Why does Randy keep nose-diving after recalc?

junebug41 · 10-23-2010, 12:51 AM

Hello,

I am in my first league, which is using real-life players of mixed eras. I took Randy Johnson high in the initial draft. He was a couple seasons away from getting out of his wild stage and into his dominant stage. It finally arrived last season, and he recalc-ed in the fall to 19-15-10. However, during the offseason, his stats dropped dramatically. By the opener, he was 15-14-9. He continued to decline, until he was 14-14-8, and his velocity had gone from 97-99 to 90-92.

I figured it was some fluke, but the same damn thing has happened in what should be his second great season. As I write this, we're 50 games into the season and he has dropped once again to 14-14-9, with 92-94 velocity.

This seems like something broken, doesn't it? Randy was supposed to be my ace, and he keeps getting dragged down to an average starter. His 19 stuff would have been by far the highest in the league, now he's looking up at guys like David Cone, who had three fewer Ks per inning in the real-life years in question!

Any ideas at all what could explain this?

Thanks.

Spritze · 10-23-2010, 01:24 AM

Make sure Development = Off

junebug41 · 10-23-2010, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spritze

Make sure Development = Off

I'm pretty sure the commish has development on, but then it gets trumped by recalc at the end of each season. Within the season, a lot of players will add or lose a point here or there. No other player has displayed nearly such a dramatic loss of ratings, and Randy has repeated it twice. Is there something specific about him that could make him get hamstrung by development every year?

I'd just like to know if there's anything that could be done, or whether I should just keep expecting Randy to be way less than he should be.

DCG12 · 10-23-2010, 06:27 AM

I'm a little confused because you say the league uses real players of "mixed eras". If I understand this correctly you are using players from across baseball history in the same league i.e. Babe Ruth playing with Barry Bonds. If this is the case I don't see how recalc can work because it wouldn't have a real life year to recalc on, the development engine would have to be used.

TGH-Adfabre · 10-23-2010, 09:18 AM

1) Sample size, twice does not always make a trend.
2) How old is he?
The game does not know he is Randy Johnson. It seems to have a hard time mimicing players who remain highly productive after their "prime" years.

Spritze · 10-23-2010, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by junebug41

I'm pretty sure the commish has development on, but then it gets trumped by recalc at the end of each season. Within the season, a lot of players will add or lose a point here or there. No other player has displayed nearly such a dramatic loss of ratings,

But they could and so it WILL happen to some and if one of the some is someone you don't like seeing it happen to well then there you are. Recalc and Development should not be used in tandem unless you want to see what you are seeing. Which it sounds like you would prefer not to.

junebug41 · 10-23-2010, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

1) Sample size, twice does not always make a trend.
2) How old is he?
The game does not know he is Randy Johnson. It seems to have a hard time mimicing players who remain highly productive after their "prime" years.

He's only 30, so I was assuming age isn't a factor yet.

junebug41 · 10-23-2010, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spritze

But they could and so it WILL happen to some and if one of the some is someone you don't like seeing it happen to well then there you are. Recalc and Development should not be used in tandem unless you want to see what you are seeing. Which it sounds like you would prefer not to.

OK, I can live with that if it's just bad luck. I just wondered if anyone else had seen this happen, or if it was a result of the game trying to "correct" because his stuff rating was 4 points higher than any other starting pitcher in the game.

junebug41 · 01-07-2011, 12:13 AM

OK, so I thought I'd run this up the flagpole one more time and see if anyone knows what's up. I'm really just curious at this point.

Randy is 31 now, and once again recalced into the top pitcher in the league after last season. His ratings were 20-15-10. For the third consecutive season, he has plummeted since then. By January 1, he was down to 18-14-10, and now in June, he is 14-13-9. He has gone from the game's top-rated starting pitcher, to the AI now recommending him as my #5 starter. He has once again lost nine total points, while no other player seems to be down more than three or so. His velocity, which is always 98-100 after recalc, is down to a laughable 90-92.

