Catchers Throwing Runners Out - Now Random?

texasmame · 05-18-2023, 12:26 PM

Prior to this version, you would have guys with cannons behind the plate that would be at or near 50% in throwing guys out.

With this latest version, rag-arms are at or near 50%.

I know they messed with this part of the engine but it just feels like it's almost a roll of the dice when stealing now, regardless of who is behind the plate, the pitcher's hold rating and the runner.

Anyone else who plays out games "feeling" this?

jets12 · 05-18-2023, 02:02 PM

I have never had much luck with stealing bases in OOTP. Now the AI has a grand time. And seems to pretty steal at will. I don't consider the run game when I play. Not worth it.

Sweed · 05-18-2023, 02:12 PM

I'm second in my league in SB at approx. 75% success rate.

Edit: Sorry I knew I was at approx 75%. Turns out it's dipped slightly and is 73.4 that actually has me in 18th place

. I thought, last I looked I was right at the top. Must have been having a flashback from a previous year. Normally I verify before I post, but I was so sure.

I'll say this, I have two 8/8 speed\stealing guys. One is much better than the other. I imagine the better is near the under the hood 250 rating (or whatever the max is). Even with him I pick and choose when to go carefully. If I have an opponent with a 5 hold 5 arm, he's going and making it at a very high rate. Make that arm a 4 along with that =< 5 hold and he's stealing every time he's on base. Second or third, I don't care, he's going. The only thing that stops him is not getting a jump.

The league average success rate is 74.8% with the league leader at a whopping 87.5%. Here is a screenshot.

Iceman90 · 05-18-2023, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweed

I'm second in my league in SB at approx. 75% success rate.

If 75% is second best, what is the success rate of the top team?

md40022 · 05-18-2023, 05:23 PM

I've always felt the pitcher's HOLD rating was more important that the Catcher's arm or ability when it came to throwing out guys trying to steal. I don't track any data on this, but it just really seems to be how things play out for my games.

I will say, IRL even the catchers with the very best arms have no chance to throw runners out when the pitcher can't hold runners and/or has a slow delivery.... So I would say, pay more attention to the pitcher's hold rating and don't just focus on catcher's arm.

Greenbay · 05-18-2023, 05:42 PM

My catchers have arm ratings of 50 and 60 but rarely throw anyone out. teams are running wild on me. Most of my pitchers have hold ratings of 50 or less. I think that has a big effect.

Sweed · 05-18-2023, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iceman90

If 75% is second best, what is the success rate of the top team?

Note the edit to my previous post for the whole picture and screenshot. The answer to your top team question is 87.5%. The league average success rate it 74.8%.

Sweed · 05-18-2023, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by md40022

I've always felt the pitcher's HOLD rating was more important that the Catcher's arm or ability when it came to throwing out guys trying to steal. I don't track any data on this, but it just really seems to be how things play out for my games.

I will say, IRL even the catchers with the very best arms have no chance to throw runners out when the pitcher can't hold runners and/or has a slow delivery.... So I would say, pay more attention to the pitcher's hold rating and don't just focus on catcher's arm.

This is my experience. Even with my 8/8 stud I take more caution with a hold of 6. I become very cautious at 7 and pretty much never run against an 8.

md40022 · 05-18-2023, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greenbay

My catchers have arm ratings of 50 and 60 but rarely throw anyone out. teams are running wild on me. Most of my pitchers have hold ratings of 50 or less. I think that has a big effect.

I know when I'm playing a team who has those type of ratings, I am normally very aggressive with running.

As a Cubs fan I have a very easy IRL scenario that I always refer back to. The 2016 Cubs had 3 catchers; Willson Contreras with a bazooka arm, David Ross who was very good defensively and then Miguel Montero who couldn't throw at all but called a great game... None of those catchers had a chance in hell to throw any runners out when Jake Arrieta pitched. He had a bad move to first and a slow delivery. And this was with Contreras having one of the best throwing arms in the league. Yet, when Jon Lester pitched he couldn't even throw the ball to first base (literally) but was so quick to the plate that you couldn't run on him. And this was with the same 3 catchers as the control in the experiment.

The catcher having a gun is a bonus, and of course you don't want a hackjob who can't throw back there....... but 75% of it is on the pitcher

eriqjaffe · 05-19-2023, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by md40022

The catcher having a gun is a bonus, and of course you don't want a hackjob who can't throw back there....... but 75% of it is on the pitcher

Mark Buehrle was so good at controlling the running game that runners only had a 42% success rate against him over his career and he had nearly twice as many pickoffs (100) as successful stolen bases against him (59).

zappa1 · 05-19-2023, 01:04 PM

99% of the time you steal off the pitcher. You never steal off the catcher. ----Lou Brock

This quote comes up in the game from time to time.

Syd Thrift · 05-19-2023, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by md40022

I've always felt the pitcher's HOLD rating was more important that the Catcher's arm or ability when it came to throwing out guys trying to steal. I don't track any data on this, but it just really seems to be how things play out for my games.

