Semi-Famous Baseball Geek Looking for Info on OOTP

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Dagrims

Staggeringly enough, you didn't read all of post #9.

That's not staggering at all, since that post contained a large quantity of words, and I'M A BUSY MAN, DAMMIT!

[bulldog55]

Originally Posted by eriqjaffe

That's not staggering at all, since that post contained a large quantity of words, and I'M A NERD WHO LOOKS AT NUMBERS ON COMPUTERS IN MY MOM'S BASEMENT ALL DAY!

^fixed




ENRON!

[rem]

Wow, Voros McCracken. Don't worry, Voros. OOTP is a very stathead friendly gaame.

[cbbl]

Originally Posted by remangiii

Wow, Voros McCracken. Don't worry, Voros. OOTP is a very stathead friendly gaame.

Yes, wow ... Vörös McCracken. I think you're the biggest celebrity we've had here. A red carpet welcome is certainly in order for anybody who has their own legitimate Wikipedia page. Even Markus doesn't have one of those!

Anyway, I am far from enough of a stathead to offer you the details you need, but others have already started. A guy like you here could really help OOTP improve! The quality of games like OOTP is dominated by the quality -- and reality -- of the AI engine. OOTP is, IMHO, head and shoulders above any other out there, but is it perfect? No. In general, are we a happy group who thinks OOTP is great and without major flaw? Yes. Would we appreciate any efforts to get the game another step closer to perfection? You bet! Do join us, Mr. McCracken!

cbbl

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by bulldog55

^fixed




ENRON!

Dude, you're thinking of my brother (see event #82). Even then, my parents' house doesn't have a basement.

[CHOWDERHEAD]

*** Sorry about that ***

[Voros McCracken]

I'll have a look at the demo and see how I like it.

Thanks very much for the warm reception guys.

[Doctor No]

Still can't believe that Voros is here!

[magnet]

So, uh, jaffe, why doesn't your bro post here? I'd think OOTP would be right up his alley.

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by magnet

So, uh, jaffe, why doesn't your bro post here? I'd think OOTP would be right up his alley.

I've tried to get him to play, but he just doesn't have any interest. He's way more into poring over actual historical numbers than generating his own, I guess.

Also, when he gets involved in things, he tends to get obsessive about them - he used to have a blog dedicated to his Run Support Index stat, which he actually took down because it was making him ignore his doctoral dissertation - ironically, Bill James mentioned it in one of his books (he refers to "a blogger named Chris", or something like that), but my brother decided to simply remove it from existnence. I imagine he feels he devotes enough time to Baseball Think Factory and The Hardball Times. I know he's lurked here before, since he's commented to me on threads here, but I don't think he's registered - if he is, he's keeping it a secret from me.

Funny thing about his RSI blog - the URL works again, but it's some blog completely in Japanese now about I-have-no-idea-what.

[Voros McCracken]

I'm going to download the demo sometime this weekend and give it a look. I'll let you guys know what I think.

[lewis31lewis52]

I'm sure you'll love it. This game seems like it was made for someone like you.

[f.montoya]

Voros, if I were Mr. Duffy, I'd give you a free copy of the game in exchange for your services as a beta tester for the 2008 version, solely based on some of your works that delve into the use and weights of stats that drive baseball scouting and evaluation in the modern day game.

For now, get the game, be active around here with your honest opinions(because I think your thoughts on the game will be very appreciated and respected) and that just might happen.

[mikev]

Originally Posted by f.montoya

Voros, if I were Mr. Duffy, I'd give you a free copy of the game in exchange for your services as a beta tester for the 2008 version, solely based on some of your works that delve into the use and weights of stats that drive baseball scouting and evaluation in the modern day game.

For now, get the game, be active around here with your honest opinions(because I think your thoughts on the game will be very appreciated and respected) and that just might happen.

Agreed.

