Most Realistic TCR Number

[PSUColonel]

I realize this has been discussed to death over the years, but I am not sure it has actually had its own thread the way AI evaluation and some other settings have. What number do people to be the most realistic & challenging TCR setting to be?

I have settled on the defaults for AI evaluations, but haven't really ever messed around with the TCR setting, and left it at the default of 100. Do people feel 100 I too low in terms of realism and challenge, or about right? I read a lot of people advocating anywhere between 125-150 for the most part, and a few with 200. Rarely to I ever see people going below 100.

[Syd Thrift]

I think I’m up around 140 now? I’ve also flattened out the aging curve. Honestly I think the base game doesn’t have just straight up random weirdness enough. I also think that’s for some obvious reasons: humans haaaaate being told stuff is random, to the extent that when IRL someone has “talent change randomness” we search far and wide for the reason: like, maybe they were hiding an injury and playing through it messed up their form, or they started working out, or they stopped working out, or they got scared of birds, whatever. Humans loooove their pattern recognition. Ideally I guess you’d have like 10 or 50 times as many storylines that are all basically random that deal with this sort of thing but I sure as hell don’t have time for that.

[Hrycaj]

I was at 135 for many versions of the game and have in the last few versions just moved it all the way up to 200. I couldn’t see much difference myself between 135 and 200 because I feel as Syd Thrift does where there isn’t enough variation in the game.

I also used a different set of aging settings that I believe the wolf (throwback to a different OOTP era there) came up with for stats only players. I have come off some of those settings as of late since the game has evolved over time.

[koohead]

I went to 120 a couple versions ago and have been debating whether or not to go up 10-20. I agree that there does not 'feel' as if there is enough IRL randomness.

[Pelican]

This is going to be one of those YMMV threads. Syd is right about natural preference for patterns and aversion to randomness. So I have kept TCR at or near 100, despite the advice to advance it higher. Yet I have been enjoying some fringe players in my 1971 Season sim who are contributing for major league teams, even though IRL they never even had a cup of coffee. And some studs like Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Vada Pinson, Dick Allen are having inexplicable off years. This is plenty of randomness for me. I like it; but any more and the league would not be recognizable. I am curious how much difference 125 or 140 would cause, and perhaps in my next sim I will take the risk. It may be more like playing with fictional players, not a bad thing, in that I’ll have to learn the new guys, and not rely on IRL performance of the guys I know. I can only hope my favorite players do not tank on me!

[bigd51]

I'm still not sure what TCR specifically relates to and how to test it, myself i.e. what am I even looking for to draw a conclusion?

Is TCR stat-based? Is it potential ratings based? Current ratings based? Defense ratings? All of the above?

[PSUColonel]

Well, from what I have gathered in reading numerous posts here (and just because I read them doesn't mean they are factual) the feeling is that TCR seems to affect established players more than younger prospect type ones.

If this is true, I can see where 100 (default) is probably about right. If this setting affected younger prospect type players, I could see the logic behind bumping it up...but not so much for established players.

Anyway, that is what I have taken away from my readings. Here is a link to a thread discussing the subject:

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...nge+randomness

[Pelican]

I’m curious about the interplay between TCR and the settings that can accelerate (or delay) the development of young players and the aging of older players. If one advances the development number beyond 1.00, while using a high TCR number, does that lead to a number of unexpected rookie talents, well beyond IRL? Does a higher aging factor mean that stars will diminish rapidly, with a high TCR number? Or are they independent values, not related? [My guess is that, with the default 100 TCR, and faster development factor, the good prospects would be better sooner. And with high TCR, random other guys would be better sooner.]. Thoughts?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Pelican

I’m curious about the interplay between TCR and the settings that can accelerate (or delay) the development of young players and the aging of older players. If one advances the development number beyond 1.00, while using a high TCR number, does that lead to a number of unexpected rookie talents, well beyond IRL? Does a higher aging factor mean that stars will diminish rapidly, with a high TCR number? Or are they independent values, not related? [My guess is that, with the default 100 TCR, and faster development factor, the good prospects would be better sooner. And with high TCR, random other guys would be better sooner.]. Thoughts?

IME TCR behaves independently of aging and development, and new players being dropped into the league are created using the separate player creation modifiers. TCR appears to do what’s advertised, which is increase the number of random bumps and maluses that happen throughout the league. In my league I’ve got aging and development flattened out a lot (development ratcheted up, aging ratcheted down) and with TCR set high you see guys debut when they’re 20 sometimes (not super often TBF), a few players playing into their early 40s, and a few cases throughout the league every year of a player suddenly going from meh to very good (the expansion Royals had a mid 30s first baseman suddenly hit.290 for them 2 years running… now it looks like age has caught up to him but he was awesome for a while) or the opposite (I’m seeing at guy who led the Giants in HRs last year hitting in the .140s a la Gorman Thomas in the 80s, and I’m about to accept that was a TCR hit).

With that and ratings off I personally find the league to be really entertaining. You can never know if a guy took a big hit or if he’s just in a slump, so you’ve got to deal with it accordingly. I’ve been hit both ways, giving a guy who obviously doesn’t have it every last chance to break out of what might only be a season long slump, and also benching a guy after, even, 400 at bats of bad play only to see him appear to go back to his previous form (but is *this* now only a hot streak?). I can also be extra ruthless with older players: a lot of the time you reach a point where a 35 year old isn’t necessarily worse than the 25 year old replacing him, but the latter guy is more likely to be at his current level for a lot longer, so you make the move to dump the older player perhaps a season or two before he’s completely done, or before you’ve 100% decided that a bad spring or bad April and May truly means he’s washed.

