[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by deadringer

I've often said and I often believe that OOTP does a good job of getting the big picture right at the cost of all the finer details.

When you look at the numbers for an entire league over the course of a season you see why OOTP is the best baseball sim on the market. The closer you look at AI decisions and the way player's careers play out the less impressive it is.

The AI's in game decisions are one of the areas I see that need the most work, but then again I play out each game.

Me too, and see many crazy decisions in-game (and posted about one so looney it deserved a post). But it's not only in-game AI that's weak.

In my third year with one of the lowest payrolls in the league, I've taken my team after two straight 81-81 finishes to a 13 game lead in the division at the end of July. And I only made a couple of changes from last year, nothing earth shattering. So, why, with only a couple of changes would an 81-81 team be up by 13 playing nearly .700 ball? The only answer I can come up with is the roster management AI is weak as well, and while my team hasn't improved THAT much, the other teams have gotten steadily worse. And with much larger payrolls.

I see trades all the time that makes we wonder whether they're done to improve the teams or whether they're done instead just to have trades, like a crap shoot. While in RL we question trades all the time, they are done for reasons. Sometimes to fill a hole, sometimes to lower payroll, etc. etc. Finding ANY logic in some of these trades is beyond me. It really seems that trades are, I dunno, just done to reach a number. If you're trading frequency is set at such and such, then this number of trades should occur type of thing.

The game is beautiful. The stats are amazing. The customability is AWESOME (my favorite feature). But without good AI, it's just not THERE yet, for lack of a better way of putting it.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

In my third year with one of the lowest payrolls in the league, I've taken my team after two straight 81-81 finishes to a 13 game lead in the division at the end of July. And I only made a couple of changes from last year, nothing earth shattering. So, why, with only a couple of changes would an 81-81 team be up by 13 playing nearly .700 ball?

What's your Pythagorean record in comparison to your actual record? How's the rest of your division doing in comparison?

As to a low payroll team leading its division, this happens in the real world too on occasion. Look no further than this year's Tampa Bay Rays who had the second lowest payroll in MLB on opening day ($43.8 million). In comparison, the Yankees opened the season with a $209 million payroll, Detroit with $138.7 million, the Mets with $138.3 million, and Boston with $133.4 million.

Something else to consider in OOTP is the spread between the top and bottom payrolls; it tends to be narrower than is the case currently in MLB. The ratio of #1 to #30 in MLB at the opening of the 2008 season was 9.59:1 ($209 million to $21.8 million); the ratio of #2 to #30 was 6.36:1 ($133.8 million to $21.8 million). The ratio of #2 to #29 was still a considerable 3.17:1 ($138.7 million to $43.8 millon).

From what I recall, the spreads in OOTP of highest team payroll to lowest team payroll typical come out around to 3:1 or lower, which is far closer than in reality (which I feel is an issue within the financial model).

[GmOfTheYear]

So has anyone figured out optimal league totals for years 2010 and beyond? I notice that hitting begins to dominate and league leaders average .400 And era is way up. So what would I have to do to make the league era go down and make the batting average go down. Increase at bats?

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Or if you keep the league totals and player ratings the same, but change all the ballpark factors, you will see predictable changes in league-wide outcomes.

Would those changes also be in the opposite direction? In my Oriental universe the ballparks have high factors for doubles and triples, and low factors for hits and homers. Three out of those four seem to be working. There are a ton of doubles and triples being hit, and few homers, but there are also a ton of singles. Is this just because hitters are better than pitchers in that league?

Originally Posted by GmOfTheYear

So has anyone figured out optimal league totals for years 2010 and beyond? I notice that hitting begins to dominate and league leaders average .400 And era is way up. So what would I have to do to make the league era go down and make the batting average go down. Increase at bats?

Based on RonCo's posts above the answer would seem to be increase hits. This would lower batting average, and if the hitters' average goes down presumably fewer runs would be scored. You could also decrease at bats, but doing that would decease everything (walks, homers, strikeouts, etc.)… which may or may not be exactly what you want.

