Very, Very, Very Questionable Computer Roster Decisions

[rwd59]

Let me preface this by saying I have owned every single version of OOTP. Title says it all. This is playing historical seasons. I had an earlier issue that didn't generate much in way of responses here: https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=369893

Now I have ran into something that makes absolutely ZERO sense. Johnny Bench has been kept in the minors his first 2 seasons in favor of Don Pavletich (with a 23/100 rating) and Johnny Edwards. You can see in the pic in the next post that his initial ratings were good. The screenshots below are after the first week of season 3 for Bench and he is still in the minors. I might add as you can see they only have 24 of 25 possible players on the major league roster. In addition, why is Bernie Carbo in the minors with the ratings he has? He is a rookie, but his ratings are better than most of the other outfielders. Looks like they would trade somebody to clear a spot for Carbo. This is an example of why having the game basically refuse to make any early season trades is an issue. I can guarantee you that I never saw this type of roster issues in previous versions of the game. I didn't play hardly any historical in v26 and about 33% in v25. But in v24 and below that's basically all I played. I went through every team in the league and found a number of issues similar to this. The AI should have traded people to clear spots for many players but as I understand it the AI is looking to trade during the 1-2 moths before the trading deadline. That is ok for fictional leagues but not for historical leagues who have big-time rookies with advanced ratings coming in during the offseason. If I continue to see this I will go back to fictional. I would really hate that because for 20+ versions of the game, all I played was historical.

[rwd59]

Here is the shot of Bench's initial ratings.

[rwd59]

I tried to rescue Bench by trading for him but they wouldn't take 10 of my best players for him.

[rwd59]

The next season and more examples. Tenace has better ratings than either C on ML roster. Munson has WAY better ratings than either C on the Yankees roster. Bonds and Henderson have better ratings than the RF for the Giants. There are other examples. I repeat this was not an issue in the past. This league is a 3 year recalc league. Maybe recalc is where the issue lies.

[cardinalfan3000]

I've seen this issue in current day saves too. Helped the AI and they would stash those players in AAA. I don't have screenshots though.

[rwd59]

This is a big issue to me. I never have noticed it when playing a standard game as time moves along because I don't know who to look for with fictional players. When playing historical I look at the list of top prospects often. Seeing certain people on that list still playing in the minor leagues is what caught my attention. It seems to be less likely to place hitters on the ML roster than pitchers. That's not saying that they aren't kept in the minors longer than they should be because often they are. It just seems they aren't kept too long in the minors as often as hitters are. Funny thing is so many of these players are catchers. I would really like to see someone on the development team comment on this. Bench, Munson, Tenace all had great ratings. Ted Simmons is also in the minors too long but in his case McCarver has better ratings in the majors. Simmons is way better than the backup though. I can kind of understand that one because it stops his NL service time from starting up but the others make no sense at all.

[rwd59]

?

[fredbeene]

How many sims has this happened too? Do you expect every sim to be the same?
I sure as heck don't unless there is setting for same sim. Why don't the devs run a 100 sims and check and see

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by fredbeene

How many sims has this happened too? Do you expect every sim to be the same?
I sure as heck don't unless there is setting for same sim. Why don't the devs run a 100 sims and check and see

OK so here is my question to you. Why would these things ever happen in any sim. With Bench for example. They had Pavletich and Edwards pretty much splitting time. Pavletich was a decent hitter (but his ratings were not as good as Bench's) but was rated 23/100 as a catcher. Edwards had pretty good defensive ratings but pretty awful hitting ratings. Here is the thing, Bench stayed in the minors for THREE years behind players who were not as good as him on any level. So to answer your question, I would sincerely hope that every sim would be different. I would have a problem if they were similar. Where I do have a problem is with any logic keeping a much better player than the 2 catchers on the roster in the minors. Especially considering that the league is still in the reserve clause era (no player control issues). Any logic that keeps a potential all star in the minors in favor of a couple of basically scrubs is flawed logic. Also as I referenced from an earlier post, why in the world would an all-star player (probable hall of famer) with many seasons of experience who was hitting over .400 when injured, be sent to the minor leagues and the kept there for the rest of the season (where he also hit over .400)? The player who played his position in the Majors was below replacement level. Why? I am seeing logic flaws in this version that I did not use to see when playing historical. I do not regret brining this up but obviously it is not viewed as an issue since no Dev has said anything about it. So for now I guess I am gonna create a lot of the same seasons over and over to see if this issue happens every time. If it does then I will be back with this issue.

