Something that will never make sense to me

[David Watts]

Over the weekend I decided to create a random debut league. Small 12 team league starting in 1960. For fun, I just set the game to fast sim. Ended up doing this all the way through the 1992 season.

Jim St. Vrain entered the league in either the inaugural draft or one shortly after that. Now in real life ole Jim pitched one season, 1902. Jim pitched in 12 games, starting 11 of them, tossing 95 innings. He finished his career 4-6 with a 2.08 ERA. Jim whiffed an impressive 51 batters back in 1902 and walked 25.

What has me baffled is, Jim St. Vrain would go on to make the Hall of Fame in my league. Doing so mostly as a relief pitcher. This is the second time I've seen St. Vrain make the Hall in a random debut and I just don't understand how it can happen.

This random is using 5 year recalc. I actually increased the adjust/weaken settings (did this after seeing Reed's post a ways back), I can't remember the exact settings, but what I used are higher than the default settings the wizard shows. I'm not using double weight.

So how is that the adjust/weaken settings don't crush a guy like St. Vrain? I just don't understand this, especially when the game will hammer guys like Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg during the war years. In another random this year I had some nobody cat from the early 1900's save like 700 games. He pitched in less games that St.Vrain in real life. This is way the adjust/weaken settings drive me nuts. I'm glad they exist, but wish I could make better sense of them.


In another project this weekend, I used the default adjust/weaken settings but used 1 year recalc. This was random debut as well. The game produced some nice numbers, but right away I was able to see that these settings would not work. Ronald Acuna Jr. came out on fire in the game. Ended up hittig 54 home runs a few years into his career. Problem is when he reached the end of his real life stats, he instantly became a bench player and quickly retired. Saw the same thing with several other modern day guys.

[Reed]

I think I can explain a little bit. For guys like St. Vrain who’s real life career has ended, the development engine kicks in. For guys that miss season’s, the development DOES NOT kick in. I think the game is looking at the miss seasons as a recalc year and will use zero ABs and zero hits in its computation.

What kind of TCR are you using? I assume you are using combination recalc/development.

I have had Pete Dowling who was out of baseball at age 24 end up winning 4 CY Youngs and being an all star for 6 or more years.

If a player misses 1 year IRL, 3 yr and 5 yr will work fine if the requirements for weaken/adjust settings are met the season before and after the miss season.

If a player misses 3 years and you use 3 yr recalc., they will be toast the 2nd miss season since OOTP will see zero ABs or IP for the year before, the current year, and the following year.

One way around this is to do as Garlon suggests, use 5 year recalc.. However if you use 100 as your adjust setting (not double weighted) then the adjust will use (5x100) or 500. So for the 2nd miss year the game will ad the 3 miss years of ABs (zero) to the total of ABs of the immediate seasons before and after the miss years. If that total is over 500 in this example then no problem. If he has less than 500 ABs, then he starts taking a hit.

As far as St Vrain is concerned, a lot of it depends on team needs, adjust/weaken, development engine, his pitches and once he gets experience then who knows.

In my random leagues I have seen the AI convert IRL relief pitcher with 40-50 IP into staters and on the same team convert real life starters (usually not very good) into relievers.

Hope this rambling helps a little bit. Sorry I didn’t respond a couple weeks ago but my IPad messed up. Feel free to email me if you ever like.

[Syd Thrift]

I think it's as simple as St. Vrain threw enough pitches in his one year that the threshold thinks it's "for real". Maybe the larger issue is that the game ought to look at minor league stats with MLEs for guys like this, although even that touches on a major issue with the "major leagues" at the turn of the century: Major League Baseball was the biggest and highest league on the East Coast, the Ohio Valley, and to a degree in the Midwest, but there were even at that time vast swathes of the country where baseball was played and guys like St. Vrain were perfectly decent players who simply did not have a "major league" career because they were busy having a career in baseball in a part of the country that was unserved by Major League Baseball.

In St. Vrain's case, he was from the West Coast. Lots of guys had pretty long careers in the PCL and its predecessors, perhaps Hall of Fame level careers in some cases. Lefty O'Doul comes to mind here. I believe this is also what happened with Smead Jolley. I think MLB dipped into the South a bit more often but I'm sure there were a lot of guys who played out their careers in Texas or what have you who never touched the majors (there's a guy in the Texas League in the late 40s/early 50s IIRC who got upwards of 200 RBI in one season, for one example). And of course black players although we're getting better at acknowledging them now.

How you "fix" this is not, I don't think, as easy a question as "just make them worse". I think St. Vrain was legitimately that good at baseball. He went back down to the pre-PCL and excelled for 2 years after that before his arm started to give out. K rates tend to stabilize pretty quickly and he threw 95 innings in his one season. The issue here isn't to me so much that there is one Jimmy St. Vrain who had that one outlier season, it's that there are potentially dozens of Jimmy St. Vrains who never played in the "major leagues" for perfectly legitimate reasons.

[Rain King]

Yeah, the problem is that "5-year" only counts years the player actually participated.

So, a player that only has stats in 1 year but has a sample size above the per year adjustments they are not going to get modified down. If St. Vrain had cups of coffee in a couple other seasons he would average less than the adjust/weaken modifiers across those seasons and end up being adjusted.

[David Watts]

I'm using 250/100 for hitters and 30/20 for pitchers. 50 for TCR
I actually enjoy it when cup of tea guys have decent careers. But guys like this having Hall of Fame careers kind of gets under my skin. Especially when it looks like the game may be groundhogs daying them year after year. St Vrain should be treated like a starting pitcher as he started 11 out of 12 games. If treated like a starter my setting of 30 for adjust should have adjusted him. Maybe I need to go to 25 for weaken.

[Brad K]

I estimate there is some randomization involved. In a large number of saves I doubt he'd consistently make the HoF.

