Achieving realistic league totals

[KySteveH]

I have a couple of questions that has to do with getting realistic statistical league totals in both the major leagues and minor leagues. I have tried various changes to fix things, but none of them have given what I want. I am playing with the 2009 ML set, which has some minor changes in the major league stats modifiers, but nothing too drastic. All the minor league dials and buttons are set at "1.000".

My first question is, what if I saw that doubles were too low in the major leagues for my taste? Just an example; not saying that doubles really are too low. Is the best thing to do to raise the stat modifier for doubles to, say 1.1? Would I expect that league-wide doubles would be about 10% more than they were before?

Next question...would that affect my minor leagues as well? Would doubles then go up 10% in all minor leagues? It seems like the answer is no, but I'm just not sure.

Next question, say (theoretically, of course) that all my Rookie leagues have horrible league pitching numbers. The A, AA, AAA leagues are all pretty reasonably balanced, but Rookie leagues are a mess. How could I fix that? I will not accept the answer that I should ignore Rookie league numbers since they don't matter. In my OOTP world, which resembles baseball as it is played on this planet, at this point in time, they do matter. I use stats to decide which players are ready to move to the next level, and which need to be released, etc.

I guess I could drastically lower the hitting coefficients for just the Rookie leagues, but that seems counterintuitive. Why are the other leagues fine with defaults, but Rookie leagues are imbalanced? I don't want to change something for this year that will make things worse in future years.

Last question...Do I understand ratings correctly? The way I understand it, if I have a league where my average hitter has a power rating of 75/100, or 50/100, or 25/100, it doesn't matter. The overall stats will be the same, because the ratings are relative to the statistical league totals I have chosen in league setup. So if I decided on the first day of my season to delete the top 100 home run hitters in my league, the league would still have approximately the same number of home runs, right?

I know, a lot of questions...all responses are much appreciated

[SteveP]

I'll take a cut at some of this.

My first question is, what if I saw that doubles were too low in the major leagues for my taste? Just an example; not saying that doubles really are too low. Is the best thing to do to raise the stat modifier for doubles to, say 1.1? Would I expect that league-wide doubles would be about 10% more than they were before?

Yes

Next question...would that affect my minor leagues as well? Would doubles then go up 10% in all minor leagues? It seems like the answer is no, but I'm just not sure.

Just changing the LTMs for your major league won't affect anything in the other leagues. However -- and I hope I'm not just adding to the confusion here -- when the LTMs are automatically adjusted each preseason, the adjustment is calculated based on what happened in your major league the previous season, but the same LTMs are copied to each of the minor leagues. The fact that this isn't the case in the 2009 MLB game is probably an oversight.

Next question, say (theoretically, of course) that all my Rookie leagues have horrible league pitching numbers. The A, AA, AAA leagues are all pretty reasonably balanced, but Rookie leagues are a mess. How could I fix that?

I'll duck this one. There are people here who have practically made a career out of figuring out how to get better stats from the minor leagues. Hopefully one of them will jump in.

So if I decided on the first day of my season to delete the top 100 home run hitters in my league, the league would still have approximately the same number of home runs, right?

I think the most correct answer is this: you would get fewer HRs in your first season than would have occurred if you left those batters in. Then the LTMs would kick in and adjust for that, so that in the second season and so forth you would be getting the "correct" number of HRs.

Hope that helps.

[actionjackson]

Suggestion: Keeping in mind that this recommendation is for your major league only, because minor leagues apparently are a completely different animal. Try a modification of SteveP's method for historical seasons due to the fact you're using 2009 and not seasons past. It's a modification because you have no RL league totals to check in with, unless of course you wait until October, but that would be silly. You have to supply the league totals that you think are right.

Make a copy of the league (making sure you copy it to a different folder, re-name it and then bring it back into saved_games) you want to use for your game, so that all the settings are identical to what you want without painstakingly setting things up that way. This will be the copy that you use to see the LTMs that the game thinks you should use for your initial season. Uncheck the "Auto-adjust LTMs after each season..." box before you start the season. Also, in the manager options page uncheck all the "interrupt autoplay when..." boxes so that the season can move through at a reasonable clip without being interrupted by unwanted e-mails or the OOTP version of spam. Select the "autoplay until the end of the regular season" option and away you go. When you get to the end of the regular season go to Game Setup > League Setup > Strategy page. You should still see all the LTMs set at 1.000. Check the "Auto-adjust LTMs after each season..." box and the default modifiers will change into the LTMs that the game feels you should use for each category for that league. Put them into a spreadsheet or write them down. Save the game because maybe, just maybe this method works for the minor leagues (I wouldn't know because I haven't tried it, but my guess is you would hit the auto-adjust LTMs button for each league individually).