[kq76]

I get what you're saying about limiting trades, but I'm not so sure that's the crux of the issue. My first question is: why aren't the teams promoting them? And my guess is it's because of some logic to curtail promotions/demotions so we don't see as many forced releases as we used to. You know, the releases that so many people cried about. So my guess is they've just gone too far in trying to do that. And limiting early trades probably doesn't help this either, but people complained about too many of those as well.

It's no doubt a tricky puzzle to solve, but they just haven't perfected the solution yet.

[kq76]

I do find it interesting that it might be isolated to catchers. I'd be curious to hear whether your noticing the catchers was just a coincidence or if it really is isolated them.

It could be the game just doesn't value them enough. I mean, I know most catchers don't play 162 games, or even close to it, so I don't value them as much as a starter at a different position, and maybe the game does that too, but maybe it undervalues them beyond even that. That is, does it look at Johnny Bench and think, "nah, the difference in value isn't that great, let's not risk a promotion which might force release someone else we don't want to permanently lose". Most of us probably wouldn't look at it that way, we'd want Johnny Bench even if he only plays 100 games and regardless of whether we have to release a scrub for nothing, but the code might not see it that way.

I also wonder if it's more of a defensive value issue. I don't normally play historical, but I wonder if the catcher framing impact setting, or catcher defense in general, has anything to do with it. If the scrub in the majors has poor defense, but the game just doesn't value defense highly for that year, then maybe it doesn't care that Johnny Bench is maybe the greatest catcher ever, it's only considering their offense and maybe the difference in their offense just isn't that much to warrant a promotion. Or maybe defensively overall he's pretty good, but maybe most of his defensive value comes from only one catcher rating and maybe that specific catcher rating is ignored for that year.

I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there for the devs to consider.

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by kq76

I do find it interesting that it might be isolated to catchers. I'd be curious to hear whether your noticing the catchers was just a coincidence or if it really is isolated them.

It could be the game just doesn't value them enough. I mean, I know most catchers don't play 162 games, or even close to it, so I don't value them as much as a starter at a different position, and maybe the game does that too, but maybe it undervalues them beyond even that. That is, does it look at Johnny Bench and think, "nah, the difference in value isn't that great, let's not risk a promotion which might force release someone else we don't want to permanently lose". Most of us probably wouldn't look at it that way, we'd want Johnny Bench even if he only plays 100 games and regardless of whether we have to release a scrub for nothing, but the code might not see it that way.

I also wonder if it's more of a defensive value issue. I don't normally play historical, but I wonder if the catcher framing impact setting, or catcher defense in general, has anything to do with it. If the scrub in the majors has poor defense, but the game just doesn't value defense highly for that year, then maybe it doesn't care that Johnny Bench is maybe the greatest catcher ever, it's only considering their offense and maybe the difference in their offense just isn't that much to warrant a promotion. Or maybe defensively overall he's pretty good, but maybe most of his defensive value comes from only one catcher rating and maybe that specific catcher rating is ignored for that year.

I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there for the devs to consider.

I appreciate your replies. If you look at their ratings the only area where bench falls below the other 2 players is his eye. Maybe that's part of the decision making. I know his defensive ratings don't show on the screenshots but his is slightly higher than Edwards and WAY better than Pavletich. Maybe the AI values eye way more than other areas. If so that needs to be adjusted when you have a player whose hit tool is 62/100 and his power tool is 90/100. For that matter his eye rating is not that much lower than the other 2 players. I agree that it is usually catchers that I find affected by this. My questioning of Carbo being in the minors with great ratings can be at least partially explained by the fact that they do have 4 pretty good hitting outfielders already on the roster. I am gonna recreate this league at the same starting point and see if this issue happens again. I truly expect that it will.

