Improving the Injury Model

[SittingDuck]

One thing that I think would seriously improve the injury model would be to put something in the injury strings that differentiates between pitchers and position players.

Currently you have throwing/pitching as a condition for an injury. Dead arm for a fielder? No.....

By differentiating between pitchers and hitters, you allow a more realistic representation of injuries (I mean, was is the ratio of pitchers with arm injuries compared to position players?!??), and thus you can affect pitchers a lot more. Or more realistically.

So just add something into the boolean string, as in 0 (hitter), 1 (pitcher), 2 (all). And then you'll find a nice ability to hone injury times more realistically, with injury types at your disposal.

[conception]

This is a pretty simple concept that I would like to see done. Who knows if its too late for OOTP9 or if it might actually be in it already.

[injury log]

That's a great suggestion. I'm collecting suggestions for improving injuries in the game (I'm hoping that in the 2009 version there might be a bit of an overhaul of the injury system) and I'll add that to the list.

[Ambermonk]

I'm in favor also.

[SittingDuck]

Great to hear guys like the idea.

One of the things that would be nice about it is that you can create longer or more dramatic injuries that are more peculiar to pitchers than hitters (in the 'throwing' dept). Hitters would receive more of a DTD for throwing injuries, but in the current format, you can stipulate between the two.

[boblight24]

To play devil's advocate, I think the injury model is great. I love all the different types of injuries that were created. Things like strep throat and contusions from fight with spouse, it's great! I turned my injuries down to low and now the game is even more realistic. I have been recreating history from 1901 and in Babe Ruth's later years, he couldn't stay healthy for more than 2 or 3 weeks. He kept developing leg problems, due to his weight, it's great!

Dead arm can happen in fielder, Mookie Wilson eventually became a nonfactor in the outfield because he hurt his arm throwing wet baseballs and never recovered. I guess there's no excuse for Johnny Damon's arm.

[CBL-Commish]

The biggest fix the injury model needs is a frequency field in the injury.txt file. Right now there's no way to tell the game that a torn ACL happens 10 times per 1000 games played, while a strained bicep happens 50 times (numbers made up).

[blackrussian]

what i would love to see happen is improvement in how the game model a players return from injury. right now, player get injured, is unavaible for X amount of time and once that time is up, return at 100% immediately when his injury time is up. doesnt really happen that way. there needs to be a gradual increase in a players health until they are ultimately fully healthy. there are a few benefits to a system like this. first, you can see how they are progressing from injury (70%, 80% healthy, etc); second, you can risk playing him despite him not being 100% but incurring a chance to reinjure. thats not unlike a day to day injury, since you can play a someone with decreased effectiveness. i think what we need, instead of a "rest status %," is just an overall health or fitness indicator. whether a player is losing effectiveness from playing too much or he's actually hurt, it should be reflective in this fitness rating and the manager can respond accordingly. the fitness rating can have a hard threshold for when a player is simply not fit enough to play (lets say 65%), so with a more severe injury like a fracture or a tear, the player would simply be unavailable to use.

also, i had been thinking about CEI's. right now, if a player gets injured and triggers the CEI boolean, he retires THAT DAY. how often to you see a player retire the day of, or the next day after a severe injury? never. even tony saunders who suffered TWO horrific pitching arm fractures, kept trying to come back. what the game needs to do is assign the player an unsually long injury, perhaps with a significant ratings reduction and increased chance to reinjure himself. the ratings reduction is important b/c he may just not be able to compete at the level he was once able to and ultimately be forced to retire early.

my workaround right now is just to turn off the CEI boolean (except for fractured skull). i had an incident in a league where jim edmonds was traded straight up for alfonso soriano. the last day of spring training, jim edmonds on a slide home tears up his ankle (or breaks it, i forget which) and immediately announces his retirement. are you kidding me?

i realize these may not be things that can be quickly changed or fixed but ultimately, i think they would provide a more realistic way for the game to handle injuries.

[johnnybourbon]

Originally Posted by blackrussian

what i would love to see happen is improvement in how the game model a players return from injury. right now, player get injured, is unavaible for X amount of time and once that time is up, return at 100% immediately when his injury time is up.

This can tie in to "rehab" assignments as well. Getting AB & IP in AAA or such can function similar to how spring training works now to get the player back to 100%, getting the rust off and getting back into game shape.
good post br

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by SittingDuck

Currently you have throwing/pitching as a condition for an injury. Dead arm for a fielder? No.....

You've missed Jorge Posada's latest injury, haven't you? Not to mention Alex Cora on the Red Sox had a tweak in his elbow that is sending him to the DL and to get MRIs.