[Garlon]

Decreasing AB would not decrease the league AB. The games will still be 27 outs.

If you want to lower league BA, just lower the League Totals Modifier value for Hits. Don't change the values in the engine section on the left. Just change the modifiers on the right.

Now, if you know exactly how you want your league to play (i.e. 1993 league ratios or any other year in history), simply copy/paste that year's stat line over and over in the era_stats file after the 2007 entry. Make sure you change the year after you paste them to be 2008, 2009, 2010, etc. Then all you need to do is turn on automatically calcualte leaue totals modifiers and OOTP will keep your baseball universe playing to those ratios each season.

[GmOfTheYear]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Decreasing AB would not decrease the league AB. The games will still be 27 outs.

If you want to lower league BA, just lower the League Totals Modifier value for Hits. Don't change the values in the engine section on the left. Just change the modifiers on the right.

Now, if you know exactly how you want your league to play (i.e. 1993 league ratios or any other year in history), simply copy/paste that year's stat line over and over in the era_stats file after the 2007 entry. Make sure you change the year after you paste them to be 2008, 2009, 2010, etc. Then all you need to do is turn on automatically calcualte leaue totals modifiers and OOTP will keep your baseball universe playing to those ratios each season.

A guy just average .400 on the year. In the year 2026. Now I know nobody knows what the stats will look like then but I mean dont you think its a little unrealistic for a guy to hit .400? I added 5000 hits to the hit total league setup. And the guy still hit .400. So I mean should I add more? Also do you know if the created players made that you draft if they are automatically better hitters than the pitchers made? Is that why the hitters dominate? if so how would I go about fixing that.

Basically I just want the stats to mirror the stats of today anyway we can make this happen?

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Decreasing AB would not decrease the league AB. The games will still be 27 outs.

If you want to lower league BA, just lower the League Totals Modifier value for Hits. Don't change the values in the engine section on the left. Just change the modifiers on the right.

Now, if you know exactly how you want your league to play (i.e. 1993 league ratios or any other year in history), simply copy/paste that year's stat line over and over in the era_stats file after the 2007 entry. Make sure you change the year after you paste them to be 2008, 2009, 2010, etc. Then all you need to do is turn on automatically calcualte leaue totals modifiers and OOTP will keep your baseball universe playing to those ratios each season.

Just seeing this again...technically, lowering the AB Total _will_ result in lowered AB, but that's only because it will result in fewer hits (less offense overall). AB is the one "reversed" League Total.

I should note that I learned quite a bit more about League Totals since then. The BABIP issues I discuss upstream were caused by an undesirable interaction between the BABIP, H, HR, and K league total settings that I hope is resolved in OOTP X.

[oldtime]

Personally, I would not fool around with AB totals or hit totals to change individuals BA. If all your other stats are turning out like you want ( doubles, HRs, K, BB etc ) you can just lower BABIP play and get the desired results. There were extensive discussions about this in during th OOTP 6 days. Since there is direct correlation in how the other league total numbers ( triples, K, BB, doubles, HBP etc ) relate to the number of AB and Hits in league totals, so you can screw up your whole league if you are not careful. The BABIP function seems to override the AB/Hits Totals for BA for the most part.

Once I have a league going and I like the stats and how it plays, I check my pitching stats and hitting stats at the end of each year on the Stats Page, and tweak my numbers if I see anything creeping in the wrong direction. I don't care if one guy hits .400. Maybe he's the all time best player ever, as long as the league BA remains consistant.

If however league BA in 2010 is .267 and by 2015 it is up to .279, I'll lower BABIP by by about 8 points and see what the stats are the following year ( or run a sim ). If league BA goes down to .275, I'll move it down again the next year until I have what I want.

I like my league BA, HR, ERA, K, BB totals to remain fairly consistant. Your player creation modifiers, player development modifiers, and the number of players you have in your 1st year player draft can all affect league and player stats over the long haul - and these can cause league offense the creep in one direction or the other.