How I am playing now, any advice welcome

[italyprof]

So, based on an insight by ActionJackson and based on my learning a ton from David Watts here and from many others of you too numerous to name (apologies), I have started experimenting to get right a new way I want to play random debut leagues.

So, first of all, in a recent conversation here, ActionJackson explained to me a big reason I was always vaguely dissatisifed with the results of my leagues - it takes till about season 4 for the AI to have enough stats in the league to base more stable, realistic and regular results on. Until then the standard deviation or the standard number of standard deviations is too great I guess.

So, first thing I realized is that instead of painstakingly setting up my team to feel really into the league with the inaugural draft, I should just wing the inaugural draft, let the AI autoplay it all. Then go to the day before the season starts (I am beginning in 1901) and put the historical year 1984 in and let the whole season run until the new player draft, run that the same way, repeat and rinse and repeat until I get to 1904 preseason.

THEN run a real inaugural draft where I draft my team, with the league now having an identity and some records and some statistics.

BUT...I then came up with my own new preference: SINCE we have league statistics for three full years, so it starts to become clear in many cases how players are performing here, MAKE ALL THE RATINGS INVISIBLE. Go to "stats only". Make my choices based on performance, period, well, using Real Life Stats as a sort of alternative scouting report on potential let's say.

I have the settings on real stats with five year recalc and with the player development on.

Pitchers' stamina for whole career, but player ratings based on remaining years of career.

Injuries are on low, but pitcher stamina is on low and position player fatigue is on very low. Five man rotations, most of the other settings under Historical are on normal. No shifts or openers, closers on "rarely".

Three minor leagues, AAA, AA and A, with each having an age limit (26, 29 and 49) and each limited to 15 players max (ghost players fill the rest), so that will hopefully weed out hangers on that are aging but done with their MLB careers.

Now, all is well and good and I will tell you some of the results in a minute as I have stopped at Opening Day 1904 after simming the first three seasons and then doing the draft for real, but I did a couple of things that are probably making it so that this first version won't be the actual league I play but I will try again to see if I work out some bugs I think are my own creation.

So, I set the league to be "Independent" and at prestige level 9.

I like that idea but it MIGHT be affecting some of the weird outcomes -anyone who knows more let me know please.

The biggest weird thing is that a LOT of older players just a year or two done with their MLB real life careers are rotting away in AAA BUT are hitting gigantic numbers of home runs there - 70 homers and more for big hitters, 40-50 for good power hitters. Some .400 or near that hitters in AAA.

Now the thing I don't get is why if they are not required to retire as they did in real life and I have 5-year recalc on, why they are not still in the majors if they are capable of that level of performance. But almost every team has some guy hitting 45 - 50 home runs in AAA.

I wonder if the Independent league thing has something to do with this?

Or it may be another big goof I came up with. I changed the player evaluation settings to 25-50-15-10, and so maybe that is why a lot of older players got sent down? Or it has something to do with turning off the visibility of the ratings and using stats only, except I thought that this affected ONLY ME, as the AI still uses ratings as the manual says, even if ratings are not visible to human players.

But except for the bizarrely ubiquitous 32-year old guy hitting 50 homers in AAA after a reasonably good career, I am LOVING the results in the league.

Most good pitchers have ERAs of 3.00 something and a few are at 2.00 something. Middling pitchers at 4.00 something. I like this.

Five man rotations, strict rotation to get more pitchers in the game (5 relievers also per team, with 15 position players).

The batters are hitting but not going crazy.

So:

Roy White hit .358 in 1903, which is so far the season record
John McGraw's .339 is the career mark so far in the league's infancy.

Fred Luderus is the home run king of both season (39) and career (99).

So, home runs are little low - I expected league leaders to hit 40 something most of the time, with the occasional 30 something and the rare 50 plus season.

Tim Raines stole 84 bases in 1903, John McGraw has 200 lifetime so far.

Tom Candiotti's 2.36 ERA is the best ever so far in 1902, and he pitched 244 innings that year. Mike Hampton is the only 20 game winner ever - in 1903. Doc McJames struck out 230 in 1901.