[blackrussian]

Originally Posted by johnnybourbon

This can tie in to "rehab" assignments as well. Getting AB & IP in AAA or such can function similar to how spring training works now to get the player back to 100%, getting the rust off and getting back into game shape.
good post br

ha! i just started to edit my post to include that but yeah, i know this has come up from time to time, but including rehab assignments would be pretty cool. the complication i see here is the AI being able to handle "rehab assignments" properly (not consider them demotions, service time issues, roster management, knowing to include a player in the lineup/rotation specifically b/c player needs rehab time, etc).

the important groundwork though goes back to ratings reduction. if a player is injured, there should be some ill effects on player ratings until he heals. ideally, this would be incremental. if you break your arm, its not one day totally broken then another day completely healed, right? it heals gradually over a certain amount time and the more time that passes, the less pain there is, the stronger the arm is, etc. thats not how the AI engine currently sees it. with the AI, a player is injured and at 0%, injury done, players is 100%, no in-between. thats overly simplistic.

[SittingDuck]

Originally Posted by Kelric

You've missed Jorge Posada's latest injury, haven't you? Not to mention Alex Cora on the Red Sox had a tweak in his elbow that is sending him to the DL and to get MRIs.

I desperately try to avoid getting any information having to do with either of those teams. Understand? In the first case, old man. In the second, dude needs to eat and lift some weights.

OK, seriously now (well maybe I was a little serious) -

point being that pitchers incur arm troubles all the time, but fielders rarely (in comparison). But we can't stipulate that with the current model.

OOTB injury model is good. Not perfect. PSBB's model had some bright spots; not as many, but very good aspects. I think OOTP could incorporate two of them, and they have both been mentioned in this thread:

1) Pitcher/Hitter differentiation
2) Frequency of player incurring said injury

Both of those were in PSBB. Finding a way to incorporate that into OOTP would make the injury model much greater.

I also like the comments above about CEI's shouldn't be immediate, and also the one about how players don't always come back at 100%.

Now Markus, if you can incorporate all these into your injury model at some point over the next few versions, there will simply be no baseball sim with an injury model so astounding!

[injury log]

Originally Posted by blackrussian

also, i had been thinking about CEI's. right now, if a player gets injured and triggers the CEI boolean, he retires THAT DAY. how often to you see a player retire the day of, or the next day after a severe injury? never.

It happened twice just this Spring Training- Brian Anderson and Matt Mantei both retired the same day they suffered arm injuries.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by boblight24

To play devil's advocate, I think the injury model is great. I love all the different types of injuries that were created. Things like strep throat and contusions from fight with spouse, it's great! I turned my injuries down to low and now the game is even more realistic.

"

[The Wolf]

I set mine to low because when I left injuries on normal I never seemed to have anything resembling a pitching staff. After having the same problem in four different leagues, I cranked down the injury setting a notch. Been very happy since.

[andymac]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I set mine to low because when I left injuries on normal I never seemed to have anything resembling a pitching staff. After having the same problem in four different leagues, I cranked down the injury setting a notch. Been very happy since.

Of course, being happy and having injuries realistically modeled are two separate issues for many people.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by andymac

Of course, being happy and having injuries realistically modeled are two separate issues for many people.

Sorry, but four separate pitching staffs being destroyed due to injuries just isn't "having injuries realistically modeled." I get more accurate results with injuries set on low, so that's what I use. Your mileage may vary.

It's your game, play it your way.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Sorry, but four separate pitching staffs being destroyed due to injuries just isn't "having injuries realistically modeled." I get more accurate results with injuries set on low, so that's what I use.

If by 'accurate' you mean 'realistic', then OOTP's 'average' setting is not 'accurate', and 'low' is even less accurate. On 'average' there are far too few short-term injuries in OOTP on 'average', and slightly too few long injuries (it's mainly too low for pitchers) compared to modern-day MLB. That's based on a lot of real-world data, but just going through the player reports for one day on rotoworld and then looking at one day in your OOTP injury log will, in almost all cases, clearly demonstrate the discrepancy.

If by 'accurate' you mean 'plays the way you want the game to play', then all good.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by injury log

If by 'accurate' you mean 'plays the way you want the game to play', then all good.

Bt "accurate" I mean "don't consistently get utterly ludicrous amounts of injured pitchers."

So I suppose I should modify that to say that I get results that are more accurate using the low setting than the regular one, because then the entire pitching staff doesn't go on the DL.

[andymac]

The Cardinals currently have 7 pitchers on the DL.