Relief pitchers and home runs allowed

silentrob · 02-05-2010, 10:45 PM

I've come across a situation I didn't expect, and am looking for a possible explanation of what is going on. What I've done is to try and start a history league from 1876, but with all seasons the equivalent of 1983 stats, slightly adjusted in a couple areas and adjusted based on number of teams in the league. So all seasons will have the same stat totals per team every season from 1876 onward. Meaning that since the average team hit 127 HR in 1983, the average team in my 1876 league will have 127 HR for the season. It took a lot of working the stats modifiers, but I finally got the league totals to the right numbers.

To get to the point, when I started playing the games, I found that for my team, and for every team, it was essentially just the relievers who gave up home runs. A few games into the season, my starters had 86 IP, 1 HR allowed. The bullpen had 19 IP, 13 HR allowed. And all other teams looked something like this as well. As everyone has about the same movement ability, they should be allowing HR at an equal rate or close to it.

I don't know if anyone has ever tried anything like this, but if you have any idea what might be going on, I'd love to hear what you think, as I've put quite a bit of time into setting this league up and would hate to scrap it because this is so out of whack. If you need more info I'll happily oblige.

Spritze · 02-05-2010, 11:54 PM

What thou art attempting may not work too well as the historical HR modifier will quickly grow to numbers so large there is no name for them. So expect to do a lot of that "working the stats modifers" stuff as you progress.

Other players have attempted what you are trying to do and have failed miserably. The challenge seems to be in the way the batter and pitcher ratings and modifiers interact as I disremember. Last summer I tried to help a couple of other players with this same problem but we were unsuccessful in the end. Starters had ERA's in the ones and relievers had ERA's in the 10's. Oddly one of the things we tried was moving the starters with the 1 ERAs to the bullpen where they instantly became just as sucky as anyone else.

What worked best was to make sure the bullpen pitchers have 3 pitches in their repertoire. Doesn't help all that much but it was the best option.

Other than the HR's the rest of what you are attempting worked pretty well.

silentrob · 02-06-2010, 12:25 AM

Well, darn, I was hoping to try something new instead of the same historical recreations I've done before, but I guess this won't be it. I suppose it would work out ok if I began in 1935 or something like that when historic HR are at least within shouting distance of today's HR rates, but I was hoping to see what really old historic guys might do in a modern environment. I had the HR modifier up to 300.000, that made the league totals about right, but this HR for relievers thing I did not see coming as I only checked the league totals rather than individual in my practice sims.

You are right that just about everything else seemed to work properly, but this isn't really something I can work around and maintain any reasonable accuracy, at least not for 50 years or so, and that would ruin the whole point.

In any case, thanks for the nice quick response, at least I won't have to waste any more time with it and can try something else. Cheers.

silentrob · 02-07-2010, 12:07 AM

I just had a thought that might help this situation, but perhaps its already been tried. What if I manually adjusted the HR hitting abilities for batters and movement rates for pitchers? Say multiply the HR abilities and potential for all the hitters by about 7, and reduced the movement for pitchers by multiplying by 2/3 or so? That should give more realistic levels that might even out the gameplay. The problem I foresee here, besides having to do 2 calculations for this on every player in the league, is that I'll have to take my original multipliers, 7 and 2/3 or whatever I decide on, and multiply all future batters by those numbers adjusted for the difference between my original season and the season I'm starting. Lots of calculations, but it could be done given the willpower. Unless someone has tried this as well and had it not work for them. In which case I'll throw in the towel and admit defeat.

Spritze · 02-07-2010, 12:16 AM

That might work better. I don't know anyone who has tried it but it should fix the challenge. It is the batters lack of power along with the pitchers lack of giving up HR's and the HR modifiers huge value that causes the challenge in my opinion from the little testing I did.

silentrob · 02-07-2010, 12:26 AM

Maybe I'll give it a try, then, and report back in a couple days how it turns out. Might take me a while to modify all the guys as unfortunately work interferes with OOTP sometimes. But I'll let you know how it goes whenever it does get done. Thanks again for your help with this idea.

silentrob · 02-09-2010, 11:30 AM

Here is the status report on my idea of modifying HR abilities. I did so for just batters to start with, as that was a pretty simple matter of just multiplying their existing abilities by a number, I chose 6.5 as my value. After changing all the hitters and doing a sim, the problem with relievers allowing the HR way more often is still there but lessened. The average reliever gave up the HR about 3 or 4 times as often as an average starter which, as bad as it is, is far superior to what was going on before. So now I'm adjusting the pitchers, which I'm thinking is a bit more complicated, because I can't really just multiply everyone's value by a fraction, because then there is no variation. So I'm going to list everyone's movement in a spreadsheet, sort it, and then assign values based on a somewhat flattened bell curve and see what happens. Maybe not the most precise statistical methods but I just want to get it close so I can play.

silentrob · 02-09-2010, 04:05 PM

I've found that it requires adjusting both pitchers and hitters to get the results to even out between starters and relievers on HR allowed. I used the method described above and, with the HR modifier set to 1, got about 67% of the correct number of HRs. So I think I can proceed now, its just that I'll need to adjust this particular ability whenever I import new players. It will be a pain, but at least this can be done. I suppose you could "normalize" all the abilities in this way, but I don't care to do that much extra work.

So anyway, if anyone out there reads this, you can play 19th century leagues with today's stats if you are willing to do a bit of extra work on player abilities, it seems.

