Blown Double Plays

[Thomidor]

I am curious if everyone sees the same issue with failure to convert double plays a frequent occurrence. I see it happen to my squad at least 4-5 times a game and strangely enough it almost always happens when it means I can keep the opposing team from scoring. Conversely the AI team fails maybe once a game and always succeeds when it prevents my team from scoring. Yes I have actually kept track for several games after I noticed the trend. It gets a bit old watching (in 3D mode) my team fail to convert a double play because "He makes a good choice and doesn't throw the relay" or "the hard slide upsets the relay throw". I'm sorry but if a team hard slid into second as much as this game says they do there would be a lot more brawls in baseball. I mean It's not like I have ****ty players with Trevor Story, Brendan Rodgers at SS and 2B.

[Brad K]

The animations aren't what really happened. Actually the play by play isn't what really happened.

What really happened is a bunch of randomness got together and decided whether or not there would be a double play, without looking at the animation or reading the play by play, and actually without even knowing they exist.

[Thomidor]

Originally Posted by Brad K

The animations aren't what really happened. Actually the play by play isn't what really happened.

What really happened is a bunch of randomness got together and decided whether or not there would be a double play, without looking at the animation or reading the play by play, and actually without even knowing they exist.

I completely understand the animations don't always follow the actual play. As I said it just gets frustrating to read the PBP description and see that they decide to hold the ball, or get taken out by an aggressive slide. I can handle the animations being behind, slow or off. That I fully understand this isn't MLB2K baseball or Road to the Show.

I am more inquiring of this is a common issue with everyone.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Thomidor

I completely understand the animations don't always follow the actual play. As I said it just gets frustrating to read the PBP description and see that they decide to hold the ball, or get taken out by an aggressive slide. I can handle the animations being behind, slow or off. That I fully understand this isn't MLB2K baseball or Road to the Show.

I am more inquiring of this is a common issue with everyone.

So is the question, are there too many force outs at 2B? Baseball reference counts them I think.

[Thomidor]

Originally Posted by RchW

So is the question, are there too many force outs at 2B? Baseball reference counts them I think.

No it's more a question of if people see their team having a large number of blown double plays or not. I just find it odd when I look at how my games have played out that my team blows more than any AI team I face. I am wondering it is my players issue, a coaching issue or what.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Thomidor

No it's more a question of if people see their team having a large number of blown double plays or not. I just find it odd when I look at how my games have played out that my team blows more than any AI team I face. I am wondering it is my players issue, a coaching issue or what.

I play out every game for my team and have noticed nothing concerning in this regard. Of course, in small sample sizes I might start to get frustrated with my team for hitting into too many double plays or for not completing enough of them on defense. But I have to reassure myself that over the course of the season these things average out as they should. There are so many factors on any individual play in this regard, including not just the defensive skills of the players involved but the running speed of both lead base runner and hitter, how hard/where the ball was hit, etc.

And (at the risk of sounding like a broken record, because I feel like I have so much occasion to state this around here) we humans tend to notice the things that don't go as we expect them to, or especially that work against us, more than all of things that go exactly as expected and especially that work in our favor.

Now, that doesn't mean it isn't some issue about your players or defensive positioning or some such thing. But assuming that you know your players and their defensive abilities, particularly with regard to their double play ratings, I have to guess it isn't that but just luck/perception/sample size, etc.

[mytreds]

I think he is meaning that there is an imbalance of double plays comparing user teams to AI teams. User teams ground into double plays more frequently that AI teams, who instead are grounding into more FCs.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by mytreds

I think he is meaning that there is an imbalance of double plays comparing user teams to AI teams. User teams ground into double plays more frequently that AI teams, who instead are grounding into more FCs.

Understood. And I'm saying that I have not noticed this and it feels like more likely a perception issue than a reality issue. But, hey, I could be wrong. I was merely providing the feedback OP was requesting as someone who plays out all my games.

[Questdog]

If that were true, then human teams would almost always finish last in the league in DP.... I have been playing this game a LONG time and have not seen any such trend.

That said, though, in my first full season in OOTP21, my team finished near the bottom of the league in DP, which seemed odd, because their pitching was so horrible. Teams with bad pitching have a lot more opportunities for DP.... But in my 2nd season, as of the middle of May, my team is only 2 DP behind the League leader. And our pitching is much better (but still not any good).

[Will_L]

I'd say that I haven't seen this as a problem though if you have a crappy infield (looking at you my 2020 Mets) it might seem like one.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Thomidor

No it's more a question of if people see their team having a large number of blown double plays or not. I just find it odd when I look at how my games have played out that my team blows more than any AI team I face. I am wondering it is my players issue, a coaching issue or what.

There is no blown DP result in game. Like it or not the result you see is a force play at 2B. The question remains, are DP set so low that OOTP needs force outs to balance total outs.

[CBeisbol]

If you collected the data, what's the data?

[jbergey22]

Is your team packed full of turtles?

Ive played out seasons of replay look for these type of possible issues in regards to season stats and have seen nothing unusual.

Biggest issue I see is that I dont call for the stolen base enough as Im constantly on the low side of that.

Even when my teams seem to go on streaks where they cant stop throwing wild pitches I check the league numbers and Im middle of the pack so......Like an earlier poster said probably some bias going on with recent results and them results working against you.

[OutS|der]

When you find results are not to your liking start keeping track of what you find off and complete the season then look at your numbers and see if there is still something off.
Can't judge by a small sample size, really need at least a season to judge if numbers are off or if more investigation is needed.

[Brad K]

A season might not be enough for a low occurrence event.

