Quote:
Originally Posted by Lukas Berger
I know a few folks have said the same thing, so don't want to be dismissive, but I really think this a case of playing out more games than you watch in real life, so having more opportunities to see this sort of thing when it does happen. Then those comebacks stick in your mind more than all the 3-1 wins where nothing happened in the 9th.
If this was a pervasive issue, then you'd see in the stats for relief pitchers in game, they would have bloated ERA's, blown save numbers etc
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I haven't kept data on it or anything, but I used to write for FanGraphs and had an eye on just about every game for the better part of a decade. I know exactly how many games *should* change leads in the ninth inning (roughly 5%, rising to 8% for leads of 3 or less), and it sure feels like more than 8% in-game. Not enough to complain about, mind you, I just take it as one of those things that's more video-gamey than reality.
I think where it's most noticeable is with large leads. The number of eight+ run leads that change in the ninth inning in a given season can usually be counted on one finger, and that's leaguewide. Run a 10-year sim, and most teams should experience between 0-1 instances of a lead change of this magnitude. My experience with OOTP is it's more like 2-3 times a year per (human) team.
I do think it probably has to do with gaming mechanics like Sparkplug. I don't know if there's a momentum mechanic in there somewhere, but maybe that can run away sometimes.
This is all an observation, not a criticism.