02-05-2010, 10:45 PM	#1
silentrob Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 233	Relief pitchers and home runs allowed I've come across a situation I didn't expect, and am looking for a possible explanation of what is going on. What I've done is to try and start a history league from 1876, but with all seasons the equivalent of 1983 stats, slightly adjusted in a couple areas and adjusted based on number of teams in the league. So all seasons will have the same stat totals per team every season from 1876 onward. Meaning that since the average team hit 127 HR in 1983, the average team in my 1876 league will have 127 HR for the season. It took a lot of working the stats modifiers, but I finally got the league totals to the right numbers. To get to the point, when I started playing the games, I found that for my team, and for every team, it was essentially just the relievers who gave up home runs. A few games into the season, my starters had 86 IP, 1 HR allowed. The bullpen had 19 IP, 13 HR allowed. And all other teams looked something like this as well. As everyone has about the same movement ability, they should be allowing HR at an equal rate or close to it. I don't know if anyone has ever tried anything like this, but if you have any idea what might be going on, I'd love to hear what you think, as I've put quite a bit of time into setting this league up and would hate to scrap it because this is so out of whack. If you need more info I'll happily oblige.

02-05-2010, 11:54 PM	#2
Spritze OOTP Historical Czar Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Bothell Wa Posts: 7,253	What thou art attempting may not work too well as the historical HR modifier will quickly grow to numbers so large there is no name for them. So expect to do a lot of that "working the stats modifers" stuff as you progress. Other players have attempted what you are trying to do and have failed miserably. The challenge seems to be in the way the batter and pitcher ratings and modifiers interact as I disremember. Last summer I tried to help a couple of other players with this same problem but we were unsuccessful in the end. Starters had ERA's in the ones and relievers had ERA's in the 10's. Oddly one of the things we tried was moving the starters with the 1 ERAs to the bullpen where they instantly became just as sucky as anyone else. What worked best was to make sure the bullpen pitchers have 3 pitches in their repertoire. Doesn't help all that much but it was the best option. Other than the HR's the rest of what you are attempting worked pretty well. Last edited by Spritze; 02-06-2010 at 12:11 AM.

02-06-2010, 12:25 AM	#3
silentrob Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 233	Well, darn, I was hoping to try something new instead of the same historical recreations I've done before, but I guess this won't be it. I suppose it would work out ok if I began in 1935 or something like that when historic HR are at least within shouting distance of today's HR rates, but I was hoping to see what really old historic guys might do in a modern environment. I had the HR modifier up to 300.000, that made the league totals about right, but this HR for relievers thing I did not see coming as I only checked the league totals rather than individual in my practice sims. You are right that just about everything else seemed to work properly, but this isn't really something I can work around and maintain any reasonable accuracy, at least not for 50 years or so, and that would ruin the whole point. In any case, thanks for the nice quick response, at least I won't have to waste any more time with it and can try something else. Cheers. Last edited by silentrob; 02-06-2010 at 12:28 AM.

02-09-2010, 04:05 PM	#8
silentrob Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 233	Results of my tests I've found that it requires adjusting both pitchers and hitters to get the results to even out between starters and relievers on HR allowed. I used the method described above and, with the HR modifier set to 1, got about 67% of the correct number of HRs. So I think I can proceed now, its just that I'll need to adjust this particular ability whenever I import new players. It will be a pain, but at least this can be done. I suppose you could "normalize" all the abilities in this way, but I don't care to do that much extra work. So anyway, if anyone out there reads this, you can play 19th century leagues with today's stats if you are willing to do a bit of extra work on player abilities, it seems.

02-07-2010, 12:07 AM	#4
silentrob Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 233	I just had a thought that might help this situation, but perhaps its already been tried. What if I manually adjusted the HR hitting abilities for batters and movement rates for pitchers? Say multiply the HR abilities and potential for all the hitters by about 7, and reduced the movement for pitchers by multiplying by 2/3 or so? That should give more realistic levels that might even out the gameplay. The problem I foresee here, besides having to do 2 calculations for this on every player in the league, is that I'll have to take my original multipliers, 7 and 2/3 or whatever I decide on, and multiply all future batters by those numbers adjusted for the difference between my original season and the season I'm starting. Lots of calculations, but it could be done given the willpower. Unless someone has tried this as well and had it not work for them. In which case I'll throw in the towel and admit defeat.

02-07-2010, 12:16 AM	#5
Spritze OOTP Historical Czar Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Bothell Wa Posts: 7,253	That might work better. I don't know anyone who has tried it but it should fix the challenge. It is the batters lack of power along with the pitchers lack of giving up HR's and the HR modifiers huge value that causes the challenge in my opinion from the little testing I did.

02-07-2010, 12:26 AM	#6
silentrob Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 233	Maybe I'll give it a try, then, and report back in a couple days how it turns out. Might take me a while to modify all the guys as unfortunately work interferes with OOTP sometimes. But I'll let you know how it goes whenever it does get done. Thanks again for your help with this idea.

02-09-2010, 11:30 AM	#7
silentrob Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 233	Here is the status report on my idea of modifying HR abilities. I did so for just batters to start with, as that was a pretty simple matter of just multiplying their existing abilities by a number, I chose 6.5 as my value. After changing all the hitters and doing a sim, the problem with relievers allowing the HR way more often is still there but lessened. The average reliever gave up the HR about 3 or 4 times as often as an average starter which, as bad as it is, is far superior to what was going on before. So now I'm adjusting the pitchers, which I'm thinking is a bit more complicated, because I can't really just multiply everyone's value by a fraction, because then there is no variation. So I'm going to list everyone's movement in a spreadsheet, sort it, and then assign values based on a somewhat flattened bell curve and see what happens. Maybe not the most precise statistical methods but I just want to get it close so I can play.