[Syd Thrift]

Balks and passed balls are very specifically something whose frequency is calibrated by the engine. Like, on the last day of your preseason, the game literally runs three consecutive trial runs, looking and adjusting the rates of basically everything each time so that they come out just right (for the most part). I highly, highly, highly suggest to anyone who thinks that a measurable statistic - practically any measurable statistic - is off to look at the league totals and pull up bbref to compare them.

I will say that one thing that *can* happen with low-frequency stats like balks and passed balls (well, I guess more passed balls, since I'm not sure that there is a hidden "balk" rating - at least there's nothing that you can edit) is that, especially if you have a smaller league, if injuries or minor league call ups have you introducing an outlier player (in this case a crappy catcher; see: Geno Petralli IRL), that alone can goose up the totals (Petralli had *40* passed balls between 1986 and 1987, representing more than 10% of the league total in that time) (with the Petralli example, I'm not sure if the game captures the fact that knuckleball pitchers create lots of passed balls - Petralli was Charlie Hough's catcher in those seasons, in addition to being converted to the position in the minors).

I guess the one other caveat about this is... the "getting the stats right" replays generate no injuries and just plays the Opening Day lineups against each other for 162 games, so while stuff tends to balance out in larger leagues, sometimes in, say, an 8 team league one team starting the season with a crappy rotation can all by itself cause the game engine to over-correct and you might see pitching dominate that year a bit more than IRL. And of course, those "preseason predictions" you see are based on (I think) the last of those three replays (at least before OOTP21; now that you can generate them at any time, the only time that's true now is if you look at the preseason predictions during the regular season).

Last season, teams averaged about 12 passed balls and 5 balks per game. That means that you should in turn see one of those (committed by either you or your opponent) happening a little more often than once every 5 games. That seems like a high number but that's the reality.