I believe TCR affects both current and potential ratings in that regard so yeah, it’s not at all or not even close to only affecting players who are still developing.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

IME TCR behaves independently of aging and development, and new players being dropped into the league are created using the separate player creation modifiers. TCR appears to do what’s advertised, which is increase the number of random bumps and maluses that happen throughout the league. In my league I’ve got aging and development flattened out a lot (development ratcheted up, aging ratcheted down) and with TCR set high you see guys debut when they’re 20 sometimes (not super often TBF), a few players playing into their early 40s, and a few cases throughout the league every year of a player suddenly going from meh to very good (the expansion Royals had a mid 30s first baseman suddenly hit.290 for them 2 years running… now it looks like age has caught up to him but he was awesome for a while) or the opposite (I’m seeing at guy who led the Giants in HRs last year hitting in the .140s a la Gorman Thomas in the 80s, and I’m about to accept that was a TCR hit).

With that and ratings off I personally find the league to be really entertaining. You can never know if a guy took a big hit or if he’s just in a slump, so you’ve got to deal with it accordingly. I’ve been hit both ways, giving a guy who obviously doesn’t have it every last chance to break out of what might only be a season long slump, and also benching a guy after, even, 400 at bats of bad play only to see him appear to go back to his previous form (but is *this* now only a hot streak?). I can also be extra ruthless with older players: a lot of the time you reach a point where a 35 year old isn’t necessarily worse than the 25 year old replacing him, but the latter guy is more likely to be at his current level for a lot longer, so you make the move to dump the older player perhaps a season or two before he’s completely done, or before you’ve 100% decided that a bad spring or bad April and May truly means he’s washed.

I believe TCR affects both current and potential ratings in that regard so yeah, it’s not at all or not even close to only affecting players who are still developing.

Care to share your settings? Would love to give ‘‘em a rip myself.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

IME TCR behaves independently of aging and development, and new players being dropped into the league are created using the separate player creation modifiers. TCR appears to do what’s advertised, which is increase the number of random bumps and maluses that happen throughout the league. In my league I’ve got aging and development flattened out a lot (development ratcheted up, aging ratcheted down) and with TCR set high you see guys debut when they’re 20 sometimes (not super often TBF), a few players playing into their early 40s, and a few cases throughout the league every year of a player suddenly going from meh to very good (the expansion Royals had a mid 30s first baseman suddenly hit.290 for them 2 years running… now it looks like age has caught up to him but he was awesome for a while) or the opposite (I’m seeing at guy who led the Giants in HRs last year hitting in the .140s a la Gorman Thomas in the 80s, and I’m about to accept that was a TCR hit).

You should be able to tell if it was a TCR event by looking at the written scouting report. Did it change dramatically? That's why I use scouting though, because all you are doing with the numbers is mimicking what is happening in the written reports anyway (as long as the scale isn't too granular)

[Syd Thrift]

I specifically don’t want to know. That’s the point. IRL sometimes guys just suddenly get good and sometimes they just suddenly get bad. Scouts aren’t just random in terms of being able to tell this stuff, they are worse than random chance at noticing sudden changes because of their priors, because that’s how humans work.

My biggest issue with using ratings is that type B errors - where a veteran is only slumping but the scouts think they’re done - never happen. If you look at a vet and who’s hitting poorly and the scout says their ratings are bad, it’s because their ratings are bad. Period. Even type A - where a player is good but the scout thinks they’re only average, and it turns out they’re in fact good now - are extremely rare and basically only caused by an unnoticed TCR (which then gets picked up by the very next report).

People have decided that they don’t want ratings to work that way so… I can’t use ratings.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I specifically don’t want to know. That’s the point. IRL sometimes guys just suddenly get good and sometimes they just suddenly get bad. Scouts aren’t just random in terms of being able to tell this stuff, they are worse than random chance at noticing sudden changes because of their priors, because that’s how humans work.

My biggest issue with using ratings is that type B errors - where a veteran is only slumping but the scouts think they’re done - never happen. If you look at a vet and who’s hitting poorly and the scout says their ratings are bad, it’s because their ratings are bad. Period. Even type A - where a player is good but the scout thinks they’re only average, and it turns out they’re in fact good now - are extremely rare and basically only caused by an unnoticed TCR (which then gets picked up by the very next report).

People have decided that they don’t want ratings to work that way so… I can’t use ratings.

Yea…I too wish the “rating” were actually more like real scouting reports and less gamey. Not sure that there’s really an answer I like what you just described though.

[Ty Cobb]

I've played around with TCR from 1-200, and I've still yet to have my namesake have a career like he did IRL. I will say the 1 time I tried 200, Ralph Kiner hit an inside the Parker at 35...so stuff definitely changes.

[Syd Thrift]

I've seen slow-ish players hit inside the park HRs. In game terms that's usually more a function of their speed but also the park itself (a big park with not-low HR rates will produce ITPHRs from time to time - if you play deadball era games you might see this regularly). It's definitely not a function of TCR unless Kiner in your game saw his speed bump to 70 or something (FWIW I don't think I've seen SPD develop hugely among vets even with TCR goosed up - usually it's BABIP or Avoid Ks or Power or Eye).