A Historical Random Debut League you say? Yes...Yes I think I might

[actionjackson]

I'm still on OOTPXX, but I just can't help myself, and I think I've found some ideal settings for keeping PA, and IP at levels that are extremely comparable to 1984 (my stats base year). It's kind of geekishly exciting, so bear with me. I did have to scrap my other league that I mentioned in David Watts' RDL thread because of something I found that really helps the numbers for pitching leaders. The IP numbers were too high in that league because I was using "Strict Occasional Highest Rested" for starting rotation mode.

I have injuries set to Normal, position player fatigue set to High, and starting rotation mode set to Strict. Figuring out Strict for the rotation mode was the turning point for me, as well as remembering that 1984 featured 26 teams, while my league that starts in 1901 features just 16.

The rotation mode needs to be strict because I just can't help myself, and I can't exclude any player from 1871 through 2018 (that's when historical stats run out for OOTPXX of course). As many have noted, the 19th century and early 20th century starting pitchers are complete and utter beasts in terms of IP and general dominance factor. The discrepancy between leagues in terms of the number of teams means that a top 10 player in any category in my 16 team league is actually a top 16 player in the same category, when extrapolated out to the 1984 leaders. So I looked at the leaders and #10 players in my league and the leaders and #16 players in RL 1984 MLB, and I was stunned at the results with my first season in the books. It may not continue to be this good, but what a start. Next post I'll compare the leader and #10 player from my league vs the leader and #16 player from RL 1984 in many different counting stat categories, starting with batting.

[actionjackson]

For brevity's sake, I won't list the names, just the leader and #10 for OOTP, and the leader and #16 for RL 1984 MLB. First OOTP batters:

Leader/#10:

G: 161/157
PA: 702/678
AB: 645/608
H: 219/172
2B: 42/34
3B: 12/9
HR: 50/27
RBI: 122/98
R: 117/95
BB: 126/80
IBB: 11/7
HBP: 27/5
SH: 18/13
SF: 12/9
K: 181/133
GDP: 26/19
TB: 354/287
RC (Bill James version): 158/106
WPA: 6.15/3.37
wRC (fangraphs version): 146/104
fWAR: 8.3/5.4
SB: 63/34
CS: 22/15
BatR (fangraphs Batting Runs Above Average): 67.0/28.9
wSB (fangraphs SB Runs Above Average): 10.1/3.3

Now 1984 MLB:

Leader/#16:

G: 162/159
PA: 738/689
AB: 701/612
H: 213/180
2B: 44/34
3B: 19/9
HR: 43/27
RBI: 123/97
R: 121/97
BB: 107/77
IBB: 25/12
HBP: 23/6
SH: 16/11
SF: 14/9
K: 168/115
GDP: 36/18
TB: 339/285
RC: 132/108
WPA: 7.39/3.78
wRC: 132/106
fWAR: 9.8/5.6
SB: 75/39
CS: 22/13
BatR: 42.6/31.4
wSB: 11.0/3.6

If the alphabet soup stats make your eyes glaze over, that's OK. Stick to the stats you know and understand.

I'm not really so concerned about the leader numbers, because leaders are, by definition, outliers. But, look at the #10 vs #16 numbers. 2B, 3B, HR, and SF are exactly the same. I don't care too much about SF, but 2B, 3B, and HR? Whoa! RBI and R are extremely close too. BB are right there. K always seem to be somewhat top heavy in OOTP. Can't figure out why, but I've always noticed it, both with hitters and pitchers. GDP are pretty close, and TB are insanely close. Most of the alphabet soup stuff too. Maybe I'm on to something here. Small sample size of one season of course. Pitchers in next post.

