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SteveP · 02-05-2009, 12:34 PM

An update on my experimentation in this area. I did a wholesale adjustment of player bunt ratings. Roughly speaking, the original rosters created from the Lahman DB had the peak of the distribution curve for bunt-for-hit ratings somewhere in the 15-20 range (on the 0-250 scale). So nobody bunts. I raised these so that the peak is somewhere in the 90-100 range. I also raised the sac bunt ratings for position players, but only about half as much. There was no science behind this, just trial-and-error. Since I haven't a clue how the original ratings were derived or how they are supposed to work (and, of course, they don't work anyway

), I was just taking my best shot. The point is that the result of this much change is quite striking. Bunting is now truly part of the game, and I can now use the available tools to adjust this to get pretty authentic results. Some people might think it unhistorical to see a Willie Mays or Hank Aaron occasionally lead off an inning with a bunt, but in fact this did happen. I now can get this sort of behavior in the game (along with the AI's somewhat eccentric decision-making of course, but that's unavoidable

).

OTOH, I still have yet to see the AI call a squeeze bunt. Has anyone? I suspect it is either not in the AI's repertoire, or it's been given a much higher rarity value than should be the case.

02-05-2009, 12:34 PM	#8
SteveP Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,109	An update on my experimentation in this area. I did a wholesale adjustment of player bunt ratings. Roughly speaking, the original rosters created from the Lahman DB had the peak of the distribution curve for bunt-for-hit ratings somewhere in the 15-20 range (on the 0-250 scale). So nobody bunts. I raised these so that the peak is somewhere in the 90-100 range. I also raised the sac bunt ratings for position players, but only about half as much. There was no science behind this, just trial-and-error. Since I haven't a clue how the original ratings were derived or how they are supposed to work (and, of course, they don't work anyway ), I was just taking my best shot. The point is that the result of this much change is quite striking. Bunting is now truly part of the game, and I can now use the available tools to adjust this to get pretty authentic results. Some people might think it unhistorical to see a Willie Mays or Hank Aaron occasionally lead off an inning with a bunt, but in fact this did happen. I now can get this sort of behavior in the game (along with the AI's somewhat eccentric decision-making of course, but that's unavoidable ). OTOH, I still have yet to see the AI call a squeeze bunt. Has anyone? I suspect it is either not in the AI's repertoire, or it's been given a much higher rarity value than should be the case.