How setup for stats only play?

[skunkle333]

Just saw again tonight another player that evidently plays stats only.

I've just been wondering how do you set up a season to play the game
with Stats only?

No need to answer if it's really complicated. : )

Otherwise would appreciate some data on this.

Thank you...

[jimmysthebestcop]

Turn off ratings and stars. But its pretty unrealistic if you ask me. That is like having no scouts at all. Besides ratings only tell 1 part of the story you need stats no matter what. I use ratings and stats but I rely on stars and my gut to tell me about players.

Most mlbers are say 2.5 stars. That covers bench warmers, platoon guys all stars. You might have 1 dozen 5 star superstars in the entire MLB. 5 star vs 2 star means the 5 star guy has a better shot at putting up an all star year consistently. But nothing is stopping that 2 star guy from having a fluke all star season. Happens in game and irl.

So do stars and ratings help that much? I would say not really. You still years of stats to see who is who.

[slugga27]

I still (respectfully) disagree here. You have scouting reports to go off of, and you should be using those reports in conjunction with the stats to form an opinion.

I play stats-only, except I have "other" ratings turned on (fielding, baserunning and the like). If you are looking for a challenge, that's definitely the way to go.

I see people around here say "I've won X world series in a row" and I bet it's because when you have ratings on, your judgement is clouded. Example: with ratings on, let's say you have an 80 rated outfielder. He's been an 80-rated outfielder all year, but he's hitting like he's today's Chris Davis. Do you sit him because his stats are not up to snuff, or do you play him every day, because he has to come out of the funk; after all, the ratings say so! I find it incredibly hard to believe that the answer would be the former, because that defies human nature.

[robc]

I tend to like to turn off current ratings, but leave potential ratings on. Many times I set the scale to 2-8 also. It seems like a good compromise since I get info as to how good my scout will think the player will be, but never what his current ratings are (although you can sometimes infer them based on the potential ratings and their performance).

If I play with current ratings on, I will make all my decisions based on that because that is what is driving the results, and after a while that is less fun.

[Syd Thrift]

I've been using POTs only as well for the past year or so, with the scale set to 20-80 in increments of 5 because I like the way it feels in a baseball sense. I also turn scouting accuracy all the way down to Very Low, although IMO it still tracks veterans too well under these circumstances, which is why I tend to use a more stats-based approach (in the past I went stats only). I personally *like* not knowing whether or not that 35 year old guy who's been awful through the end of May has lost it or if he's just in a slump. Some people prefer knowing the ratings, even if they're filtered through a (small) amount of scout error but I do not.

[ThePride87]

I respect that people like to play stats-only, if that's your thing, more power to you. But I've never considered stats to be all that important, definitely not as much as ratings (unless your scout sucks and/or you have low scouting accuracy). Ratings are supposed to help tell you today what a player is or will be....stats simply tell you what happened in the past. They aren't necessarily predictive, just explanatory.

At least that's how I've always seen it, I can definitely be flawed.\

Like for instance, if a top prospect of mine is hitting 0.400 after first 2 months of the season, but my scout (whom is top-notch and has a maxed budget) says boss, he's really just a 50 out of 80 at contact....I'm going to trust what my scout and his $10M minors budget say over anything BA/BABIP/etc is saying. Chances are any stats over those 2 months can hardly be trusted anyway, lack of sample size. I want my scout director to do his job and direct me. If he's wrong, he's wrong....it happens.

[ThePride87]

I guess what I don't understand with stats-only is this: I'm playing this game for the realism. I want to be GM of a team and run it the way I believe a competent GM would do. Do I really believe most MLB teams make decisions primarily from stats these days? Because I really don't believe that at all. If I player can't hit the broad side of a barn for a month, ok sure, you send him down to refocus....but I'd have to believe most demotions/promotions and signings come down to what a team's scouting dept is telling them, beyond just the raw numbers. Things like exit velocity, launch angle, pitch velocity, spin rate....I would expect a team and their decisions to come from stuff like that, not plain stats that may or may not tell you the truth, and definitely not stats from 2 years ago that you might as well through out the window. At least, that's what I'd hope my team is doing.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Mlb teams have massive amounts of video and 3d capturing to help their development and scouting. And it's only going to get higher tech. It's part of the battle with milb who don't have up to date facilities.

Scouting reports I find completely useless. I'm really talking about the paragraph the scout writes out. I don't think I've ever found it to be accurate well ever. Unless it's a 3-5 year pro

[Syd Thrift]

My problem with ratings is that they’re way too perfect for older players. The game starts with ratings all over the place for younger players, which is fine, then narrows things in as guys get older, then finally is pretty close to accurate for players who have been in the league for a few years. That’s fine, but then when a guy suddenly falls off a cliff, you usually see it in the ratings before it’s reflected in the stats and that IMO is 100% backwards. IRL a scout has 15 years or more on accumulated data as well as his own gut on, say, Tony Gwynn. If that scout watches Gwynn and his bat speed is slower than it used to be, that scout is going to use Bayesian reasoning with his accumulated data and assume he’s just having a bad day or something. You should probably be getting reports on Gwynn saying he’s a Hall of Fame worthy contact hitter even after he’s hit .220 for the past year.

Also, I feel like even on Very Low accuracy the scouts make way too few “oh wow, this guy just had a big change to his ratings” errors, which means that for vets, *any* change you see to their ratings, you should just assume they’re 100% accurate. Even if, theoretically, a scout totally whiffed on a ratings bump that never happened (which I flat out don’t see, even on the lowest accuracy), that assessment will be ironed out by the time the next report comes out.

[skunkle333]

Thank you fellas for giving me several angles to think about.

Appreciate your time, insight and opinions !!

[Hrycaj]

I play full stats only. I’m not going to justify how I play or bash how anyone else plays since that wasn’t what was asked. I’m just here to add that in addition to turning off the ratings and stars you should consider changing the ratings weights as well. This way your scout and the ai evaluate accordingly. I use the following. 0/67/22/11. Good luck.