I will say, IRL even the catchers with the very best arms have no chance to throw runners out when the pitcher can't hold runners and/or has a slow delivery.... So I would say, pay more attention to the pitcher's hold rating and don't just focus on catcher's arm.

My experience is that’s very much the case but I think the game has an issue - and this has been an issue for a decade at least - where I think the AI is more cautious of catcher arm than IRL and that means that good and bad catchers all have similar RTO rates with the primary difference being how often they run on them. I see guys with 30 arms throw out 25% of runners and guys with 70s throw out like 35%. There just aren’t true gunners like Ivan Rodriguez (who throw out 50% or close to that number of base stealers 10 times in his career) or for that matter guys who just get absolutely exposed a la Carlton Fisk in his final season (who threw out just 4 of 22 stealers in 13 starts and 25 games before the White Sox said “enough”). It kind of sucks TBH because even in a game like Strat, you put a guy with a bad arm out there at your own risk whereas in OOTP, players generally just keep running until they about reach league averages / the break even point.

Going back to the Lou Brock example, I think pitchers should probably be the biggest factor in whether a runner decides to go or not. I know that pitchers can have drastically different success rates IRL but ISTR a majority of that difference coming from 1-3-6 pickoffs. To me the paradigm would be that players get jumps primarily on pitchers and if there’s a reluctance to run on a good arm that should have a very small effect. I feel like maybe the biggest issue with one pitch mode, even, is that the concept of the jump is given too short shrift.

jpeters1734 · 05-20-2023, 06:52 PM

In my "play every inning" save, my catcher has a 35 arm, yet is leading the league in runners thrown out. I don't get it (EDIT after my second post: I'm benefitting from some very high hold ratings)

jpeters1734 · 05-20-2023, 07:40 PM

Here is a very small sample size, as I'm in the middle of my season.

My catcher has played all innings and has a 35/80 Arm.

There is a very noticeable difference between 75-80 hold ratings and 30-35 hold ratings. Note that the 50 hold rating has the highest RTO% but it's only based on 3 attempts.

I am not ready to say that there's any correlation between playing out games and RTO%.

I think based off this data, despite it's small sample size, you cannot claim that RTO% is random.

Edit: HLD = pitcher hold rating; SBA = Stolen Base Attempts; RTO = Runners Thrown Out

jpeters1734 · 05-20-2023, 08:38 PM

I conducted a quick sim test. I turned off all injuries, fatigue, and anything else that could be a variable. I took control of all teams. the season was 230 games. I took control of all roster moves, and all catchers caught every inning. league totals were default and I ran a re-calc at the beginning of the season.

It's hard to glean too much information from than bad ratings perform really bad and elite ratings perform really good.

I would love to test the performance of different hold-catcher arm combinations, but the point of this was to show that it is not random.

I still have the pre and post test files in case anyone wants to dig deeper and extract that combo info

Syd Thrift · 05-20-2023, 10:04 PM

Huh. My first thought was, yeah this proves that top line guys aren’t good enough, but on further review the 75-80 is very Pudge like relative to the modern context of 25% steal success compared to 35% or so in the 90s. Maybe I just don’t have enough guys with true guns in my league…

jpeters1734 · 05-20-2023, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Huh. My first thought was, yeah this proves that top line guys aren’t good enough, but on further review the 75-80 is very Pudge like relative to the modern context of 25% steal success compared to 35% or so in the 90s. Maybe I just don’t have enough guys with true guns in my league…

Keep in mind that SB% is something that is adjusted with autocalc so my output may be different than yours.

texasmame · 05-21-2023, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

Keep in mind that SB% is something that is adjusted with autocalc so my output may be different than yours.

Good work on the SB question. I'm guessing they made the pitcher's HOLD rating more valuable with this version as I pretty much never took that in to account when running with prior versions and pretty much led the league in SB and SB% each year.

Paying much more attention to HOLD now and not just the catcher's ARM rating.

md40022 · 05-21-2023, 12:30 PM

Jpeters awesome data right there.

@texasmame.... I've felt pitchers HOLD has been more valuable than Catcher's ARM for the last few releases. I have no data at all to back this up, but as someone who plays out every single game and has done so for many OOTP releases, I prettyyyyyy confident in my opinions despite not running actual tests. I might be wrong, but I don't think that's anything specific to this year's release.

05-18-2023, 12:26 PM	#1
texasmame All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Planet Texas Posts: 1,724	Catchers Throwing Runners Out - Now Random? Prior to this version, you would have guys with cannons behind the plate that would be at or near 50% in throwing guys out. With this latest version, rag-arms are at or near 50%. I know they messed with this part of the engine but it just feels like it's almost a roll of the dice when stealing now, regardless of who is behind the plate, the pitcher's hold rating and the runner. Anyone else who plays out games "feeling" this? __________________ Managing and rebuilding the 98-loss TOKYO THUNDER. 62-19 at the ALL-STAR BREAK. 11 game lead in the NL West.