League AVG. the first 3 seasons has been .266, 269, .261, and ERA for the league has been 4.13, 3.94, and 4.00.


So the stats are enjoyable and I can live with them though I might like the league leaders to hit 5-10 more homers than they do.

A final note: I have put each team in one of Silvam's newer 3D parks, a couple in historic parks, but most in the beautiful fictional parks. I love seeing the teams play in these settings. Really fun. No idea how they are affecting my league stats. If I click on "edit ballpark" and "import neutral park effects for all ballparks" will that work or is that the same as trying to play with "neutral stats" instead of real stats, which, if I understand correctly is a mess for the past 3-4 season of OOTP baseball?

I am now going to try to reproduce this game, but make it an MLB league to see if that ups the stats just a little as desired, and not touch the player evaluating settings in case that is why I have all the 32 year olds in AAA playing like Babe Ruth in a sandlot league.

Another mistake: I set the subsequent drafts at 5 rounds, which is probably low, though I would think that this would have KEPT the high-performing older players who are at the age of retirement in their real life careers in the league, rather than in AAA no? But I also set the 1904 inaugural draft at enough rounds to soak up all the players in the league.

If I had set it to 44 instead of, I think 64, it might have produced tighter rosters overall of 44 players with experience in the league with A, AA and AAA populated by new draftees. Which is more desirable than seeing Henry Aaron hit 100 home runs in AAA at age 48.

So, maybe I will set the subsequent year drafts at say 10 rounds, which after the initial inaugural draft and the next three - 1901, 1902, and 1903, should yield a total of 74 potential players per team, but then set the fantasy draft for me to start playing and resorting the league for 1904 at 44 or 49 or 55 maximum, to weed out the over the hill gang and then see if they become free agents and retire or delete them all.

Any advice or insight here is most welcome. On to iteration two of this experiment.

[actionjackson]

As long as your league wide numbers are to your liking, you can't do much about the distribution. With 1984 settings, 30+ HR is a huge achievement. 40+ is rare, 50+ very rare, and I've only seen 60+ once (63 by Mantle in an old game). I also use High position player fatigue and normal injuries, so that would drag the counting stats down a bit. Be careful what you wish for with HR leaders though. 1984 should keep it reasonable. You could also shop around for other seasons with slightly higher HR rates, but very similar R/G rates too.

I use a 162 game schedule in every season, with neutralized park factors and weather, DH in the AL, but not in the NL. I had a chat with Garlon probably about ten years ago, and he mentioned that the player stats have already been modified IRL by park factors and weather, so why would you want to do it again? I found that very interesting, and I've used it ever since.

I use a five round amateur draft, but I don't use minor leagues, so you might want to expand that a bit. How much is up to you.

Anything else you want to know, just give me a holler.

[italyprof]

Well, so I have been playing around with different options, decided that the stats only thing was confusing both me and the AI in some way, and went through a few more iterations.

I just finished simming through the first four seasons of a 1901 random debut league before now doing the real inaugural draft that I will play in.

But I wanted to show this about the first four seasons of history, two things really.

First, Casey Stengel holds the single season home run record so far with 38 !!

How cool is that?

Second, I cannot remember who the Al Kaline enthusiast is - and RIP Al Kaline and my condolences to all Tigers fans - but look how great he has been in the four seasons of prehistory (which I am keeping the league stats, though I am only now jumping in now that the system should have adjusted to the settings now that it has enough stats in the league to work with properly.

[David Watts]

I would be the Al Kaline enthusiast.....Tiger lover in general here.

[David Watts]

Italy, are you still using a "Maximum" for this league? I'm still leaning toward using your suggestion for random league I start in the future. I didn't set a maximum for my current league and Yoan Moncada is exploding into a huge superstar and I really think he's benefitting from a lack of recalc years.

[italyprof]

Yes, I usually use either 2000 or 2009.

But keep in mind David that my situation is unusual: I am 60, started following baseball in 1969. From 1994-98 I studied and did research and taught in Italy. But I was able to follow the Yankees in the playoffs at least by Armed Forces Radio.

