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SteveP · 02-13-2009, 01:47 PM

I'm going to post on this one more time, because I've done a further experiment, and I think it's the last one I'm going to do. I think I've done as much as it is reasonably possible to do, given the available tools, to make the overall bunting game more authentic.

Basically, what I did was leave bunt-for-hit ratings where I last set them (with the peak of the distribution in the 90-100 range). I boosted the sac bunt ratings for position players so that the more active sac bunters got ratings similar to pitchers. I have all bunt related settings essentially at default, except that I blocked any type of bunting for run differentials of 4+ (on the team strategy pages). I also had to adjust the LTM for sac bunting for the first season. Here are the results:

1. Position players get about half as many sac bunts as pitchers. It should be the other way around, but I think this is the best one can get, because the game engine is set to make pitchers sac bunt much more often than ratings would dictate.

2. Pitchers sometimes hit away with two strikes, rather than continuing to sac bunt. Pitchers sometimes hit away without attempting to sac bunt at all.

3. I still have never seen the AI call a squeeze play, though hope never dies.

4. There is no cure for the sac bunt with men on 1st & 3rd. The game has it wrong, and we have to live with it.

5. There still seems to be too much sac bunting with one out, but it's less, and I don't really have any statistical basis to say that it's way out of line.

6. Batters in OOTP are incompetent bunters compared to their real life counterparts. That could be something deliberately designed into the game, or just that the game designers never took an interest in this dimension. Because of that, from what I see, any adverse impact on BAs from these rating changes is so small as to be undetectable.

I think that covers it. Before I started working this problem, bunting in OOTP bore no relationship to real-life 1960s baseball. It's now about 50%. But that's enough to add some interest and vitality to individual games.

02-13-2009, 01:47 PM	#20
SteveP Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,109	I'm going to post on this one more time, because I've done a further experiment, and I think it's the last one I'm going to do. I think I've done as much as it is reasonably possible to do, given the available tools, to make the overall bunting game more authentic. Basically, what I did was leave bunt-for-hit ratings where I last set them (with the peak of the distribution in the 90-100 range). I boosted the sac bunt ratings for position players so that the more active sac bunters got ratings similar to pitchers. I have all bunt related settings essentially at default, except that I blocked any type of bunting for run differentials of 4+ (on the team strategy pages). I also had to adjust the LTM for sac bunting for the first season. Here are the results: 1. Position players get about half as many sac bunts as pitchers. It should be the other way around, but I think this is the best one can get, because the game engine is set to make pitchers sac bunt much more often than ratings would dictate. 2. Pitchers sometimes hit away with two strikes, rather than continuing to sac bunt. Pitchers sometimes hit away without attempting to sac bunt at all. 3. I still have never seen the AI call a squeeze play, though hope never dies. 4. There is no cure for the sac bunt with men on 1st & 3rd. The game has it wrong, and we have to live with it. 5. There still seems to be too much sac bunting with one out, but it's less, and I don't really have any statistical basis to say that it's way out of line. 6. Batters in OOTP are incompetent bunters compared to their real life counterparts. That could be something deliberately designed into the game, or just that the game designers never took an interest in this dimension. Because of that, from what I see, any adverse impact on BAs from these rating changes is so small as to be undetectable. I think that covers it. Before I started working this problem, bunting in OOTP bore no relationship to real-life 1960s baseball. It's now about 50%. But that's enough to add some interest and vitality to individual games.