Recalculate Totals Misconception

[kq76]

I realize this topic has been hacked to death, but recently I've been going through old threads and found that a lot of ootp veterans have said that recalculating totals finds your league's totals for last year. This is not true. If you compare them with the leagueb.html file you will find that they are not the same.

I'm not positive, but I think what it does do is give a new set of totals that will likely lead to like an evolution of stats from last year. Meaning that, if last year HRs were abnormally high, recalculating totals will _likely_ continue that. In other words, by clicking it, the results will be close to what happened last year.

The OOTP3 manual (perhaps the most informative ootp manual) says:

- Edit the league totals, which are the basis for the game calculation. Please be careful
while editing and only change the totals if you are not satisfied with the statistical
accuracy. For example, if you feel that batters strike out too much, simply increase
the strikeout total, and the number of K's will drop.
In order to restore the old totals, select 'Recalculate totals'.

Note the last sentence. Is that what it still does? I don't know. I think it does lend to my stat evolution theory though.

[hamonrye]

i always thought that recalculating totals would do the opposite. if you had a high home run total for a given season and then recalculated, that high home run total would show in the home run field, thereby giving you less home runs the following season. so, if you recalculated after every year, you would have high home runs one year, low the next, then high, then low, etc. i haven't used recalculate totals with ootp5, so this may have changed.

[kq76]

I've seen some others say the same thing, and it might be true, I don't know.

[cooper_gd]

Heh... I thought that it caused a progression for the stats if you go year to year and recalculate stats. I may be wrong... but in a 175 season league in v4, I saw mighty good progression and trends over that time. I thought it came partly from "recalculate".

[akw4572]

i think the button in v5 is supposed to give you close to real life totals for the corresponding year you are playing.

[spleen1015]

Originally posted by akw4572
i think the button in v5 is supposed to give you close to real life totals for the corresponding year you are playing.

There are 2 buttons now. We've had the one talked about in this thread since OOTP2. I don't know about OOTP1.

The new one added in OOTP5, recalculates your totals for Historical Leagues. If I remember right, it works very similar to the way the ERA Calculator that IatricSB built in the OOTP3 days. It helps bring your league totals in line with what happen in real life.

2 buttons, that do 2 different things.

[NYJuggalo45]

this is one thing i really wish someone with knowledge of would answer (Markus? Steve? Anyone on the beta team who found out?)

[kserra]

I too would like to hear from someone in the know who could fully explain this feature.

I always assumed, and I'm not sure why I did, that by hitting the button at the end of the season would make it so that the next season would MORE LIKELY follow the path of the previous season...thus allowing you to create your own "eras"...

Markus, Steve, anyone?

kserra

[blynch10]

I guess the big question would be, when to use the recalculate totals button. If Markus would be able to explain why he added the button and the function it is suppose to preform on your league would be a big help. When Markus plays OOTP does he use the button at the end of every year...at the beginning of the next year...or never (when he actually has time to play )

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

I'd also like to know from someone official *exactly* what the original "Recalculate" button is designed to do.

[Ksyrup]

Me too. The one time I used it, it was disasterous. I started an historical league in 1969, got good outcomes that season, then when I moved to 1970 and hit the recalculate button, I had 4 guys with 50+ HRs, 2 guys hit .400, ERA's shot through the roof, etc.

I've never touched it again.

[eneubaue]

Originally posted by kq76

I realize this topic has been hacked to death, but recently I've been going through old threads and found that a lot of ootp veterans have said that recalculating totals finds your league's totals for last year. This is not true. If you compare them with the leagueb.html file you will find that they are not the same.

The reason that the two are not the same is that the post-season results are included in the league totals. For example, at the end of the year you end up with 150,000 AB. Hit "proceed to next year" and then hit "recalculate league totals". Your at bat totals are now, say 150, 524. The additional 524 at bats in the total were accrued in the post season. Hence the discrepency between the final regular season total (150,000) and the total in the league settings for next year (150,524).

I'm not positive, but I think what it does do is give a new set of totals that will likely lead to like an evolution of stats from last year. Meaning that, if last year HRs were abnormally high, recalculating totals will _likely_ continue that. In other words, by clicking it, the results will be close to what happened last year.