That said, Randy still leads the league in strikeouts (pitching poorly otherwise). Therefore, my question for the designers is this: since Randy recalcs with a stuff fully four points higher than any other starter in the game, could it be that he's being flagged as too far outside a normal data range, and somehow set for reduction into the normal range? In other words, if he were left with 20 stuff, might he strike out 500 people per season, while nobody else was even ringing up 300 strikeouts? Is the game acting to prevent such a statistical anomaly?

Chicagofan76 · 01-07-2011, 01:41 AM

not sure if this matches up for u, but I took a self created player Harry Walker and matched him up with Randy Johnson career avg.....so far thru 4 sns he is 17 games under .500 and only has 1 sn of 200+ k with 2 sns over 100 BB career ERA of 4.87..some players just suck in a fictional world.

Charlie Hough · 01-07-2011, 09:50 AM

If development is turned on, then a player's starting point for the season isn't going to remain stable. Yes, Randy Johnson's ratings were recalculated going into the season, but the development engine is designed to increase or decrease player ratings throughout the season according to a variety of factors. Those factors include coaching, the player's age and position, randomness, etc. It has nothing to do with what the player's real life performance was. That has been lost once recalc is complete and the development engine has taken over again.

So, when development is turned on, it's entirely possible to see a player fall apart or rise to stardom during the course of a season. As Spritze pointed out, you are inevitably going to get results like this if you use recalc and development together. This is why I never play historical games using development.

TribeFanInNC · 01-07-2011, 09:57 AM

Yeah, there are easily 10 things that are probably working in concert here with development on. With development on, players are much more likely to follow normal aging patterns (or at least the aging patterns as dictated by the league settings). Randy Johnson clearly did not follow a normal aging pattern (first great season at 29, peaking in his late 30s).

Sorry he has bombed out for you.

junebug41 · 01-07-2011, 02:44 PM

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I guess I'm really just hoping to nail down what it is about Randy that makes him unique among the 200-or-so starting pitchers in the league. Three straight seasons certainly makes the "bad roll of the dice" theory unlikely, and his age wouldn't seem to be the culprit, since several older pitchers have held their ratings in multiple seasons.

The only thing I can see that makes him truly unique is the stuff rating starting so far above the range of every other starting pitcher. That's why I figured he might trigger some corrective function in the game, forcing his stuff down into the normal range. Once you take away Randy's stuff, he's a fairly pedestrian pitcher.

Charlie Hough · 01-07-2011, 09:14 PM

I don't believe the game makes any such corrections. If it didn't want his stuff rating to be that high, why would the rating scale go that far? And why would OOTP give him that rating in the first place.

I think you're on the right track in terms of trying to find out what the factors might be that are leading to his ratings reductions, but I'm virtually certain that it can't be the game perceiving his stuff to be too high.

prodgers · 02-12-2011, 08:42 PM

Pardon my ignorance but, what is 'recalc', how do you set it, and what exactly does it do?

Curtis · 02-14-2011, 06:17 PM

Recalc is one of the two basic ways in which players' ratings change over time. Development is random and tends to be gradual, except when there's a n injury involved, while recalc happens once a year and can be quite dramatic.

What it does is adjust the players' ratings as they age from year to year, to approximate what that player did in that season in real life. (Obviously then, it wouldn't/couldn't be used in a fictional game.) It can be computed in several ways, examples being one year, three year, five year, three years with current year doubled and five years with current year doubled.

One year recalc would be used by someone trying to play a specific season, or who is interested in matching real-life career arcs closely. If you want to see Norm Cash hit .340 some year, one year recalc would be the way to go.

Longer terms would be used by people wanting to smooth out the curves. In particular, I prefer five year because it gives more of a feel of the players' gradual career arcs. For example, if you wanted to smooth out the ups and downs of a player who got hot in every odd numbered year (there are a few of them), you'd use a longer term… and probably double the current year.