[actionjackson]

OOTP Pitchers:

Leader/#10:

G: 78/66
GS: 34/33
W: 19/16
L: 19/15
SV: 44/25
IP: 266.2/245.2
BF: 1083/1030
H: 285/246
2B: 61/45
3B: 13/8
HR: 40/29
TB: 437/373
R: 144/126
ER: 135/112
BB: 127/88
IBB: 10/6
K: 261/203
HBP: 9/7
WP: 16/9
BK: 8/4
DP: 28/22
GF: 66/50
QS: 27/21
CG: 14/10
SHO: 5/3
SB: 36/26
CS: 16/12
WPA: 5.0/2.4
fWAR: 9.5/5.8
RA9-WAR: 9.8/5.3

MLB Pitchers:

Leader/#16:

G: 80/64
GS: 38/34
W: 20/16
L: 18/14
SV: 45/17
IP: 267.0/240.1
BF: 1133/1004
H: 260/232
2B: 60/43
3B: 14/8
HR: 35/25
TB: 408/351
R: 132/109
ER: 125/98
BB: 118/88
IBB: 20/10
K: 276/149
HBP: 11/6
WP: 15/10
BK: 7/3
DP: 38/23
GF: 68/44
QS: 27/22
CG: 17/10
SHO: 5/2
SB: 47/26
CS: 19/12
WPA: 8.6/2.6
fWAR: 8.3/4.1
RA9-WAR: 8.7/4.7

Forget about all the rest of the numbers, the IP and BF are the big two for me here. I've been wanting to try and keep pitchers somewhere in the range of 1984 innings and batters faced, and this is a great start. As I said before, it is only one season, and things could change as the seasons go by, but this is a helluva start.

The W/L record at the #10/#16 position is tremendous, for those who care about that sort of thing. One of the reasons raw numbers will be higher in categories you don't want to be higher in as a pitcher is that the AI keeps running a starter out there over and over again, even though it's quite clear that it's just not his year, and it's time for him to head to the bullpen or be released.

The BB are dead even at the #10/#16 positions, but there was a huuuge spread in pitching K in MLB in 1984, and it was quite compact in my OOTP game. DP, QS, CG, SHO, SB, CS (SB/CS is the same at the #10/#16 position!), and WPA are virtually identical at the #10/#16 position. The WAR are a bit off, but in the overall, this is outstanding, both from a PA & AB standpoint, and from an IP & BF standpoint, and after all, the goal is to keep those things close to where they were IRL in order to give yourself a shot at comparable leaderboards. The moral of the story is, give Normal Injuries, High Fatigue, and Strict Rotation Mode a shot in Random Debut. What have you got to lose?...Oops...Wait a minute...That doesn't have such a good connotation anymore does it?

[Reed]

You remind me of,.....................................ME.
I have restarted my league to many times to count in the past 8 years. I always wanted the stats to be as close to MLB as possible so I would play out a few seasons and decide if I change this or that, it would make my league a little bit more like MLB.
I have finally decided to play MY league instead of trying to replicate MLB. IMO the season is way to long so in MY league I made a 130 game schedule. I made some other changes that would make the seasons more interesting IMO. In my league Babe Ruth might hit 50 home runs instead of 60 but so what, he will still be beast. I might have a few more 400 hitters, but so what. Since I am not trying to mirror MLB I have played this league longer and enjoyed it more than any other league that I created in the past. Started 1901 and currently up to 1916. I probably just jinxed myself and will want to try something different next week.

Anyway, good luck with YOUR league and enjoy it.

[italyprof]

Great work ActionJackson. Also, in case I go back to the "no minimum"/"no maximum" in years I draw players from now I know to use the strict rotation, and the other settings.

I keep injuries on low for now, and use the "strict occasional most rested" because I am using players from 1920-2019 in my latest iteration of a random league.

But I have pitcher stamina on "low" and player fatigue on "very high" to keep some limits on. I thought the 1984 settings were giving me too many homers and too many triples, so I reeled it back to 1978. We'll see how that works.

Anyway, thanks for the great insights into the game.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by italyprof

Great work ActionJackson. Also, in case I go back to the "no minimum"/"no maximum" in years I draw players from now I know to use the strict rotation, and the other settings.

I keep injuries on low for now, and use the "strict occasional most rested" because I am using players from 1920-2019 in my latest iteration of a random league.

But I have pitcher stamina on "low" and player fatigue on "very high" to keep some limits on. I thought the 1984 settings were giving me too many homers and too many triples, so I reeled it back to 1978. We'll see how that works.

Anyway, thanks for the great insights into the game.