Using the "Recalculate League Totals" will return the League totals that accrued for the previous year including post-season results. Recalculating the league totals won't necessarily lead to a continuation of high HR totals, for example. In fact, it could result in a DECREASE in homeruns. Here's an example:

Let's say you start you league with the following totals:

AB - 180,000
Hits - 48,000
2B - 9800
3B - 1000
HR - 6800
BB - 18,000
HBP - 1700
SO - 36,000

After completing your league for the year and proceeding to the next year you use the "Recaculate League Totals" option. Here's the results:

AB - 179,888
Hits - 45,530
2B - 8150
3B - 1120
HR - 5078
BB - 16,345
HBP - 1724
SO - 30,878

Again, these numbers are based on regular season and post-season results. Now notice the changes in the numbers. At bats have dropped slightly, but the number of hits, doubles, homeruns, base on balls, and strikeouts have dropped quite a bit (some more than others). On the other hand, triples and hit by picthes have increased.

So you decide to use these numbers for your next year. What should you expect? We'll, because of the drop in the totals for hits, doubles, homeruns, base on balls, and strikeouts then those totals for at the end of the year should be HIGHER. Remember, if you reduce league totals, then this will likely increase hits, homeruns, doubles, etc. and vice versa.

OK, you decide to use the above recalcuated stats, run your league to derive results and proceed to next season. You hit recalculate and the following totals now result:

AB - 180,012
Hits - 48,566
2B - 8726
3B - 975
HR - 8034
BB - 17,540
HBP - 1687
SO - 34,128

Totals for Hits, 2B, HR, BB, and SO have all gone up from the previous year. This was due to the fact that the recalculated stats you used were LOWER than the original totals you started with. If you decided to use the above recalculated stats for the next year, then one would expect that hits, 2B, HR, BB, SO would drop down again.

It's my understanding that the recaluclate league totals are to provide a 'smoothing effect' so that one's league totals don't deviate radically far away from the initial totals.

Something also to keep in mind - if you start a league with specific totals (say 5000 homeruns) and you want to maintain your league totals near that, then don't use the recalculate league totals!! It will only be useful if you wan't to maintain the type of offense that is currently being produced in MLB today and onward (roughly 2000-and into the future).

Personally, I use it to derive numbers that I can use to maintain my own "smoothing effect".

[ghulten]

If we start it out at a different baseline than modern day baseball (2000-ish), will it provide a smoothing effect off of that baseline, or will it immediately accelerate to 2000-ish totals if we "recalculate" after our first season.

I started my fictional league in 1980, wanting to approximate the offensive levels from that era in baseball. While I'd like SOME fluctuation, I don't want to jump up to 2000-ish baseball in one season.

Should I use the "Recalculate League Totals" at the end of my first season or not?

[kq76]

Oh wow, thanks eneubaue! I saw some others repeating the results you gave, but I never understood them because they didn't explain it like you did. I should have caught that though since the recalculate totals were always only a bit more than the html totals, but it never clued in. Since I want to keep my totals constant I'm not going to use the button, but thanks for explaining it!

EDIT: I suppose this "smoothing effect" is the reason for the unintuitive "if u want to increase the stat then decrease the total". If it was the intuitive way, this smoothing effect would not work.

[eneubaue]

Originally posted by ghulten

If we start it out at a different baseline than modern day baseball (2000-ish), will it provide a smoothing effect off of that baseline, or will it immediately accelerate to 2000-ish totals if we "recalculate" after our first season.

Well, it depends on how high or low the recalulated totals are above or below the original baseline. If you start out with 180,000 At Bats and 5000 homeruns, for example, and at the end of the year you end up with, say 180,128 and 5097 homeruns then your next year's results shouldn't be far off from what you want.

However, I think the problem with the "Recaluate Totals" is that it starts with an initial baseline that's based on MLB totals today.
Since I don't like the current MLB situation of lot's o' homers, here's what I do to insure that my initial league totals stay near what I want them to be over time:

Start with your intial league totals. I'll use the numbers I provided in my previous post (these are the number I use for a solo league with two leagues, 16 teams each league, 8 teams each division):

Initial League Totals

AB - 180,000
Hits - 48,000
2B - 9800
3B - 1000
HR - 6800
BB - 18,000
HBP - 1700
SO - 36,000

Note: Make sure you record these numbers so you don't forget them!