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by Voros McCracken

a) Most of the games still seem to be stuck in pre-21st Century thinking of pitcher strikeouts as a glamour stat much like hitter strikeouts. Lost in the DIPS food fights is the fact that before DIPS, even mentioning strikeouts in a Cy Young debate was grounds for ridicule and dismissal. Whatever the final word on hits on balls in play, I think most knowledgeable folks now agree that the number one way any non-knuckleball pitcher has to prevent hits is by striking people out.


d) A difficult to overcome issue is the ease at which success can be achieved in some sims simply by trading away old expensive talent for young talents and watching as all of the young studs lead you to 120-49 records in five years. It's tough to overcome because there's a lot of truth to be had there, but the trick is getting the balance right so that perpetually winning with veterans is as easy as winning with cheap youngsters.

e) A near impossible one to find are reasonable approaches to left/right splits. The instances of players with reverse splits long term is abnormally rare, and the vast majority of major league caliber players have a somewhat similar split range to everyone else who bats from the same side. Pitchers tend to be a bit more funky in that regard. What I'm talking about is having all left handed hitters have more trouble with lefties than righties, and just have the troubles be greater for some players than others.

Sorry for the ignorance as I have no idea who Mr. McKracken is, but the man has obviously tried other sims in the past. I too have been frustrated and reading the above was almost like reading my mind.

Oops, sorry, didn't mean to insult Mr. McKracken .

I'm just beginning in this one. The depth is UNBELIEVABLE, I can attest to that. I am feeling quite overwhelmed right now. If you reach conclusions on the above issues, I would love to here your opinions. Might save me some time.

I played another sim for 10 years by including house rules and various self discipline techniques to make it SOMEWHAT playable without winning 125 games a year, but that got old. I even had to make up my own free agency as it had no financial aspect at all. I don't think a baseball sim AI has been invented yet to challeng even a casual fan like an old fat guy, and its been a bit frustrating as the original chess AI was easily beatable but can now beat world champ chess players. I know baseball AI is much harder to code, but it just seems not much progress has been made. Though I can't comment on OOTP yet, most sims are pretty stupid at in game AI as well as running a franchise AI. I'm hoping OOTP is better, it is certainly deeper than ANYTHING I've ever seen. The interface is a bit cumbersome though, probably because it has so much depth to offer.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

Sorry for the ignorance as I have no idea who Mr. McKracken is, but the man has obviously tried other sims in the past.

Well, he is only semi-famous.

More can be found here.

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

Well, he is only semi-famous

And, apparently, so immersed in his solo dynasty that he hasn't come back to post about it.

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

Well, he is only semi-famous.

More can be found here.

Well, a good read. I agreed wholeheartedly with his original post about how strikeouts were sometimes an overlooked stat, when it really is the ONLY sure way a pitcher can avoid a batter reaching base, of course even then the catcher has to catch the ball. But reading some of that stuff about DIPS, boy, I'm not exactly sure I agree with ALL of it. I've always felt a sinkerball pitcher is the best non-strikeout pitcher there is (sinkerballers can frequently get TWO outs with one pitch), does his stats actually show there is NO correlation whatsoever between outcomes of different pitchers once the ball is in play or did I misread that????

[Voros McCracken]

Originally Posted by eriqjaffe

And, apparently, so immersed in his solo dynasty that he hasn't come back to post about it.

Sorry, been a little busy with real life lately, itching to get back into OOTP.

[Voros McCracken]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

Well, a good read. I agreed wholeheartedly with his original post about how strikeouts were sometimes an overlooked stat, when it really is the ONLY sure way a pitcher can avoid a batter reaching base, of course even then the catcher has to catch the ball. But reading some of that stuff about DIPS, boy, I'm not exactly sure I agree with ALL of it. I've always felt a sinkerball pitcher is the best non-strikeout pitcher there is (sinkerballers can frequently get TWO outs with one pitch), does his stats actually show there is NO correlation whatsoever between outcomes of different pitchers once the ball is in play or did I misread that????

The correlation exists, but it is very small. Groundball pitchers give up more hits on balls in play than flyballers, but flyball pitchers give up more extra base hits. Knuckleballers (and possibly other trick delivery pitchers) give up fewer hits per balls in play. High strikeout pitchers also have a _small_ advantage on hits per balls in play and that may or may not be an artifact of pitch velocity. If you ignore all of those exceptions, you still don't wind up very far from the truth of the matter, and for most pitchers, DIPS is pretty much right on the money. The point of the stat was to separate the effects of defense from the effects of the pitcher and it does that job very well.

Yes DIPS _sounds_ counter-intuitive (it did to me too), but that's why it caused such a stir: it's counter-intuitive, yet surprisingly accurate.

That's DIPS nutshelled to date.