I just can't win in the playoffs

[darkcloud4579]

Man, those are some high team ERAs and your game score isn't exactly tearing up the airwaves. And boy, you all sure do give up a lot of runs. Are you making adjustments from year to year to address team weaknesses? Seems you've got some good core players and are trying to ride them to a title and it's not working out.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

Man, those are some high team ERAs and your game score isn't exactly tearing up the airwaves. And boy, you all sure do give up a lot of runs. Are you making adjustments from year to year to address team weaknesses? Seems you've got some good core players and are trying to ride them to a title and it's not working out.

I'm winning almost 100 games a year and those stats are better than league average. The playoffs are mostly luck anyway.

[1998 Yankees]

Announcement:

Upon further reflection, after re-reading some of the posts above and witnessing what happened (again) to my Yankees and other events that have taken place during this current baseball playoff season, I hereby renounce my former stand on this issue. Here:

The "Realism" Factor

[RchW]

Now doesn't that feel better.

[texasmame]

I play out all my team's games.

I won 94 games in the regular season, my first season, and won my division. I had the runner-up and 3rd place finisher for Cy Young (Sandy Koufax and Smokey Joe Wood) as well as the League MVP (Mel Ott). I had also remained virtually injury free all season.

Then, in early September, Ott went down for what would have been until Game 3 of the World Series. THEN, with 2 games left in the regular season, my closer (Papelbon) went down until sometime in November.

I ended up getting in a 3-0 hole in the LCS but won the next 2 games. Ended up losing in Game 6. My uberreliable setup man (John Franco), who had been "hot" all season and had an ERA of about 1.30 ended up getting shelled as the closer in post-season, to the tune of an ERA near 100. Yes, one-hundred.

Still, I didn't have any problem with the "realism" of the game come post-season. Had I not lost Ott and Paps things likely would have turned out differently.

Such is baseball!

Well, that's my two cents. . .

[Mntwins]

Well it finally happened. I won the World Series! 17 divisional titles and now my first championship. The monkey is off my back. OOTP loves me now.
I'm sure it didn't hurt I played a team that won their division with a 78-84 record.
I'm still in shock.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Mntwins

Well it finally happened. I won the World Series! 17 divisional titles and now my first championship. The monkey is off my back. OOTP loves me now.
I'm sure it didn't hurt I played a team that won their division with a 78-84 record.
I'm still in shock.

Nice going! If you read some of the later posts here, maybe you now think that this is the way the game is supposed to be. One thing for sure: I bet winning is sweeter after having to wait so long!

[RchW]

I just bombed out in the first round again, but I can't blame playoff conspiracy or morale. I had three batters and one pitcher with 5-7 day injuries. I chose to keep all but one batter on the roster, thinking that I could squeeze by the wild card team with a short roster.

I didn't count on my manager falling in love with his starters so much that he left them in too long in the first two games. I knew the bullpen was suspect and they lived up to that expectation in game three. Game four saw my 4th starter do the job. Game 5 was a 3-2 loss where we had only 5 hits total and only 1 from the top 4 in the lineup.

We'll have to chalk this one up to the only human in the organization.

[Metsvir2]

Originally Posted by Mntwins

Well it finally happened. I won the World Series! 17 divisional titles and now my first championship. The monkey is off my back. OOTP loves me now.
I'm sure it didn't hurt I played a team that won their division with a 78-84 record.
I'm still in shock.

Show me how it happened

[dl5175]

Originally Posted by Cork55

It goes way way beyong simply winning and losing. A team can play great and lose 2-1. That will never draw complaints because sometimes you play great and the other team was a bit better. What I am talking about is a complete reversal of how my teams have peerformed over the couse of the season.

For example, in the last season I just completed, my team finished 113-49 and was the top team in the league. Going into the playoffs my top 2 starter were the no. 2 and no. 3 starters in the league and the top 2 in the playoffs. They were 18-6, 3.09 and 20-4, 2.92 respectively. I went back and reviewed each pitchers game by game performances and they were very consistent during the season.

