Am I missing and important setting?

[highandoutside]

Are there some magic settings that I am overlooking in order to get end of year standings that will look something like real life?

No matter what I settings I use - real stats/neutral stats, traditional/sabermetric, no trades/low trades etc. etc. - I can't get anywhere near actual results.

In 1909 the Tigers cannot win the AL. In 1982, the Tigers win the East, Milwaukee is never really close, and neither the Cardinals nor Braves ever win the NL East or West. Moreover, 2nd and 3rd place team often end up in last and last place teams finish near the top.

Now, I'm not saying that I want an exact replication of what happened in real life, but I would like strong teams to be strong, weak teams to be weak. The '82 Tigers should not consistently win the AL East. Maybe a couple times, but not all the time.

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but if there is going to be an option for replay leagues, shouldn't the replays reflect the real life to some degree? Maybe my sample size is too small but, I've replayed these season numerous times with results that make no sense.

Again, I love this game and I appreciate the efforts of all that are involved in making it better. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. But, I would like to start managing a team and relive some past seasons, but from what I'm seeing I'm not going to get seasons that "feel" very historical.

[highandoutside]

We can ignore this thread. I was just a bit frustrated. This game isn't really a replay game. I love my fictional league and I may try a managerial career instead of replaying seasons. I didn't mean it to sound like a rant. If there is an important setting, however, you could post it...ha!

[SteveP]

I doubt that you were missing any hidden options.

There's another gamer who was quite perplexed and annoyed that he could not get the right team results for a specific year (1974, I believe), no matter how many times he tried. Maybe there are just certain years that work that way.

[douga]

This brings back some memories - with the old card games APBA/Strat-o and such when there were occassionally situations that just could not be duplicated if you run simply on stats alone.

And so the game would try, shall we say, rounding up on ratings that they could.

Much easier to have a team with top fielding/pitching/hitting to do well in all replays, but quite another when you have a team that was middle of the road in everything or had great pitching and no batting or vice versa.

Ah, the good old days!

The old 'clutch' ratings and similar are a good way to help squeak those teams up a bit in quality. Otherwise with a PC game you'd really have to tweak things and have it look at the standings and then give bonuses to the better teams if they are not doing well. And that would be kind of not good.

[TribeFanInNC]

This kinda stuff almost always has something to do with different amounts of playing time for players between the replay and real life. The game does a pretty decent job of replicating the specific players. But since it does not use real life transactions and real life injuries, it can not replay the season exactly.

[Biggio509]

Exactly. Sometimes the guy does not get injured that allows the new hot rookie that would not have started without some getting injured. Some teams are also dependent on one or two guys over acheiving or under acheiving to be in the position they were.

On setting that might help is to not base ratings on 3 years but on 1 year. Especially fielding. Sometimes basing on 3 years or carrer stats might have a very different result. I can think of guys like Richard Hidalgo that had an above average year that put the Astros into the playoffs one year. A guy who only had one good year and that was the year the team went to the playoffs is going to be the one who really is affected here. Someone like Tony Gwynn is not going to be a big issue on stats choices. A guy John Hudek or Mitch wildthing Williams will be highly affected by if you use 1 year for ratings calc or 3 year. Guys like Andre Dawson might not have the full drop off at the end of the career if you use too many years. Even guys that had an off season might perform much better if stats are on 3 years.

So I think the only real chance is to get close to real standings other than sheer luck is play in God mode. No injuries no AI transactions no suspensions. You have the data on every player injured and all transactions. You edit injuries when they happen and you force trades and other transactions when they happen and you set yourself as human manager so you can set each teams lineup the way it was historically. Anything else is going to cause a random event that might create a completely different alternative universe.

On a side note, one could say games like this challenge a notion of one's regrets. We often think if we did one thing differently we know what would have happened. The game actually shows us one small change creates huge ripples that are completely unpredictable. The chain of events in baseball are often inter-related. One injury not happening might prevent one trade that prevents player promotions or another trade.

Then there is the old the stats are accurate but the timing is different. Even Ted Williams only got hits 40% of the time. That is 60% of the time he did not. It is really easy to get the 40% hits in situations different from real life and the result is few run created or even created in games where in RL that hit would have made a difference but the game is a blow out in the sim or the runs came in a blow out in RL and in the sim they win games. Even if you could replay the same games with the same people with the same skills at a different time in real RL there is no real guarantee you get the same result. That is baseball team A can win by 10 runs one night and loses by 1 the next day and then loses by 10 runs the third day. Even when 8 of the 9 starters are the same in all 3 games!

[highandoutside]

Thanks for all thoughtful comments. As I said, I love the game and I'm not complaining. I, also, understand there are many variables that go into the real life outcomes that can't always - nor would we want them to be - replicated in a computer game like this. I don't want an exact sim, my concerns were that I wanted some close approximation to the season I am replaying.