[ALB123]

Originally Posted by Thomidor

I am curious if everyone sees the same issue with failure to convert double plays a frequent occurrence. I see it happen to my squad at least 4-5 times a game and strangely enough it almost always happens when it means I can keep the opposing team from scoring. Conversely the AI team fails maybe once a game and always succeeds when it prevents my team from scoring. Yes I have actually kept track for several games after I noticed the trend. It gets a bit old watching (in 3D mode) my team fail to convert a double play because "He makes a good choice and doesn't throw the relay" or "the hard slide upsets the relay throw". I'm sorry but if a team hard slid into second as much as this game says they do there would be a lot more brawls in baseball. I mean It's not like I have ****ty players with Trevor Story, Brendan Rodgers at SS and 2B.

Thomidor, with regard to the part of your OP that I have highlighted, yes, I personally believe I see this happen a lot, to the point where I'm saying to myself, "Why the hell can't I ever turn two?!" However, I don't have any data collected, I'm not sure how often this happens, on average, over a typical real life MLB season and I am aware that I may just be experiencing sour grapes because I have a vested interest in the situation. Part of me thinks that the animation is mostly to blame for this. On screen, I see a hard hit ground ball hit right at the SS who I have in DP Depth, he gets rid of it quickly, but then I don't see a throw to first and the hitter is only 2/3's down the line to first base.

Visually, I say to myself, "This is BS. Throw the damn ball..." but, the Play-by-Play text, which is gospel, says it was actually a hard slide or the fielder had second thoughts, etc. With regards to that, I think there needs to be a bigger variety of text available when these situations occur so we don't see the words "hard slide" so often. Another thing that I feel might be bothering my sensibilities is that I don't see nearly as many occurances where the 2B or SS makes the throw to 1B but either the runner beats the throw or the throw pulled the 1B off the bag because it was wide, high or low - something that definitely happens a lot in real life. I don't know if I've ever seen a dropped ball by the fielder turning two...which results in the runners being safe at 2B and 1B. Maybe it's happened a dozen times and I just don't remember. I guess, my point is that I feel there should be more variety explaining all the different ways what we believe will be textbook 4-6-3 or 6-4-3 DPs, fall apart on us. Oh, and I can't say that I believe it happens more frequently to me than the AI.

There are all just my opinions, of course. I feel like I'm usually wrong, so I can honestly say that's why I have never posted a similar complaint, even though I said that I agree, there seems to be a lot of broken/no throw textbook double-play balls.

I have another example of where I'd like to grab my pitchfork and come in here angry as heck, but I don't... My personal feeling is that there are too many triples in the games I play out. To me, it seems that 90% of hard grounders that get by the 1B or 3B fielders on the foul line side result in triples. I have absolutely no idea if there truly are too many triples being hit in my games. An intelligent guess? There probably is not an overabundance of triples in ootp. Again, I think the problem is that in real-life we see a lot of variety that we don't see in ootp, like slightly misjudged flyballs resulting in hitters ending up on third because the ball rolled and rolled away from their dumb selves. In real-life we see a lot of basehits that right-fielders field cleanly for 0.5s and then blow the transfer of the ball to the throwing hand and astute runners keep the gas on and end up on 3B. We don't have that type of variety in ootp. Oh, and the worst offender in ootp is the seemingly routine double that is thrown in to a well-placed cutoff man who then holds the ball as the runner is only just rounding 2B and he doesn't throw it to 3B. Again, that's just an animation issue, but in the heat of the moment, it's "THROW THE F*&$ING BALL!!!" while the text catches up and explains the guy was actually halfway to 3B just as the ball was about to hit the cutoff mans glove.

The final thing that convinces me that my feelings are one thing and the reality is another is the fact that I've been playing OOTP for 8 months. Not even 2 full months yet of playing out every game. If things were truly as one-sided or ridiculously over/underrepresented there are hundreds and hundreds of ootp veterans that would have already written 500 posts about these things WITH data to back 'em up. It's not possible that some doofus named alb123 joined the forum and made all these amazing discoveries that no one else even considered before my brilliance came along. Seriously. I'm kind of stupid. I have medical records to back that up! Oh yeah, one more personal feeling. Why all the doubles but never a "long single" in ootp?

[Dave Stieb II]

I play out all of my games and have thought the same thing from time to time.

BUT, when I've compared the total GIDP (grounded in to double plays) stats for my team versus the double plays we've turned (just a quick glance at the DP totals for my 1B under fielding stats) the numbers have not been off at all and I've often turned more DP's than the opposition has, head to head.

So I guess this supports those who suggest what I sometimes think I am seeing and reality are two different things.

This time.

[Dave Stieb II]

[QUOTE=jbergey22;4687275]Is your team packed full of turtles?

"Biggest issue I see is that I dont call for the stolen base enough as Im constantly on the low side of that."

I NEVER attempt stolen bases (i.e straight steals). The results are never positive, even with great base stealers.
The key is for the next batter to get ahead in the count (whether by taking pitches or by good luck) and then to use the run and hit NOT the hit and run), ideally with the count 2-1.
Yes, sometimes you will suffer the misfortune of lining into a DP but I've found the stealing success rate to be vastly higher when the batter takes the next pitch or has a swinging strike.

[Dave Stieb II]

I feel like I should expand on my previous post, just a little:
- I play pitch by pitch when I play out the games so working - and knowing - the count is possible
- playing one pitch mode you cannot know what the count will be when the run and hit attempt is made and count is a very important factor whether trying a run and hit or straight steal
- I seldom, if ever, try either when behind in the count
- obviously pitcher hold and catcher arm ratings are important factors as well

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Dave Stieb II

I NEVER attempt stolen bases (i.e straight steals). The results are never positive, even with great base stealers.

This might be of interest to you.

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=319897