Now the first round starts and my team is facing a pitcher who was 15-12 with a 4.12 ERA. My starter gives up 7 runs (in 2 innings)
on 5 hits and 2 walks including a grand slam with 2 outs. I go on to lose the game 11-2. The other pitcher cruises going 8 innings allowing just 3 hits and 1 run. This was at my home park where my team was 61-20.

Game 2 saw my 20 game winner who was also steady as a rock all season promptly give up 6 runs in 2.2 innings on 9 hits and 4 walks. I also lose this game 10-3. The 2 star opposing pitcher tosses a no hitter for 6 innings against me.

I don't mind getting beat, but the HUGE performance swings that suddenly start when the playoffs start are sucking the fun out of the game. I should also mention that in the 14 years my team has made the playoffs, they have been the top team 12 times. In those 12 times, they have been knocked out in the first round 8 times. Their home record in those series is horrible despite having awesome home records during the regular season. It's like the game forgets that my team is good at home.

I am not going to bash OOTP because I really like the game, but having played these types of games for 30 years now, I can safely say that I don't recall seeing these wild swings in APBA or DMB which are the other 2 games that I have also played over the years.

-Cork55

I have this same frustration. I play out all my games and watching my #1 pitcher dominate for 5 innings only allowing 1 hit, then getting a stiff neck.
I had my top SB guy get thrown out stealing 3 times with a pitcher with a low hold rating and a catcher that has thrown out less than 10% of runners, on a 70mph curve ball low and over the plate. Another fast runner gets thrown out at home tagging from third from the warning track.
I know that weird things happen in the playoffs but I have had a player injured in each of the first three games. Losing is one thing but when it is totally unrealistic then it just ruins the experience for me. I trash my league I was so disgusted. I put alot of time setting it up with the real history but going back and simming from 1990 with fictional players full minors and three huge feeder leagues. Then importing 2 or three real players for almost every team. I fell a little bitter. I understand Markus trying to make it tough to win but it gets a little rediculous. Maybe I see more of it because I actually manage my games but If I recall this has been going on since OOTP 5. I wish we could get a response from Markus on the subject.

[Tony M]

I've just set up a 1 sub-league, 1 division, 2 team league. The playoffs are currently set to best of 1. I'm going to sim 100 years, and then increase the playoffs to best of 3, and do another 100 years, and then to best of 5 and do another 100, best of 7 for 100 years and then best of 9 for 100 years and see how the ratio of best team/playoff winner varies. It should by rights get higher the longer the series goes on.

[Mntwins]

[quote=Metsvir2;2337467]Show me how it happened[/quote
Can't show ya but I'll say that my team didn't lay an egg during the playoffs.
Pitching and hitting were superb unlike playoffs before.

And you're right 98 yankees, this win was freaking sweet after the loooong wait.

[Cork55]

I actually just managed to win my fictional leagues championship after 16 years of playoff frustration. The difference this time was that my team was not the best team going into the playoffs. They were the number 3 team and had a 92-70 record.

-Cork55

[Khrog]

Originally Posted by Cork55

I actually just managed to win my fictional leagues championship after 16 years of playoff frustration. The difference this time was that my team was not the best team going into the playoffs. They were the number 3 team and had a 92-70 record.

-Cork55

I have simmed hundreds of seasons with just the AI running teams in various alignments and something that is a common theme in those leagues is that the team that scrapes by in its division with ~85 wins is able to handle the top teams over and over.

I also see many many times where dynasties naturally occur and have a single team win 5 championships in 7 years, etc...usually they are playing the 85 win teams in the championships.

So there may be something to this...or it may just be human perspective tainted by the magical 100 win vs. barely .500 team.

I don't think that there is anything inherently biased against the human managers because I see the same things over and over in my offline leagues. My 2 longest running leagues have had one of each honestly...I had a league with 110+ wins in 162 game schedule for 20 years straight with 16 championships. The league that I just stopped playing...I fluctuated a good bit more, but averaged 105 wins for 25 seasons. In the playoffs....different stories all the time...spent 5 seasons not being able to buy a World Series bid. Then next 7...won 5 of 7 with essentially the same core guys, but a couple pitchers that developed into all stars. Then the aging cycle hit...and while my 2 studs, Faro Ramirez and Shinsaku Kosaka, were early and mid thirties(4-5 yrs age difference) were still productive, but occasionally injured I had some seasons that ended with a straight 12-0 playoff sweep and others that ended abruptly.