Let's say you wanted to manage the Mets (and who wouldn't?), and you were looking at Jose Reyes on the 2008 team. With one year recalc his ratings would be based solely on how he performed in 2008 in real life (like an all star).
With three year his ratings would be based on an average of how he did in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Using three year with current year doubled they would be based on an average of 2007, 2008, 2008 and 2009.
Five year recalc would base his ratings on 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Using five year with current year doubled would base his ratings on 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

My impression is that one year, three year with current year doubled and straight three are the most popular choices, probably in that order, but my preference is for straight five year.

As for how to set it, you'll have to wait for someone else to weigh in, but it's done during game setup, around the same place where you're asked whether or not to use equalized ratings.

10-23-2010, 12:51 AM	#1
junebug41 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 42	Why does Randy keep nose-diving after recalc? Hello, I am in my first league, which is using real-life players of mixed eras. I took Randy Johnson high in the initial draft. He was a couple seasons away from getting out of his wild stage and into his dominant stage. It finally arrived last season, and he recalc-ed in the fall to 19-15-10. However, during the offseason, his stats dropped dramatically. By the opener, he was 15-14-9. He continued to decline, until he was 14-14-8, and his velocity had gone from 97-99 to 90-92. I figured it was some fluke, but the same damn thing has happened in what should be his second great season. As I write this, we're 50 games into the season and he has dropped once again to 14-14-9, with 92-94 velocity. This seems like something broken, doesn't it? Randy was supposed to be my ace, and he keeps getting dragged down to an average starter. His 19 stuff would have been by far the highest in the league, now he's looking up at guys like David Cone, who had three fewer Ks per inning in the real-life years in question! Any ideas at all what could explain this? Thanks.

10-23-2010, 01:24 AM	#2
Spritze OOTP Historical Czar Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Bothell Wa Posts: 7,254	Make sure Development = Off

10-23-2010, 06:27 AM	#4
DCG12 All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Traveling through another dimension-not one of only sight and sound,but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundries are those of imagination. Posts: 1,153	I'm a little confused because you say the league uses real players of "mixed eras". If I understand this correctly you are using players from across baseball history in the same league i.e. Babe Ruth playing with Barry Bonds. If this is the case I don't see how recalc can work because it wouldn't have a real life year to recalc on, the development engine would have to be used.

10-23-2010, 09:18 AM	#5
TGH-Adfabre Hall Of Famer Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,599	1) Sample size, twice does not always make a trend. 2) How old is he? The game does not know he is Randy Johnson. It seems to have a hard time mimicing players who remain highly productive after their "prime" years. __________________ You mock me, therefore I am My wife

01-07-2011, 12:13 AM	#9
junebug41 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 42	OK, so I thought I'd run this up the flagpole one more time and see if anyone knows what's up. I'm really just curious at this point. Randy is 31 now, and once again recalced into the top pitcher in the league after last season. His ratings were 20-15-10. For the third consecutive season, he has plummeted since then. By January 1, he was down to 18-14-10, and now in June, he is 14-13-9. He has gone from the game's top-rated starting pitcher, to the AI now recommending him as my #5 starter. He has once again lost nine total points, while no other player seems to be down more than three or so. His velocity, which is always 98-100 after recalc, is down to a laughable 90-92. That said, Randy still leads the league in strikeouts (pitching poorly otherwise). Therefore, my question for the designers is this: since Randy recalcs with a stuff fully four points higher than any other starter in the game, could it be that he's being flagged as too far outside a normal data range, and somehow set for reduction into the normal range? In other words, if he were left with 20 stuff, might he strike out 500 people per season, while nobody else was even ringing up 300 strikeouts? Is the game acting to prevent such a statistical anomaly?

01-07-2011, 01:41 AM	#10
Chicagofan76 Banned Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Diamond, IL Posts: 6,339 Infractions: 2/2 (3)	not sure if this matches up for u, but I took a self created player Harry Walker and matched him up with Randy Johnson career avg.....so far thru 4 sns he is 17 games under .500 and only has 1 sn of 200+ k with 2 sns over 100 BB career ERA of 4.87..some players just suck in a fictional world.