Make another copy of the league (with another different name of course) you want to use for your game. Do not uncheck the auto-adjust LTMs box, but rather this time you're going to input the 19 LTMs and 18 Fielding Modifiers that you just got into the Strategy page where appropriate before you start the season. When you get to the end of the regular season check the Team Statistics page to find the totals for your Major League. If there are stats that you feel are "wrong", decide on what you feel would be "right" for said category. E.g. Let's say the LTM for HR that you gathered the first time around was .900 and that's what you used for your just completed season. Let's say this resulted in 5000 HR in a 30 team league and you would prefer to see 4000. Take the number you want to see and divide it by the result you just got i.e. 4000/5000 = 0.8. Multiply that 0.8 by the .900 LTM and your new LTM for HR is .720.

Do this for all categories you want changes in. The one category that is the exception to the rule is Position Errors. Generally speaking with the Fielding Modifiers, the modifiers that you get in the first test are for all intents and purposes constants. OF Range fluctuates a little at each of the three OF positions, but everything else stays the same, no matter how many test seasons of said season you run. With errors, probably the best you can do to get totals that look right to you is to again take the number that you want to see and divide it by the number you actually got.

I'll give you an example so you'll know what I'm talking about. My first test produced all the Fielding Modifiers for a 1901 historical game. When I ran it the second time with those modifiers, the league produced 1929 errors, for approximately a .980 league FPct. Sounds good right? One problem, the guys back then were using kleenex boxes for gloves and a heck of a lot more errors were happening. How many? Try 5327. So, if I want to see 5327 or thereabouts in that league I divide that by 1929 to get a League Error Modifier of 2.762. So just stick 2.762 in all the Position Error boxes and presto right? Well, not quite. It's probably more accurate to multiply the Error Modifier that you got at each individual position by that League Error Modifier to come out with different Position Error Modifiers. In a recent test sim of 1901 using this method the league produced 5316 errors and a .943 FPct. RL: 5327 errors and a, wait for it, .943 FPct. Other results from this test:

RL vs SIM

BA: .272 vs .271 (.27145)
OBP: .327 vs .324 (in RL SF were not tracked, in SIM they are. SF pull down OBP. Take them out: SIM OBP = .328 [.32758]
SLG: .360 vs .361 (.36054)
R/G: 4.99 vs 4.83

As you can see, you can make this game produce the league wide results that you want it to (even in the first season) remarkably well with the adjustment tools it has if you use them optimally. In fact I basically produced the same numbers in BA, OBP, SLG and FPct for the 1901 season. You don't have as much control over R/G, but it still came out pretty well. What you can't control (unfortunately for some here) is individual results, but perhaps if we were given that ability it would affect other things to do with the game's career nature. The replay games on the market (excellent games for the most part) that are touted by those that want near duplication of individual stats last time I checked or played don't have the ability to start a game and keep moving forward through the years as long as you want, unless you sign up and pay for their online versions. Both types of game have their merits and drawbacks and we as gamers are very fortunate to have them and the people that made them around.

In closing KySteveH, maybe you should try this method for the minor leagues and see how it goes. It would be pretty time and labour intensive as you have to set them up for each league individually, but if you're a stickler for "accurate" minor league results, it might be worth a shot. I'm kinda talking out of my a** here because I've never done it for minor leagues, but who knows maybe it'll work. Let us know your results if you do try it.

Thanks as always to SteveP for the original stroke of genius.

[SteveP]

actionjackson is keying off of this post, which you may want to take a look at:

Steps for getting more realistic stats in your first season

This method of getting correct LTMs for a first season will not help you with a minor league stats problem, except indirectly. The built-in LTM calculation process doesn't apply for minor leagues. The game just copies the major league LTMs to the minor leagues. It is certainly worth copying the major league LTMs into your problem minor league -- it can't hurt, and it might help. But the experts seem to think that there are bigger problems lurking in the minor leagues, perhaps having to do with how ratings are created at that level or something (out of my depth here ), so take that into consideration.

[actionjackson]

Thanks for clearing that up SteveP.