Too many homers and triples among the leaders or league wide? You don't have too much control over the league leaders because as I mentioned they're outliers. 'Tis better to look at the depth of the field (or "down ballot" if you will ) when trying to assess how your league is doing in terms of both the offensive environment, and the individual dispersal, if you care about that sort of thing. That's what I was trying to do with the #10/#16 thing.

Also, is your observation about just the first season of your league(s), or subsequent seasons? I find the first season of any league provides strange results (both high and low in different categories) in terms of the league wide output. It seems like recalc over corrects for this in the second season, and then by the time the third season rolls around, it's smoothed out the rough edges, and starts to hone in on the league wide output of of the season you want it to.

Obviously, once it reaches this point, it doesn't produce the same AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS, R/G, ERA, 2B/AB, 3B/AB, HR/AB etc year over year, and you wouldn't want it to because that'd be boring. It does provide the same general offensive environment, and that's what I like because it allows me to compare players in terms of raw numbers and averages across the seasons of my league. The environment will fluctuate, most likely due to changing talent levels in batting, pitching, and fielding, but generally it'll be similar over time, and if you look back after 50 seasons or so, it's scary how close those numbers are to the season you're trying to imitate.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Reed

You remind me of,.....................................ME.
I have restarted my league to many times to count in the past 8 years. I always wanted the stats to be as close to MLB as possible so I would play out a few seasons and decide if I change this or that, it would make my league a little bit more like MLB.
I have finally decided to play MY league instead of trying to replicate MLB. IMO the season is way to long so in MY league I made a 130 game schedule. I made some other changes that would make the seasons more interesting IMO. In my league Babe Ruth might hit 50 home runs instead of 60 but so what, he will still be beast. I might have a few more 400 hitters, but so what. Since I am not trying to mirror MLB I have played this league longer and enjoyed it more than any other league that I created in the past. Started 1901 and currently up to 1916. I probably just jinxed myself and will want to try something different next week.

Anyway, good luck with YOUR league and enjoy it.

Thanks Reed. To each their own I guess. In order for me to fully buy in and invest in a league, I need to see milestones mean something, and be difficult to achieve. I want to see a .300 AVG, .400 OBP, .500 SLG, .900 OPS, 30 HR, 30 SB, 200 H, 100 R, 100 RBI, 20 W, 250 IP, a sub 3.00 ERA, 200 K etc etc be difficult to achieve, and not become commonplace like they are IRL modern baseball (well...except for the SB, W, and IP of course). I want to see something between 19th century pitchers throwing eleventy billion innings, and today's five-and-divers struggling to reach enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. In today's game it seems like a lot of these milestones can be too damn easy, and by being easy they lose their lustre. I remember when 30 HR was a huge accomplishment. Now if a player doesn't reach it, we wonder if he's begun to go into the tank. SMH

I've been trying to get the PA/AB, BF/IP to be closer to my view of normal, and I think I've got it with this setup. Once I've got that, bring on the outliers. Bring on Shoeless Joe, who was the only player to eclipse .400 in my 63 season OOTP16 game, and he did it in back to back seasons. He hit an astounding .434 in a year when MLB hit .256, and then hit .403 the next year when the league average was .262. His next closest in AVG the first season was .333, and it was .323 in the second season. Ridiculous.

Then there was the Mick hitting .387/.490/.758/1.248, 244 OPS+, 236 wRC+, with 149 R, 229 H, 448 TB, 63 HR (only guy to go over 60 in a single season in those 63 seasons - next nearest were Reggie Smith and Mark McGwire with 53), 161 RBI, 122 BB (just 95 K), and 16.1 WAR. That happened in a league that hit .261, with 4.33 R/G, and where the HR/AB rate was .022 (his was .107). The league OBP was about .324, SLG about .385, and OPS about .709. The next closest in AVG was .339, OBP: .436, SLG: .669, OPS: 1.105, R: 110, H: 203, TB: 357, HR: 44, RBI: 119, BB: 110, and WAR: 8.8.

I made it a challenging environment to hit in, and he and Jackson utterly destroyed the field. Looove the outliers. Tip my cap to them. That Mantle season was #3 in BA, #3 in OBP, #1 in SLG, #1 in OPS, #1 in R, #24 in H, #1 in TB, #1 in HR, #1 in RBI, #38 in BB, and #1 in WAR all-time. I'd never seen anything like it in OOTP, before or since.