01-07-2011, 09:50 AM	#11
Charlie Hough Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 3,625	If development is turned on, then a player's starting point for the season isn't going to remain stable. Yes, Randy Johnson's ratings were recalculated going into the season, but the development engine is designed to increase or decrease player ratings throughout the season according to a variety of factors. Those factors include coaching, the player's age and position, randomness, etc. It has nothing to do with what the player's real life performance was. That has been lost once recalc is complete and the development engine has taken over again. So, when development is turned on, it's entirely possible to see a player fall apart or rise to stardom during the course of a season. As Spritze pointed out, you are inevitably going to get results like this if you use recalc and development together. This is why I never play historical games using development.

01-07-2011, 09:57 AM	#12
TribeFanInNC Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 4,019	Yeah, there are easily 10 things that are probably working in concert here with development on. With development on, players are much more likely to follow normal aging patterns (or at least the aging patterns as dictated by the league settings). Randy Johnson clearly did not follow a normal aging pattern (first great season at 29, peaking in his late 30s). Sorry he has bombed out for you.

01-07-2011, 02:44 PM	#13
junebug41 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 42	Thanks for your thoughts on this. I guess I'm really just hoping to nail down what it is about Randy that makes him unique among the 200-or-so starting pitchers in the league. Three straight seasons certainly makes the "bad roll of the dice" theory unlikely, and his age wouldn't seem to be the culprit, since several older pitchers have held their ratings in multiple seasons. The only thing I can see that makes him truly unique is the stuff rating starting so far above the range of every other starting pitcher. That's why I figured he might trigger some corrective function in the game, forcing his stuff down into the normal range. Once you take away Randy's stuff, he's a fairly pedestrian pitcher.

01-07-2011, 09:14 PM	#14
Charlie Hough Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 3,625	I don't believe the game makes any such corrections. If it didn't want his stuff rating to be that high, why would the rating scale go that far? And why would OOTP give him that rating in the first place. I think you're on the right track in terms of trying to find out what the factors might be that are leading to his ratings reductions, but I'm virtually certain that it can't be the game perceiving his stuff to be too high.

02-12-2011, 08:42 PM	#15
prodgers Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 233	Pardon my ignorance but, what is 'recalc', how do you set it, and what exactly does it do?

02-14-2011, 06:17 PM	#16
Curtis Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Watertown, New York Posts: 4,567	Recalc is one of the two basic ways in which players' ratings change over time. Development is random and tends to be gradual, except when there's a n injury involved, while recalc happens once a year and can be quite dramatic. What it does is adjust the players' ratings as they age from year to year, to approximate what that player did in that season in real life. (Obviously then, it wouldn't/couldn't be used in a fictional game.) It can be computed in several ways, examples being one year, three year, five year, three years with current year doubled and five years with current year doubled. One year recalc would be used by someone trying to play a specific season, or who is interested in matching real-life career arcs closely. If you want to see Norm Cash hit .340 some year, one year recalc would be the way to go. Longer terms would be used by people wanting to smooth out the curves. In particular, I prefer five year because it gives more of a feel of the players' gradual career arcs. For example, if you wanted to smooth out the ups and downs of a player who got hot in every odd numbered year (there are a few of them), you'd use a longer term… and probably double the current year. Let's say you wanted to manage the Mets (and who wouldn't?), and you were looking at Jose Reyes on the 2008 team. With one year recalc his ratings would be based solely on how he performed in 2008 in real life (like an all star). With three year his ratings would be based on an average of how he did in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Using three year with current year doubled they would be based on an average of 2007, 2008, 2008 and 2009. Five year recalc would base his ratings on 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Using five year with current year doubled would base his ratings on 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2009 and 2010. My impression is that one year, three year with current year doubled and straight three are the most popular choices, probably in that order, but my preference is for straight five year. As for how to set it, you'll have to wait for someone else to weigh in, but it's done during game setup, around the same place where you're asked whether or not to use equalized ratings.