Ratings bias favouring certain players.

[MistaD72]

I want to open with this. I think 1998 was the peak of awesomeness in baseball. Greatest season of all time. So naturally, upon joining PT, my 1st 2 pick ups were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. I picked them up with hopes of smashing Homeruns, plain and simple. But upon seeing the ratings of some other players in comparison to these Homerun Kings, I have to take issue and simply say these ratings are wrong.
Babe Ruth has a power rating of over 120.
Ralph Kiner is 103.
Mark McGwire is only 100.
And Sammy Sosa is a mere 88.

Now here is my problem. Lets say you run a 100m dash against toddlers and you put up a time of 12 seconds and win by a mile. Now O run against Olympians. I put up a time of 11 seconds, but lose. You aren't faster than me just because you kicked everybody's ass, and I lost my race. 11 seconds is faster than 12. 66 Homers is more than 60. It doesn't matter that everyone else back then was weaker. 66 beats 60. In fact Sosa beat Babe Ruth's highest ever total 3 times! Even if you disagree with my stance on eras, tell me how the f*** Ruth could have a rating that isn't just higher, but over 30 points higher than somebody who smashed more homeruns than he did? Worse still, Mike Trout has a power rating of 93. Now don't get me wrong, Trout is a great hitter. But to say he is a better homerun hitter than a guy who blasted 66 Homeruns is a joke. It's just straight wrong. Only 5 players have EVER touched the 60 mark. This is an elite plateau, and should be rated as such. And Sosa hit it 3 times. As many as Ruth, Maris, and Bonds Combined. So yeah, weaker than Trout... On that note, 2 times in major league history a player hit that elite historic mark and then proceeded to bash 10+ additional bombs on top of that. Unreal. Yet again, not only is McGwire lower than Ruth, he's significantly lower. And weaker than a Kiner who never even hit the 60 mark. I really hope these ratings are fixed in next year's game..

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by MistaD72

I really hope these ratings are fixed in next year's game..

No, because there is nothing to fix, they work as intended. Ratings are normalized to the league year the stats were produced in, as they should be. You would not want a guy hitting .305 in a year where the league average was .289 to hit better in PT than a guy who hit .290 in a league which had a .252 average, right?

[Matt Arnold]

No, you aren't faster than I am. But it's not quite the same. More like:
Ruth "hit those HR" without shoes on, over a muddy and rocky track.
Mac/Sosa "hit those HR" on a perfectly clear track, with a strong tailwind.

What would happen if they matched up in an even race?

[Splitter24]

Bill Terry hit .401 in 1930. Do you think that he should have a Contact rating of 100 or more? Context matters. If it didn't, all the best hitter's ratings would belong to guys from the 1930's, 1890's and the Steroid Era. And all the best pitcher's ratings would be from the the 1960's, 2010's and the Dead Ball Era.

If you want to live in a fantasy world where McGwire and Sosa are the best home run hitters ever, might I suggest playing regular OOTP in Commissioner Mode and give those guys any ratings you want.

[Abnerdoubleday]

It's now 2026 in PTworld. Presumably the PED testing in 2025 is better than it was in 1998. Just saying...

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Abnerdoubleday

It's now 2026 in PTworld. Presumably the PED testing in 2025 is better than it was in 1998. Just saying...

But wouldn't PED masking be better as well?

[MistaD72]

"No, because there is nothing to fix, they work as intended. Ratings are normalized to the league year the stats were produced in, as they should be. You would not want a guy hitting .305 in a year where the league average was .289 to hit better in PT than a guy who hit .290 in a league which had a .252 average, right?"

So what you're saying is that hitting 40 HRs in a year where there was only 5000 hit warrants a higher rating than hitting 40 HRs in a year where 5500 were hit? Well as it turns out, there were more HRs in 2018 than there were in 1998. Which means that if Trout and Sosa hit the same number, Sosa is actually the one that should get the higher rating. But they didn't hit the same. Sosa actually hit significantly more homeruns, meaning his Home Run Power rating should be SIGNIFICANTLY higher, no? So aside from bias, how do we land on Trout having the higher rating?

"More like:
Ruth "hit those HR" without shoes on, over a muddy and rocky track.
Mac/Sosa "hit those HR" on a perfectly clear track, with a strong tailwind.

What would happen if they matched up in an even race?"

On the contrary, Ruth hit those HRs against pitchers who were going out every third night and pitching all 9 innings. McGwire went up against far more rested pitchers at a time where pitchers were developed and coached to a higher standard than in the 20s. I think in an even race, you send Mac back to the 20s and he'd light up that pitching with a create-a-player level dominance and we'd see untouchable records like a baseball Wayne Gretzky. And Ruth would likely not hit to the levels he did if he were brought forward in time. Unless you overrate his talent based on his inferior competition, like they did in this game.

[Westheim]

Intentional walks were not tracked until whenever, so who knows how many home runs the Babe would have hit if he hadn't drawn 140 walks every year? He was by far the best batter of his generation, and teams were legitimately cautious with him, even though the rest of the Yankee lineups were no easy pickings, either.

Then you have Sosa, whose HR/AB ratio is about 20% lower than the Babe's, who was a living strikeout, finished with a career slugging percentage over 100 points lower than the Babe's, and was merely one of many batters that were all drugged to the gills.

Yeah, tons of stuff to fix there. Foremost the OP's perception of greatness.

[|ChelseaNS]

Part of the reason this is an issue is that the engine is based on 2011, a year in which there were only 89% of the home runs of 1998. So take 10% off the top for your totals THEN add a number of cards who have what you consider inflated stats and it drives Sosa and McGwire down further.