[rwd59]

OK I set up the same season (default league starting in 1966), Bench came into the league with better ratings than Pavletich and Jimmie Coker this time. I guess the AI traded Edwards. Pavletich and Coker were rated 23 and 31 defensively and Bench was a 59. He stayed in the minors all of 66 and 67 behind those 2 scrubs. He started out 1969 in the minors for a month and was finally called up and was the starter the rest of the season. Munson, Tenace, and Simmons were all still in the minors at the end of the 1969 season with way better ratings than the other catchers Simmons ratings were much better than the backup but not much better than McCarver but Tenace was WAY better and Munson was significantly better. Gonna play out 1970 and see what happens.

[rwd59]

Add Fisk to that list. Two years in the minors with 2 crappy catchers on the ML roster. Ray Fosse 3 years in minors with very good ratings but I can somewhat understand this one because they have a good starter and a pretty good backup in the majors even though Fosse's ratings are quite a bit better than the backup. Tenace and Munson finally came up and played about half the season. Simmons still in the minors with 85-42-33 ratings. McCarver had 77-42-37 ratings but Pat Corrales is 35-7-35 as the backup. I looked around and saw a few outfielders that were questionable but catchers are were many problems are found. I'm not sure that the AI puts enough importance on defense for catchers.

[ChrisG]

It seems like the AI has huge problems handling catchers overall this year. Especially if a team carries three catchers in real life.

I have seen the AI Cubs DFA or release Miguel Amaya and Moises Ballesteros. AI Guardians in a save released Patrick Bailey.

[rwd59]

I agree. I can't understand why the "AI" would keep people with superior ratings in the minors. I don't care if the people in the majors are out of options or whatever the reason may be. Having a player in the minors with 62 contact and 90 power makes ZERO sense. I have stopped playing historical because this stuff happens all the time. IRL the team would clear a spot for that type player. I have never seen this stuff in the past and with the changes they made to trading I just think that has something to do with it. I just can't believe any AI would be that stupid. Again, obviously the devs don't see this as an issue because nobody has commented on this. I thought putting very, very, very in the title might at least catch their eye enough to read this and reply.

[rwd59]

It's something that has changed in this version that causes this. Again, this did not happen in previous versions of the game. Possible causes: 1) changes to sign/release issues that have been tightened up, 2) trade AI changes, 3) faulty AI logic especially with catchers, or 4) something not yet identified. I know the game doesn't know who Johnny Bench or Babe Ruth and etc. are but it should know when players in the minors have FAR superior ratings to players in the majors who play the same position they do.

[Jersey77]

In my current present day save the Phillies have benched J.T. Realmuto in favor of Rafael Marchan. J.T. isn't injured or suspended in any way and is still heaps better than Marchan in every sense. It's not a DH thing either as their DH is still Schwarber.


I'm in year two of my save (2027) and in 2026 Realmuto did start the majority of games at C over Marchan (82 to Marchans' 20). As soon as 2027 started though he's been benched. Marchan is batting barely over .200 while Realmuto (in his limited action) is batting over .330. They're the only two catchers on the main roster currently. There is no third guy taking up time. They don't even have a third catcher on their 40 man roster.

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by Jersey77

In my current present day save the Phillies have benched J.T. Realmuto in favor of Rafael Marchan. J.T. isn't injured or suspended in any way and is still heaps better than Marchan in every sense. It's not a DH thing either as their DH is still Schwarber.


I'm in year two of my save (2027) and in 2026 Realmuto did start the majority of games at C over Marchan (82 to Marchans' 20). As soon as 2027 started though he's been benched. Marchan is batting barely over .200 while Realmuto (in his limited action) is batting over .330. They're the only two catchers on the main roster currently. There is no third guy taking up time. They don't even have a third catcher on their 40 man roster.

Something is definitely up. It kinda bugs me that none of the people who can do something about this have failed to say a word about this. Maybe they read this thread and are looking into it but we will never know without at least a "we are looking in to this".