Pitchers in OOTP

[draven085]

This came up the other day in this thread:

http://www.400softwarestudios.com/bo...threadid=35839

...and i've been thinking about it ever since. I think it is time for OOTP to start producing pitching results in a more realistic fashion. Currently, avoiding hits is very important in determining the effectiveness of a pitcher in OOTP. In my experience and from one of the posts in the other thread, it seems to be the most important. This is simply not true in real baseball. Voros McCracken's work has shown that pitchers have little control over batting average of balls in play. There is no ability to "avoid hits". A pitcher's most important skills are avoiding walks and homeruns and keeping the ball out of play by recording strikeouts. It makes it frustrating to evaluate pitchers in OOTP when the factors influencing their performance differs greatly from those in real life. What makes this frustration even greater is that OOTP handles hitters very well. Abilities that make a hitter good in real life make him good in the game.

Maybe I am in the minority here, so I posted this so see what other members of the OOTP community think. It seems to me that OOTP strives for realism, and having ratings like "avoiding runs" and "avoiding hits" take away from the realisitic feel of the game.

[Gastric ReFlux]

I'm with you on this. I would love to see the game model move towards being more in line with what McCracken has found.

[Crabster]

I`ll go with that.....

[sporr]

Well, from a realism standpoint, you should play with reduced ratings. There is no Avoid Runs or Avoid Hits in that case. But if you don't, you can simply think of these ratings as internal ratings that OOTP uses to determine the outcome of a play. On the hitters end, Getting Triples isn't really a skill, but is based mostly on speed and the ballpark, but until this version it was still primarily used to determine a hitters triples in a season.

[tategter]

Guess I have to play devil's advocate and disagree with what you're saying.

First of all there are different kinds of pitchers. Slingers, like Big Unit and Rocket, whip the ball somewhere close to the strike zone and try to make you strike-out. When it comes to those kind of pitchers then I agree, they really don't have control over avoiding hits. However there are the control pitchers, like Maddux, who don't have the 'stuff' to whip one past you so their whole philosophy is to 'avoid hits' by making the ball dart around the strike zone so you can't get a clean cut.

Pitching is a subjective art form and I'm not sure how you can correlate that into a game of hard numbers other than what Markus has created. I personally play with reduced ratings so that I don't see the 'avoid runs' ability. To me it is just silly to boil-down a pitcher to one all-supreme stat.

[clarnzz]

The main problem with OOTP is that it calculates out/hit first and contact/no contact second.

You can find it discussed at length here:

http://www.400softwarestudios.com/bo...=avoiding+hits

[Jabs]

I don't think of the "Avoid Hits" rating as avoiding hits, I think of it more as a "Avoiding Solid Contact" rating. A pitcher that can avoid batters making solid contact against them (like a Maddux or Glavine) will be just as successful as the flame-throwers that strikeout 10+ per game. Even avoiding home runs is not that important, as long as the home runs you give up are mostly solo shots. Look at Curt Schilling, his last 3 years he has given up 27, 37, and 27 HR's per season....and he seems to be an alright pitcher. He just doesn't give up a ton of 3 run HR's, they are almost all solo home runs. I think for pitchers to be successful, they have to avoid walks first, and then avoid hits when they have runners on base.

[clarnzz]

Originally posted by Jabs
I don't think of the "Avoid Hits" rating as avoiding hits, I think of it more as a "Avoiding Solid Contact" rating. A pitcher that can avoid batters making solid contact against them (like a Maddux or Glavine) will be just as successful as the flame-throwers that strikeout 10+ per game. Even avoiding home runs is not that important, as long as the home runs you give up are mostly solo shots. Look at Curt Schilling, his last 3 years he has given up 27, 37, and 27 HR's per season....and he seems to be an alright pitcher. He just doesn't give up a ton of 3 run HR's, they are almost all solo home runs. I think for pitchers to be successful, they have to avoid walks first, and then avoid hits when they have runners on base.

This arguement drives me nuts, just because you make a mystical interpretation of the rating that has nothing to do with how the "avoiding hits" rating actually works, it doesn't make the rating valid.

Schilling is good despite giving up homers because in the last 3 years he ranked 5,2,1 in BB/9 in the NL and 10,3,2 in K/9.

[Gastric ReFlux]

I have a sense this issue is going to be come another hotly-contested debate like clutch ability.

[sporr]

Originally posted by clarnzz
This arguement drives me nuts, just because you make a mystical interpretation of the rating that has nothing to do with how the "avoiding hits" rating actually works, it doesn't make the rating valid.

Schilling is good despite giving up homers because in the last 3 years he ranked 5,2,1 in BB/9 in the NL and 10,3,2 in K/9.

It probably had something to do with the fact that opposing batters only hit a little over .200 against him also.

[clarnzz]

Originally posted by sporr
It probably had something to do with the fact that opposing batters only hit a little over .200 against him also.

Which was a result of the K's, not an ability to reduce hits on balls in play, which is what the avoiding hits rating currently is.

[mad0die]

Oh no, here we go again. Please don't get Clarnzzy started (even though I agree)!
:dancefool:

[Draft Dodger]

Originally posted by sporr
Well, from a realism standpoint, you should play with reduced ratings. There is no Avoid Runs or Avoid Hits in that case. But if you don't, you can simply think of these ratings as internal ratings that OOTP uses to determine the outcome of a play. On the hitters end, Getting Triples isn't really a skill, but is based mostly on speed and the ballpark, but until this version it was still primarily used to determine a hitters triples in a season.

are you suggesting the ratings don't exist in reduced ratings?

because I've always assumed that the ratings were still there, just not visible.

seems like I'm nitpicking, but there's a HUGE difference between the two.

[tategter]

Not that I am trying to get clarnzz off on a rant or anything, but what are you proposing? A BB/K ratio and an anti-HR rating only for pitchers? There has to be something in there to show pitch quality and the ability to get batters to swing at bad pitches.

For the sake of argument, let's call it, ohhh I don't know, 'avoid hits'?

[Markus Heinsohn]

I read Mr. McCracken's article, and it looks like pitchers really have no control over what happens once the ball is put in play against them.

The "avoiding hits" rating is still a left-over from the early OOTP days, when it's intended purpose was a replay sim. It was designed to generate accurate results, and the opponents batting average is really important for a pitcher. It had to be used in the game engine.

But now OOTP is more of a career sim, and you will see major changes in the game engine for OOTP 6, in order to make it far more realistic when it comes to player attributes/ratings and abilities. No more "hitting for triples", or "avoiding doubles" ratings

[mad0die]

There is a long thread about this that you should read. It is posted above by Clarnzz.

This was in regards to Tateger not Markus...

[Draft Dodger]

just as long as you don't "fix" the fact that both jpgs and bitmaps are used for player photos, I'm happy.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally posted by Draft Dodger
just as long as you don't "fix" the fact that both jpgs and bitmaps are used for player photos, I'm happy.

LOL

Don't worry... OOTP 6 will be really different in certain areas. I'll put some of the stuff in ITP as well...

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

I'm glad to see that each new version will continue to work toward reality as a model. Incorporating McCracken's work will be a huge step in this direction.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally posted by Eckstein 4 Prez
I'm glad to see that each new version will continue to work toward reality as a model. Incorporating McCracken's work will be a huge step in this direction.

Yep, I am doing a lot of research stuff in the background as well, and OOTP 6 will be the first major step to incorporate the findings of myself and bright guys like McCracken or Davenport

PS: Can't wait for my copy of "Moneyball"