Run your league for that year. Proceed to next year. Hit "recalulate league" totals. Now record the totals for each category. Let's say you get the following recalculated totals:

Year #1 - League Totals (using Recalcuate League Totals)

AB - 179,650
Hits - 46,500
2B - 8102
3B - 1104
HR - 4854
BB - 16,756
HBP - 1710
SO - 31,234

To start the next year, change the recalculated numbers above to those you initially started with (the first set of numbers above). Then run your 2nd season. Now let's say you come up with the following "recaluted totals" results after you've played out your 2nd season and proceeded to the next year:

Year #2 - League Totals (using Recalculate League Totals)

AB - 179,500
Hits - 46,000
2B - 7950
3B - 1056
HR - 4750
BB - 16,503
HBP - 1698
SO - 30,994

Record these totals. Now what I do to "smooth my results" is I adjust up or down my next year's League Totals (what I want them to be, based on my initial totals) based on the increase or decrease in the Recalculated League Totals from Year #1 to Year #2. From my example above, all the recalculated league totals declined from year #1 to year #2.

So what to I do to the League Totals for Year #3? I take the League Totals I initially started with (first set of numbers above - initial league totals) and adjust them based on the Recalulated League Totals I derived from Year #1 and Year #2. For example, I would reduced Hits by 500 for my league totals because hits declined by 500 from Year #1 to Year #2 (actually, I would reduce it by 250 - I don't want my adjustments to create too radical a swing in numbers from year to year).

So, for the League Totals I would change them for the start of Season #3 as follows:

AB - 180,000
Hits - 47,750

and so on for the others. For Year #3, my inital league totals have declined somewhat from when I started. If I had just hit "recalulate league totals" and used those numbers, then my HR totals at the end of the year might skyrocket.

You can then continue the practice from year to year by adjusting your league totals up or down based on whether the recalculated totals increased or decreased from one year to the next. What I do to insure smoothing is to add/subtract from my league totals 50% the increase/decrease in the recalculated league total results from one year to the next (like my example above when I reduced hits by 250 rather than 500 from my initial league totals).

For hits in year #4, for example, I'd add or subtract the 50% increase/decrease in recalculated league totals from Year #2 to Year #3 based on the league total of 47, 750 hits I used to begin Year #3.

In the end, it's extra work, but if you want league homerun totals to be around 5000 every year (like I do) and you want to adjust up or down a little bit every year, then that's what you can do. Otherwise, use the same league totals every year and don't use the recalculate league totals option.

[kq76]

Hmm, for those who feel the smoothing effect does not work very well, I think I may have some insight as to why it doesn't. Say if you want the following actual totals:

AB H 2B 3B HR BB HBP SO
100000 26400 4800 800 2400 9600 800 12000

And you input them into the ootp settings. Of course, you won't even get close to the ratios that you want. You can test this for yourself, but these are the results I got from 10 sims:

H/AB 2B/AB 3B/AB HR/AB BB/AB HBP/AB SO/AB
.2567 .0576 .0043 .0426 .0917 #DIV/0! .3284

As opposed to the results you wanted (these are just ratios of the top #s):

H/AB 2B/AB 3B/AB HR/AB BB/AB HBP/AB SO/AB
.264 .048 .008 .024 .096 .008 .120

A difference of:

H/AB 2B/AB 3B/AB HR/AB BB/AB HBP/AB SO/AB
.0278 -.1990 .4647 -.7737 .0450 #DIV/0! -1.7363

As you can see, this is fairly off for most of the ratios. The most important perhaps the HR/AB, being off by 77% (meaning that someone who should hit 50 HRs will now hit close to 88) is just way too much.

Anyways, most of us know this already. The significance of this with respect to the smoothing effect is that, if the above does not produce the results that you want, how can using last year's results not also produce these way off results?

EDIT: added bolding

[ghulten]

eneubaue,

Thank you for the outstanding explanation of how to make these totals work for my league! I was planning on just hitting "recalculate" at the end of the season, and I think I would have been pretty disappointed.

Thanks again.

[eneubaue]

No problem

[JimboJones]

eneubaue -

Thanks for the explanation - it makes sense that it would work this way.

Can I ask how you found this information? With all due respect, it would be nice if we could get a confirmation on this from Markus.

Jim

[TC Dale]

Since he is on vacation, Markus cannot reply at this time. I know that Scott and Steve read this board religiously.

Maybe Scott or Steve can chime in on this subject?