[whobob]

Originally Posted by MistaD72

On the contrary, Ruth hit those HRs against pitchers who were going out every third night and pitching all 9 innings. McGwire went up against far more rested pitchers at a time where pitchers were developed and coached to a higher standard than in the 20s. I think in an even race, you send Mac back to the 20s and he'd light up that pitching with a create-a-player level dominance and we'd see untouchable records like a baseball Wayne Gretzky. And Ruth would likely not hit to the levels he did if he were brought forward in time. Unless you overrate his talent based on his inferior competition, like they did in this game.

I definitely believe this too-- Ruth is playing in an era where there aren't that many baseball players, nobody is throwing as hard as they do today, he's not playing against the best that world has to offer. That said, PT doesn't work like that. Ruth was great compared to his era, so that's what it shows. Honestly, I believe that makes the game more fun. Nobody wants a worthless Babe Ruth card. Really, we wouldn't know for sure how Ruth would do in 2011, but we know how he did in 1927, so that's what we're using.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by whobob

I definitely believe this too-- Ruth is playing in an era where there aren't that many baseball players, nobody is throwing as hard as they do today, he's not playing against the best that world has to offer. That said, PT doesn't work like that. Ruth was great compared to his era, so that's what it shows. Honestly, I believe that makes the game more fun. Nobody wants a worthless Babe Ruth card. Really, we wouldn't know for sure how Ruth would do in 2011, but we know how he did in 1927, so that's what we're using.

Yeah, would Ruth have to stop halfway to 1B to take a smoke today and be thrown out? Or would he even better with modern training techniques? Never mind the fact that in 1927, the average MLB team hit 58 HR. Ruth hit 60. That would be the equivalent of someone hitting 186 HR last year. Yeah, he deserves that 120 power.

I mean, we already have MLB players saying they'd strike out Ruth every time: https://www.mlb.com/cut4/adam-ottavi...th/c-301697952

[Westheim]

Ottavino can't even strike out Starlin Castro...

[Garlon]

The only way to properly translate players from different eras that I know is the Davenport Translations. I do not believe using linear translations relative to the league average is the proper way to translate these ratings.

I think what might make PT more interesting is that say there are two kinds of cards for some players (as there is now). For example, a regular Mark McGwire and then the 1998 Record Breaker season Mark McGwire. If you have a regular McGwire and you put him in your lineup you won't know what season ratings he will have and they will be hidden. The game will randomly pick one of his seasons (minimum 300 AB) to base his ratings. So sometimes the regular McGwire card will still play with the 1998 ratings, but it will probably play with some other season's ratings. However, if you have the 1998 season card it will always play as that season.

I think this might make PT more interesting not knowing exactly what the player ratings really are for regular cards. The cards will give you an average or range for each of the ratings instead of the exact value, unless you have one of the very rare cards that play as only one season.

[<Pion>]

1998 was a stain IMO

[uschi_baerchen]

[QUOTE=MistaD72;4421725
I think in an even race, you send Mac back to the 20s and he'd light up that pitching with a create-a-player level dominance and we'd see untouchable records like a baseball Wayne Gretzky.[/QUOTE]


Yeah, and if you have proven by that, that Ruth is a Sucker compared to McGuire, I might also have a wish open:


I send Barry Bond 2004 back to the 20s and he'll wip out the lights off McGuires Ass and create-a-player level dominance we´d see Don Bradmans 99.94 is human after all.

[BPS]

If you sent me, via a time machine, back to 1662 to battle Isaac Newton in solving a complex math problem, I'd whip his rear end as I'd bring along my laptop with various math software. Therefore, I am smarter than Isaac Newton.

[Maddox]

Originally Posted by MistaD72

I think in an even race, you send Mac back to the 20s and he'd light up that pitching with a create-a-player level dominance and we'd see untouchable records like a baseball Wayne Gretzky.

I say this as both a Cardinal fan and a McGwire fan.

If you send McGwire back then it has to be done without any of the supplements (banned or otherwise). No advanced training equipment. No video to study. 8 fewer games played, etc.

It's not a simple matter of just dropping modern player into the past or vice versa.

[|ChelseaNS]

Its so hard to judge different eras. There are a few studies though on track athletes and almost the entirety of difference can be attributed to equipment changes.

Just imagine the fields, balls and bats Ruth had to deal with. Not to mention spitballs, files, etc.

My view is special athletes in any given sport would translate pretty well to this era, given they were introduced young and trained appropriately.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Maddox

I say this as both a Cardinal fan and a McGwire fan.

If you send McGwire back then it has to be done without any of the supplements (banned or otherwise). No advanced training equipment. No video to study. 8 fewer games played, etc.

It's not a simple matter of just dropping modern player into the past or vice versa.

not to mention they wouldn't have the specialized medical care they get now.... McGwire was plagued with injuries during a stretch of the 90s... would that have hampered him back then enough to pull him from the lineup for a long stretch, or would he have played through it (and potentially have it impact him worse / prematurely end his career)....

heck, think of all the pitchers who have had Tommy John surgery and continued with their careers.... back in the old days, they'd just be tagged with the "dead arm" label and never be heard from again....

[jeffw3000]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

No, you aren't faster than I am. But it's not quite the same. More like:
Ruth "hit those HR" without shoes on, over a muddy and rocky track.
Mac/Sosa "hit those HR" on a perfectly clear track, with a strong tailwind.

What would happen if they matched up in an even race?

Not to mention, how many home runs would Ruth have had if there would have been the same advances in medications, in the 20s and 30s, that there were in the 80s and 90s.