It's taken time to get the environment the way I want it, and I've definitely started over many times, although much less so since I started to figure out what I wanted out of my game. When I first got the game (OOTPX), all I did was start a league, find I something I didn't like about it, scrap it, and start over again. It was frustrating as hell, but all the while I was learning how to get what I wanted out of it.

Now, I can set it up in about five minutes, run the 45-round Inaugural draft, make a Quickstart out of it, and if I have to restart it, POOF! there it is. It took a long time to arrive at it, but for the most part, I now have the blueprint for what I want to do with it. Once it's set up, all that's left to do is get after it, and see who rises to the top. It's not always who you think it'll be either. That's the beauty of recalc and the player development engine together. You think you know what you're gonna get, but you're guaranteed to be surprised along the way when the ole development engine takes over.

[quillenl]

I'm doing similar with happy success using the Talent Development engine. I lean more towards eliminating too many outliers (it drives me batty when I see 5 times the number of 400 batters and 300Ks) than the average... but looks like similar results in the end.

You have motivated me to try my settings in a recalc random debut and see what happens.

Thanks

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by quillenl

I'm doing similar with happy success using the Talent Development engine. I lean more towards eliminating too many outliers (it drives me batty when I see 5 times the number of 400 batters and 300Ks) than the average... but looks like similar results in the end.

You have motivated me to try my settings in a recalc random debut and see what happens.

Thanks

No probs. Just remember there's nothing stopping you from combining recalc with development. It really comes in handy when Teddy Ballgame, Joe D, and others "disappear", and suppresses Sandy Koufax from remaining a pitching god through his age 75 season. I watched Clayton Kershaw go from 3 consecutive Cy Young level SP seasons to a mediocre SP, to a relief pitcher to a use only in blowouts pitcher to retired in pretty short order. Them's the breaks I guess. You also might see dudes like James Burke (who?), Alex Cobb (what?), Tillie Shafer (huh?), Bill Sowders, Jake Stahl, Jack Hiatt, Leo Kavanagh, Duke Sims, and Ed Bailey take their place among baseball's immortals. I wouldn't be able to go all in on recalc or development, but playing a hybrid of the two is awfully fun.

How are your league wide numbers looking? All you can really do is get them in your sweet spot, and then use Normal (Injuries)/High (Pos Player Fatigue)/Strict (Starting Rotation Mode) in order to keep the amount of reps position players and pitchers get down. Do that and you can get stuff like the pictures below. This is from the first season of this league. First and second seasons tend to be a little uneven in terms of league wide stats. The second season is a bit of a correction year, which perhaps over corrects for stats that were out of whack in the first one, and then things tend to straighten out by the third season, but this looks really promising for the first season of a new league:

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Too many homers and triples among the leaders or league wide? You don't have too much control over the league leaders because as I mentioned they're outliers. 'Tis better to look at the depth of the field (or "down ballot" if you will ) when trying to assess how your league is doing in terms of both the offensive environment, and the individual dispersal, if you care about that sort of thing. That's what I was trying to do with the #10/#16 thing.

Also, is your observation about just the first season of your league(s), or subsequent seasons? I find the first season of any league provides strange results (both high and low in different categories) in terms of the league wide output. It seems like recalc over corrects for this in the second season, and then by the time the third season rolls around, it's smoothed out the rough edges, and starts to hone in on the league wide output of of the season you want it to.

Obviously, once it reaches this point, it doesn't produce the same AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS, R/G, ERA, 2B/AB, 3B/AB, HR/AB etc year over year, and you wouldn't want it to because that'd be boring. It does provide the same general offensive environment, and that's what I like because it allows me to compare players in terms of raw numbers and averages across the seasons of my league. The environment will fluctuate, most likely due to changing talent levels in batting, pitching, and fielding, but generally it'll be similar over time, and if you look back after 50 seasons or so, it's scary how close those numbers are to the season you're trying to imitate.