[luckymann]

The most upsetting thing for me personally is that this is bothering DW so much that he's referring to them as "weaken/adjust" rather than the preferred "make bads".

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I estimate there is some randomization involved. In a large number of saves I doubt he'd consistently make the HoF.

He has done so in my last two random debuts. I also had a guy with minimal innings pitched roll to 700 saves in another random debut. I'm guessing it's a random debut thing.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by luckymann

The most upsetting thing for me personally is that this is bothering DW so much that he's referring to them as "weaken/adjust" rather than the preferred "make bads".

Lol, I came so close to using "make bads."

[David Watts]

I set this random up with high short term and high long term injuries. I'm also using high fatigue. Really like what I'm seeing in terms of the all time hits leaders. Luis Arraez played till he was 45 and tallied 3500+ hits. There are roughly 4 or 5 players total with 3000+ hits over 32 seasons of play.

[David Watts]

Another guy that made the Hall of Fame in my league is Ralph Comstock. Ralph had a MLB career that lasted 2 seasons.

[David Watts]

Just want to be clear that I actually enjoy fringe players achieving success in my random debuts. I do think a guy like St. Vrain making the Hall might be a little over the top, especially when he's done so in back to back random debut leagues. I may need to roll TCR up to like 200 and see what happens. Prior to this version, I think the drafts were becoming way too stacked when playing random debut. When playing a game that relies so much on league totals for results, an over stacked player pool can really water down overall numbers. This year if you get a Rod Carew or a Tony Gwynn you're likely to see some really impressive batting average seasons and these players will probably finish their careers with an average above .300.

[Brad K]

TCR can make players better too.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Brad K

TCR can make players better too.

Any change is better than Groundhogs day.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Reed

I think I can explain a little bit. For guys like St. Vrain who’s real life career has ended, the development engine kicks in. For guys that miss season’s, the development DOES NOT kick in. I think the game is looking at the miss seasons as a recalc year and will use zero ABs and zero hits in its computation.

What kind of TCR are you using? I assume you are using combination recalc/development.

I have had Pete Dowling who was out of baseball at age 24 end up winning 4 CY Youngs and being an all star for 6 or more years.

If a player misses 1 year IRL, 3 yr and 5 yr will work fine if the requirements for weaken/adjust settings are met the season before and after the miss season.

If a player misses 3 years and you use 3 yr recalc., they will be toast the 2nd miss season since OOTP will see zero ABs or IP for the year before, the current year, and the following year.

One way around this is to do as Garlon suggests, use 5 year recalc.. However if you use 100 as your adjust setting (not double weighted) then the adjust will use (5x100) or 500. So for the 2nd miss year the game will ad the 3 miss years of ABs (zero) to the total of ABs of the immediate seasons before and after the miss years. If that total is over 500 in this example then no problem. If he has less than 500 ABs, then he starts taking a hit.

As far as St Vrain is concerned, a lot of it depends on team needs, adjust/weaken, development engine, his pitches and once he gets experience then who knows.

In my random leagues I have seen the AI convert IRL relief pitcher with 40-50 IP into staters and on the same team convert real life starters (usually not very good) into relievers.

Hope this rambling helps a little bit. Sorry I didn’t respond a couple weeks ago but my IPad messed up. Feel free to email me if you ever like.

Yeah, I used Garlons setting for 5 year a ton with OOTP23. This year I've used 3 year with the default quite a bit. This time around I tried upping adjust/weaken after I read a post you made a ways back. I'm liking what I'm seeing.

[Charlie Hough]

Yes, part of it is the fact that St. Vrain had great stats in his one MLB season, and he pitched more than enough innings to easily qualify for no adjustment or weakening. However, the biggest factor is the random debut league itself. That has allowed him to debut at 18 years of age, with those amazing stat-driven ratings. He has a whole career ahead of him at that point, so he can produce outstanding stats for many years. If he were imported into a 1902 league, when he had that single great season at age 31, he would probably perform really well for a few seasons, but then he would likely decline due to age. He might beat the odds and still be a great pitcher until his late 30s or even early 40s, but most pitchers will decline a bit and eventually retire if development has taken over during their 30s.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Yes, part of it is the fact that St. Vrain had great stats in his one MLB season, and he pitched more than enough innings to easily qualify for no adjustment or weakening. However, the biggest factor is the random debut league itself. That has allowed him to debut at 18 years of age, with those amazing stat-driven ratings. He has a whole career ahead of him at that point, so he can produce outstanding stats for many years. If he were imported into a 1902 league, when he had that single great season at age 31, he would probably perform really well for a few seasons, but then he would likely decline due to age. He might beat the odds and still be a great pitcher until his late 30s or even early 40s, but most pitchers will decline a bit and eventually retire if development has taken over during their 30s.

Holy cow, I didn't even pay attention to St Vrain being 31 when he pitched for the Chicago in 1902. The fact that he imported at age 18 in this random debut is a huge bug. No way should that happen.

[luckymann]

This is him in my Bucs save. 3-yr recalc.




I'm confused, though. How is he even coming into a league at age-18? He doesn't even have any MiLB stats as far as I can see. Even then, random debuts don't use MiLB seasons, only MLB. Or have you changed the DB over to the MiLB Historical one?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by luckymann

This is him in my Bucs save. 3-yr recalc.




I'm confused, though. How is he even coming into a league at age-18? He doesn't even have any MiLB stats as far as I can see. Even then, random debuts don't use MiLB seasons, only MLB. Or have you changed the DB over to the MiLB Historical one?

I just posted about it in the bug forum. It's a bug for sure.

[luckymann]

I think I've unearthed the issue. Looks like the DB has an error, giving him a birth year of 1883 instead of 1871.