05-18-2023, 02:12 PM	#3
Sweed Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Iowa Posts: 7,115	I'm second in my league in SB at approx. 75% success rate. Edit: Sorry I knew I was at approx 75%. Turns out it's dipped slightly and is 73.4 that actually has me in 18th place . I thought, last I looked I was right at the top. Must have been having a flashback from a previous year. Normally I verify before I post, but I was so sure. I'll say this, I have two 8/8 speed\stealing guys. One is much better than the other. I imagine the better is near the under the hood 250 rating (or whatever the max is). Even with him I pick and choose when to go carefully. If I have an opponent with a 5 hold 5 arm, he's going and making it at a very high rate. Make that arm a 4 along with that =< 5 hold and he's stealing every time he's on base. Second or third, I don't care, he's going. The only thing that stops him is not getting a jump. The league average success rate is 74.8% with the league leader at a whopping 87.5%. Here is a screenshot. Attached Images Last edited by Sweed; 05-18-2023 at 06:35 PM.

05-20-2023, 06:52 PM	#13
jpeters1734 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Juust a bit outside... Posts: 6,302	In my "play every inning" save, my catcher has a 35 arm, yet is leading the league in runners thrown out. I don't get it (EDIT after my second post: I'm benefitting from some very high hold ratings) __________________ "Cannonball Coming!" Go Bucs!! Founder and League Caretaker of the Professional Baseball Circuit, www.probaseballcircuit.com An Un-Official Guide to Minor League Management in OOTP 21 Ratings Scale Conversion Cross-Reference Cheat Sheet Last edited by jpeters1734; 05-20-2023 at 07:41 PM.

05-20-2023, 07:40 PM	#14
jpeters1734 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Juust a bit outside... Posts: 6,302	Here is a very small sample size, as I'm in the middle of my season. My catcher has played all innings and has a 35/80 Arm. There is a very noticeable difference between 75-80 hold ratings and 30-35 hold ratings. Note that the 50 hold rating has the highest RTO% but it's only based on 3 attempts. I am not ready to say that there's any correlation between playing out games and RTO%. I think based off this data, despite it's small sample size, you cannot claim that RTO% is random. Edit: HLD = pitcher hold rating; SBA = Stolen Base Attempts; RTO = Runners Thrown Out Attached Images __________________ "Cannonball Coming!" Go Bucs!! Founder and League Caretaker of the Professional Baseball Circuit, www.probaseballcircuit.com An Un-Official Guide to Minor League Management in OOTP 21 Ratings Scale Conversion Cross-Reference Cheat Sheet Last edited by jpeters1734; 05-20-2023 at 07:42 PM.

05-20-2023, 08:38 PM	#15
jpeters1734 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Juust a bit outside... Posts: 6,302	I conducted a quick sim test. I turned off all injuries, fatigue, and anything else that could be a variable. I took control of all teams. the season was 230 games. I took control of all roster moves, and all catchers caught every inning. league totals were default and I ran a re-calc at the beginning of the season. It's hard to glean too much information from than bad ratings perform really bad and elite ratings perform really good. I would love to test the performance of different hold-catcher arm combinations, but the point of this was to show that it is not random. I still have the pre and post test files in case anyone wants to dig deeper and extract that combo info Attached Images __________________ "Cannonball Coming!" Go Bucs!! Founder and League Caretaker of the Professional Baseball Circuit, www.probaseballcircuit.com An Un-Official Guide to Minor League Management in OOTP 21 Ratings Scale Conversion Cross-Reference Cheat Sheet

05-18-2023, 02:02 PM	#2
jets12 Minors (Double A) Join Date: May 2021 Posts: 103	I have never had much luck with stealing bases in OOTP. Now the AI has a grand time. And seems to pretty steal at will. I don't consider the run game when I play. Not worth it.

05-18-2023, 05:23 PM	#5
md40022 All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2018 Posts: 768 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	I've always felt the pitcher's HOLD rating was more important that the Catcher's arm or ability when it came to throwing out guys trying to steal. I don't track any data on this, but it just really seems to be how things play out for my games. I will say, IRL even the catchers with the very best arms have no chance to throw runners out when the pitcher can't hold runners and/or has a slow delivery.... So I would say, pay more attention to the pitcher's hold rating and don't just focus on catcher's arm.

05-18-2023, 05:42 PM	#6
Greenbay Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: El Cajon, CA Posts: 175	My catchers have arm ratings of 50 and 60 but rarely throw anyone out. teams are running wild on me. Most of my pitchers have hold ratings of 50 or less. I think that has a big effect.

05-19-2023, 01:04 PM	#11
zappa1 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2,260	99% of the time you steal off the pitcher. You never steal off the catcher. ----Lou Brock This quote comes up in the game from time to time.

05-21-2023, 12:30 PM	#19
md40022 All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2018 Posts: 768 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Jpeters awesome data right there. @texasmame.... I've felt pitchers HOLD has been more valuable than Catcher's ARM for the last few releases. I have no data at all to back this up, but as someone who plays out every single game and has done so for many OOTP releases, I prettyyyyyy confident in my opinions despite not running actual tests. I might be wrong, but I don't think that's anything specific to this year's release.