So you are making me realize I have been too impatient. I should probably wait till the fourth season to think I have figured out what kind of league it is. Thanks. Yes, mostly the league leaders were over the top. So, I will try to be more analytical and jump less to conclusions. I appreciate it.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by italyprof

So you are making me realize I have been too impatient. I should probably wait till the fourth season to think I have figured out what kind of league it is. Thanks. Yes, mostly the league leaders were over the top. So, I will try to be more analytical and jump less to conclusions. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Season 3 or 4 is where things should start to smooth out, and be more in line with what you're looking for. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense. In the opening season, the LTMs have no data to compare/analyze, so it's kind of a wild stab in the dark to figure out what is needed to get the numbers to line up. Then in 1902, it should over correct a bit for numbers that were out of line in 1901. This 1901 season had wildly high HR/AB numbers, but I've seen this movie enough times to know that there will be quite a large correction in 1902, and then it should move back towards where I want it to be, so yes, be patient. All in good time.

[actionjackson]

Look who the RNG brought into the 1901 Amateur Draft. He had become an absolute beast in my longest running game in 16 when I left off.

[actionjackson]

First two rounds of 1901 Inaugural Draft:

[Reed]

I think I like the 2nd round as much of better than the 1st round. A 20 year old Musial.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Reed

I think I like the 2nd round as much of better than the 1st round. A 20 year old Musial.

I wish the Draft AI (don't get me started on it) would factor in a player's age when making decisions in the Inaugural Draft. Ty Cobb's probably the only 30 and up player in there that's worthy of going that high. It doesn't make any sense to examine a player's entire career when you're picking him on the wrong side of 30. I do intervene in the Amateur Drafts, but 720 players with varying amounts of their careers left is just too much to bother figuring out who should go where.

I did it once for OOTP19, but it's too much. The list of the draft has long since disappeared, as the game is now through eight seasons, but here are the players taken in the first two rounds in the order that they were taken. Ages are as of the inaugural season, and are in parentheses from this experiment:

1) Honus Wagner (26)
2) Al Kaline (18)
3) Alex Rodriguez (25)
4) Nolan Ryan (22)
5) Ed Delahanty (20)
6) Craig Biggio (24)
7) Eddie Cicotte (21)
8) Minnie Minoso (23)
9) Bucky Walters (26)
10) Vern Stephens (20)
11) Johnny Damon (21)
12) Joe Tinker (24)
13) Cupid Childs (20)
14) Dale Murphy (20)
15) Eppa Rixey (27)
16) Jon Lester (23)
17) Wes Ferrell (24)
18) Mark Gubicza (22)
19) Bill Madlock (22)
20) Sam Crawford (29)
21) David Wells (34)
22) Mark Langston (28)
23) Jim Bottomley (23)
24) Mike Hampton (21)
25) Cliff P Lee (31)
26) Madison Bumgarner (22)
27) Lefty O'Doul (29)
28) Steve Garvey (24)
29) Mike Hargrove (24)
30) Will White (27)
31) Max Carey (29)
32) George Wright (19th century SS at age 24)

[actionjackson]

1901 All-Star Rosters:

[actionjackson]

Not feeling up to writing much on this right now. Maybe later in the thread, but no promises.

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

No probs. Just remember there's nothing stopping you from combining recalc with development. It really comes in handy when Teddy Ballgame, Joe D, and others "disappear", and suppresses Sandy Koufax from remaining a pitching god through his age 75 season.

I had an awful experience once turning that off and never will again. Ended up having a 60 Year old Roberto Clemente still playing like he was 28. I uncheck authentic retirement ages so bad things happen without development

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

How are your league wide numbers looking?

Made a series of unfortunate bad decisions in trying too many new things at once.

Usually run a fictional league 10 seasons with the setup I then start incorporating Historical Players in the draft. League leaders generally run .330 -.360. 40s for HRs. 250-275 for Ks with outliers rarely nearing 400, 60HRs or 300+ Ks.

This time around I tried the old min age of 30 for fictional player generation, then decided to manually try importing a player each draft from the Spritze database. I'd tried playing directly from that database previously and all the draftees were coming in at identical ages (all were 20 I think?) which was a pretty big turn off. Saw the manual method was not resulting in this issue, got excited, and added Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Buck Leonard over 4 drafts.