Now maybe I should try to create a 10-20 season streak of 85 game winners and see how they fare....NAH!

I rather enjoy adjusting my teams to remain good as long as I can.

[1998 Yankees]

Nice to finally be one of those sleeper wild card teams that I had always heard about . . . #29 out of 32 teams in payroll, hence the (ahem) season score . . . Ray Hodges' nickname is "The Natural," naturally . . . a very satisfying season . . . but I've been here before so I'm acting cool . . . just kicking back, lighting a victory cigar, breaking out the Dewars . . .

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Elendil

Well, the game never "remembers" performances, in the sense that past performance has no causal influence on future performance. The game generates outcomes from the true player ratings, but a "hot" player is no more likely to do well than a "cold" player, all else equal. That's as true during the regular season as it is during the playoffs.

Markus has come out admitting that he's made performance affect ratings so past performance does have an influence on future performance. I also wouldn't bet that hot/cold is just a tracking of what happened to happen and not also a built in streakiness.

That said, I'm not arguing that either is the reason for what people feel they're seeing with these dominant teams flailing in the playoffs. I think they are more just small samples. I've seen plenty of posts in other threads (point may be mute from all the different versions played) from people saying they win championship after championship and in this thread it just seems like a few people are experiencing the opposite. If some are winning more than their fair share then some are also probably losing more than their fair share. It sucks to be them, but I'm not convinced there's some screw dominant teams factor in the game. I wouldn't put it against Markus to do something like that to make winning that much more sweeter, but I'm not convinced either way.

Originally Posted by AnonymousGrump

I remember reading somewhere on these forums a long time back a discussion about Markus was somehow "crippling" dominant teams to cut back on the number of dynasties. (Or some such reasoning- it was a long time ago and I may be mis-remembering). I also don't remember whether this was something just being theorized or whether this was actually the case. Perhaps there's something to this?

Same here, but I can't remember it entirely either. Maybe it was all just speculation like this thread.

As for morale being the cause: huh? Shouldn't a dominant team have super happy players and wouldn't that have the effect of giving them a boost in the playoffs, not the opposite? And other teams in the playoffs should have high morale too, just less, so I don't see why there should be a difference the other way. Maybe there is something weird going on with morale, but I don't see the why.

These guys seem to be saying it only happens to them and not others be it the AI or the rest of us humans. If anything, that leads me to believe it's something they're doing or overlooking. What that could be I don't have any idea and it'd be difficult, if not impossible, to pin down.

What I would instantly question is does this seem to more happen with people simming the regular season then playing out the playoffs and if they play the playoffs do they actually take charge. I tend to play my playoffs, but not manage them and I don't see this problem. But even just playing the playoffs I have long suspected may lead to slightly different outcomes from simming.

Originally Posted by Neags23

*Houston has had 9 playoff appearances and only 1 championship

Doesn't at all cancel your point, but really, Houston won a World Series?

...

I wish clutch was still in the game even if it was just eye-candy pasted on according to their RISP or something.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Nice to finally be one of those sleeper wild card teams that I had always heard about . . . #29 out of 32 teams in payroll, hence the (ahem) season score . . . Ray Hodges' nickname is "The Natural," naturally . . . a very satisfying season . . . but I've been here before so I'm acting cool . . . just kicking back, lighting a victory cigar, breaking out the Dewars . . .

With all the no championship winning managers here, maybe you shouldn't spoil their surprise, nor torture them, with that graphic.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by kq76

With all the no championship winning managers here, maybe you shouldn't spoil their surprise, nor torture them, with that graphic.

It stands, unless you choose to do something underhanded with your moderator powers.

[Neags23]

Originally Posted by kq76

Doesn't at all cancel your point, but really, Houston won a World Series?

Hmm... That post was a while ago. Not sure what I was thinking. I'll just pretend I meant for Houston, championship = NL Championship


Actually, it helps my previous point. 9 playoff appearances for Houston and NO World Series victories.

[Matches]

Note that in a world where 8 teams make the playoffs, pure probability suggests that a team will only win 1 world series for every 8 times it makes the playoffs.