After a few years (glorious years for Yankees fans) back home in the US, I moved back to Italy in 2004, and during those years really did not have access to a lot of baseball. The Armed Forces Radio changed their frequency to be available only to people on the base or in the armed forces who had whatever code they needed or something, and MLBTV live streaming games was only a gleam in the Internet's eye.

So I have been once again able to actually watch live games and know some players the past 3-4 years tops and I missed a lot in between. I don't actually know the names of the stadiums most teams play in (all corporate names of companies that will be bankrupt one day if they are not already and the teams will have to figure out what to call the ballpark), don't know a fraction of the players playing today except for some of the most famous ones.

So if I actually had seen most of these guys play the way I used to on the Game of the Week, Sunday night baseball, teams playing against the Yankees and the NL and AL playoffs, I might not mind having someone current or very recent dominate my league. But since I haven't ever heard of them it might as well be a fictional player for all I know.

So I usually go 1901-2000. A nice, neat century. Since I watched games regularly through 2004, if I go with 2009 as the cutoff I still know most of the players. Beyond that it gets iffy.

But the other, more substantial issue IS that somehow current or recent or even steroid-era players and 19th Century or deadball era players end up running the board on the rest of the league. This is somehow not satisfactory. It's one thing if Babe Ruth hits a zillion homers, but another altogether if some guy who played in 1887 that I never heard of does. It is just less fun for me.

I LIKE the IDEA of having the 19th century player in there, but if I include them it would probably be a league that only goes up to World War Two maybe, so let Ted Williams and Babe Ruth fend off the old guys, they can take care of themselves, but having some guy hit .470 who played two years for a team in Paducah, Kentucky in 1891 (I know I am engaging in hyperbole here, sorry) when Rod Carew hits .230 or something takes some of the fun out for me.

[italyprof]

Al Kaline has been awesome David Watts:

[italyprof]

The team change you see is because I simmed through the first four seasons of the league, and only then ran a new inaugural draft, taking over one team and managing it. So he did not get traded, everyone change teams for 1904-5.

[David Watts]

I've decided to simply fast sim this league going forward. Look at Yoan Moncada in this league. This is what I'm talking about in regards to a guy benefitting to the extremes from not having recalc years. I've created a new league and I'm using your 1901-minimum(I've always used 1901) and 2005 for my maximum. Have to give myself the chance for some Verlander.

[italyprof]

I hear you. The hard part is realizing that using whatever year as the maximum will exclude certain players you want in. I understand. But there does seem to be a bit of a bias toward currently active or very recent players, and batters (not so much pitchers) from the pre-1900 eras.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by italyprof

I hear you. The hard part is realizing that using whatever year as the maximum will exclude certain players you want in. I understand. But there does seem to be a bit of a bias toward currently active or very recent players, and batters (not so much pitchers) from the pre-1900 eras.

If you go to my league thread, you will see even more examples of this. I've simmed 30+ years. Javier Baez, Ronald Acuna, Nick Castellanos, Chris Taylor, Yoan Moncada and Michael Brantley all have 3000+ hits. Moncada ended up with 4093 hits and Ronald Acuna finished with 3648. Josh Bell is about to go over 3000 hits and Jorge Polanco should do so as well.

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by David Watts

If you go to my league thread, you will see even more examples of this. I've simmed 30+ years. Javier Baez, Ronald Acuna, Nick Castellanos, Chris Taylor, Yoan Moncada and Michael Brantley all have 3000+ hits. Moncada ended up with 4093 hits and Ronald Acuna finished with 3648. Josh Bell is about to go over 3000 hits and Jorge Polanco should do so as well.

Unpopular opinion, but this is not terribly surprising. People complain about the default level of randomness crushing players with ridiculous sudden drops, but my observation and opinion has always been that it is overly kind on average. Pre 1900 pitchers can be ridiculously overpowered (looking at you Bobby Matthews!) due to their ratings being balanced against the pre 1900 game. Newer players, however, have no stats at all once you pass their last real year of baseball. They get to evolve solely via the talent development engine. That couple with there simply being a larger pool of new players than any other point in history makes for an apparent glut of newer players having exceptional careers.