On that note, I just checked out the "Dynasty" folder and saw that Jeff1787 replay of the 1927 season resulted in the Yankees finishing in 4th and the A's in 6th. Cleveland, which in real life only ended up with 66 wins, won the American League. That is a little disturbing, as the 1927 Yankees should be a no-brainer powerhouse team. Maybe they shouldn't win the division every year, but I can't imagine how they could finish behind a bad Cleveland team that year.

[pstrickert]

I just fired up OOTP11 and simmed the 1927 season. NYY won the AL by 15 games. NYG won the NL by one game over PIT. (I turned off TRADES and set INJ to Very Low.)

ETA: I went ahead and tried it a second time. This time, NYY won the AL by 20 games. PIT won the NL by 2 games over STL and NYG.

[highandoutside]

Excellent Pstrickert. Glad to hear that.

[BaseballMan]

I think you have to keep in mind the year you are simming. If the 27 yankees, 76 Reds,
84 Tigers are not consistently at the top I'd be concerned but for years like 82 the cards were a good team but not an alltime great team. Therefore I think minor changes probably effect teams more the less they were greater in real life but I could be wrong about that.

[Gambo]

Originally Posted by douga

This brings back some memories - with the old card games APBA/Strat-o and such when there were occassionally situations that just could not be duplicated if you run simply on stats alone.

And so the game would try, shall we say, rounding up on ratings that they could.

Oh yes....this happened alot in APBA (and still does with many many games). For those teams where stats couldn't explain success players very often got bumps to secondary ratings such as speed, fielding, arm and teams that performed bad got drops in those same categories. And it was always guys who you didn't pay too much attention to.

[highandoutside]

For those of you that are interested, Jeff1787 wrote the following in respone to my question in his dynasty thread. It further clears OOTP

"Yep, that is the result of the replay by the computer.

When I started this replay (1901 and forward) I handled all of the transactions, depth charts, line-ups and rotations. This got to be WAY too tedious and time consuming. Now I let the computer do it.

1927 Yankees:
SP’s Herb Pennock and Wilcy Moore were a combined 6-1 (real life 38-15)
SP’s Urban Shocker and Dutch Reuther were not on the team

1927 Athletics:
CF Ty Cobb was retired early with an injury
3B Sammy Hale was not on the team
SP’s Walberg, Ehmke and Quinn were not on the team"

Good point and very true Baseball Man. Your post as sent me off to run a sim of the team of my youth - the 1984 tigers.

[Biggio509]

One other problem with real stats at least, is what happens when you have those rookies who have few IP or ABs. Even with weakening them turned on you find they have way better ratings then they should. It is not uncommon to see spot starters have better ratings than regular starters. It is a tough call because these guys were good when they played but obviously the team felt would not be so good every day. So you have guys with say 5 starts who have better ratings than 30 game winners! They did have a better ERA maybe better WHIP or K/9 innings but they only played a limited amount of time. I am not sure how many guys with awesome ratings I have seen that have less than 100 ABs!

So part of the problem is bad teams are more likely to have guys who played a limited time. The team had holes and may have tried 3 or more players who for whatever reason did not work out. These low AB or IP guys can sometimes get stats that cause the AI to start them even though they would have never made an everyday starter.

In some ways, the game looks too much at stats like BA or ERA. I can remember back in 1986 looking at the up and coming series between the Astros and Mets and wonder why the backup catcher hitting .310 was playing instead of Gary Carter. I had not yet grasped stastics and realized limited stats tell you almost nothing. I remember a friend looking at me like I was crazy and saying Gary Carter was the best catcher in baseball. I think the game makes the same mistakes in OOTPXI. High ratings are generated to simulate what the player did in limited time but the game does not know nor can it simulate the fact Gary Carter's backup was a backup because he could not hit like that playing everyday.

[Germaniac]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

In some ways, the game looks too much at stats like BA or ERA. I can remember back in 1986 looking at the up and coming series between the Astros and Mets and wonder why the backup catcher hitting .310 was playing instead of Gary Carter. I had not yet grasped stastics and realized limited stats tell you almost nothing. I remember a friend looking at me like I was crazy and saying Gary Carter was the best catcher in baseball. I think the game makes the same mistakes in OOTPXI. High ratings are generated to simulate what the player did in limited time but the game does not know nor can it simulate the fact Gary Carter's backup was a backup because he could not hit like that playing everyday.

I guess that's the big problem programming a game like this.

Did player XY have 150 AB's (or 70 IP) because he didn't have the everyday ability of the star player ??? Or was he just injured and missed considerable time ??

In the first case, his rating probably should be lowered ... in the latter case, the rating should stay as it is.