Well..
between the now 34-41 year old veterans, and Satchel Paige being Satchel Paige... I am getting pretty extreme outliers (I think Satchel was on pace for 450+ Ks before I messed with modifiers). At this point I realized I was spending more time messing with modifiers than actually playing and probably just need to restart from my quickstart later today.

Speaking of...
Quickstart is awesome. I've been trying it and it works as advertised. Seems to be a bit faster than restoring from a backup as I had done previously. Am I not missing some data being saved or do you think quickstart is just faster? I can't really think of anything I see in a backup save that isn't in the quickstart myself.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by quillenl

Made a series of unfortunate bad decisions in trying too many new things at once.

Usually run a fictional league 10 seasons with the setup I then start incorporating Historical Players in the draft. League leaders generally run .330 -.360. 40s for HRs. 250-275 for Ks with outliers rarely nearing 400, 60HRs or 300+ Ks.

This time around I tried the old min age of 30 for fictional player generation, then decided to manually try importing a player each draft from the Spritze database. I'd tried playing directly from that database previously and all the draftees were coming in at identical ages (all were 20 I think?) which was a pretty big turn off. Saw the manual method was not resulting in this issue, got excited, and added Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Buck Leonard over 4 drafts.

Well..
between the now 34-41 year old veterans, and Satchel Paige being Satchel Paige... I am getting pretty extreme outliers (I think Satchel was on pace for 450+ Ks before I messed with modifiers). At this point I realized I was spending more time messing with modifiers than actually playing and probably just need to restart from my quickstart later today.

Speaking of...
Quickstart is awesome. I've been trying it and it works as advertised. Seems to be a bit faster than restoring from a backup as I had done previously. Am I not missing some data being saved or do you think quickstart is just faster? I can't really think of anything I see in a backup save that isn't in the quickstart myself.

Do you tie your league stats output to a specific season, or just allow the fictional modifiers to roam where they may? I've heard fictional can get quite erratic in terms of outliers, and definitely runs hard towards offense as you progress in your league. I would suggest finding a season that is reasonably close to what you're looking for league output wise, and keeping it to that every season. All 149 seasons can be found here:

Batting: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l.../MLB/bat.shtml

Pitching: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...LB/pitch.shtml

Fielding: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...LB/field.shtml

Find the one that floats your boat, and input it using the "Select Year" selector beside "Totals from year" at the top of the page of:

Game Settings > League Settings > Stats & AI > League Totals

Be sure to look up and input the correct BABIP for that season (on the pitching link I gave you), because the game seems to inflate it by about 2 to 4 points. Do this the day before Opening Day (my method) every season, or on Opening Day before any games are played (other folks swear by this one), and you should get really good results. It looks like your leaders are in the right area though.

With the Spritze guys, look up their player pages on BB-Ref, and bring them in two seasons before their debut date, unless you hold your draft between January 1st and Opening Day. In that case, go with one season before the debut. So, for Charleston that's whatever his player ID is, and 1913. Gibson: 1928, Paige: 1925, and Leonard: 1932. This will make Charleston debut at 17, Gibson at 17, Paige at 19, and Leonard at 25 (he got started really late (26), but in the end it didn't matter). You do this to matchup with the MLBers, all of whom will be available to debut one year younger than they did IRL. I don't know why that happens, but I kinda like it, and I maintain it across the board. The Spritze DB is supposed to have everyone debut around 18 years old, so what you were seeing was supposed to happen. Better to use the default database, and sprinkle in a few Spritzies here and there. I'm also going to start using it for those that played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB to give them the years they missed through no fault of their own. So Jackie would debut three years earlier than he actually did (25 instead of 28). Campy (I don't think this would be allowed by the game) would debut at 14. Irvin at 18. Doby at 17. Newcombe at 17. Rogan at 25. Minoso at 19 etc.

I'll also do it for Japanese Leaguers because of the 7 seasons before being allowed to post BS. So, Ichiro at 17. Matsui at 18. Nomo at 20. Oh at 18. Darvish at 17. Uehara at 23 etc etc.

I only use one quickstart. Hadn't thought of using it the way you appear to be. Once I'm done all my setting up, I'll save it the day before Opening Day. That way if I mess up, I can start again in short order, and everything will be as it should be.