.

don't abandon it completely. i don't doubt there exists a situation where it might be the better way to go... just don't use it all the time.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by RchW

So is this a managed exploit?

Imo, yes.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Imo, yes.

using pitch to contact significantly raises the odds your pitcher gets tattooed though doesn't it? If not, there should be some sort of penalty here....penalties are what can and should control exploits.

[PSUColonel]

I think eliminating the "pull hitter" ratings should be eliminated in favor of spray charts for both hitters and batters. This way it's up to you to determine if a player is an extreme pull hitter or not, and weather a pitcher is a ground baler or not.