Weird results with Gambo/Spritze

Vholes · 12-20-2010, 12:05 PM

I'm playing with a 1871 historical league using the latest version of the Gambo-Spritze database. I'm playing with the default options for historical leagues, with the following exceptions: neutralized stats, scouting and coaching off, prevent recalc on.

While the batting results seem fairly realistic, I'm seeing some very strange results with pitchers. Specifically, the game appears to assign unrealistically high ratings to cup-of-coffee pitchers with minimal real life stats. Two examples, after running a test league out to 1900: Bob Black is a 349 game winner and the leader in career pitching VORP by a wide margin; in real life, he played just a single season in the Union Association (with an ERA+ of just 87). Charles Witherow, who pitched just an inning of baseball in real life, has the best pitching ratings in the league in 1871, and became a 16-time all star in the sim. In fact, virtually the entire pitching leaderboard as of 1900 is filled with players with very short careers in real life.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with the database, or my settings. If it's my settings, what do I need to change? And for that matter, is there a definitive list somewhere of the settings that need to be entered in order to make the Gambo-Spritze database function properly?

Charlie Hough · 12-20-2010, 05:37 PM

Your first problem obviously has to be that you have the development engine turned on. If you want players to stay close to their real life performances, then you need to turn off development. Otherwise a player can develop quite randomly.

bubba22plus · 12-20-2010, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Your first problem obviously has to be that you have the development engine turned on. If you want players to stay close to their real life performances, then you need to turn off development. Otherwise a player can develop quite randomly.

In some sims, i personally enjoy the random development aspect.

But yeah, if you want realistic results from players, turn Development Off.

Pronkytonk · 12-21-2010, 04:13 AM

One -probably very dumb- question : If development is turned OFF, what exactly happens if there is no data in the database for recalc because a player does play longer than in RL ? No development means no aging - do I have to turn "retire according to history" on to avoid 40-year-old star-caliber players ?

Charlie Hough · 12-21-2010, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pronkytonk

One -probably very dumb- question : If development is turned OFF, what exactly happens if there is no data in the database for recalc because a player does play longer than in RL ? No development means no aging - do I have to turn "retire according to history" on to avoid 40-year-old star-caliber players ?

No, you should see these players decline rapidly. Sometimes they can have a prolonged career and still have value, but I believe that OOTP recognizes that there is no current or future season to use for recalc, and the player's abilities suffer. However, I haven't tested this much recently, so others should correct me if I'm wrong.

David Ball · 12-21-2010, 11:47 AM

Watching mediocrities become superstar pitchers has driven me crazy when I've played early seasons with recalc turned off, and that's with the standard database. Obviously, you want some variation from reality if you're not using recalc, but I get tired of seeing Bill Stearns, Bob Black and Jim Britt, or even better short-career pitchers like McBride and Spalding, turn into Hall of Famers time after time.

Statistics from the early 1870's are so unlike anything from later eras that the game engine may not be able to make sense of them. I also think part of what may be going on is that pitchers in the 1870's, and to a lesser degree in the 1880's, began their careers very young by later standards and usually burned out very quickly, and this may mislead the player development mechanism into seeing them all as budding Bob Fellers. Bill Stearns didn't have a great career, but if you simply thought of him as someone who was pitching regularly in the major leagues at age 19, he might look very promising.

Changing the pitcher aging speed ought to help considerably, but I could never get it to make a really significant difference. I tried once adding a few years to each pitcher's age but I seemed to overcompensate, handicapping their development so they were all terrible and offense shot through the roof. By trial and error it might perhaps be possible to come up with increases in individual age, aging speed and susceptibility to injury that would produce more satisfactory results.

The much easier way to get tolerably reasonable results would be to leave recalc off but have all the players retire according to real life. No matter how good Witherow was, you'd only have to live with him for one season. I don't know whether that would result in a scarcity of pitchers, though.

Chicagofan76 · 12-23-2010, 04:13 AM

I cant tell ya if I have development turned on or off, but through 1881 the good layers r still good the bad players r still bad. cap Anson & Ross Barnes r the best 2 hitters. Bobby Matthews while not overly great is still above avg. the only player to be great and that was only for 2 sns ( best 2 sns ever by a pitcher) was George Bradley. his 1st 2 sns is combined 59-45 0.94 1008 IP 22BB since then he hasnt made more then 5 starts in any sn for the last 5 and is now in the minors (i use PCL as my AAA)

David Ball · 12-23-2010, 10:32 AM

That sounds as if development is on. Bradley was highly effective his first couple of years.

Chicagofan76 · 12-23-2010, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Ball

That sounds as if development is on. Bradley was highly effective his first couple of years.

Dont know where to find development screen hot would be nice but yeah on baseball ref his 1st 2 yrs were also dominant then he went downhill led league in ERA at 1.23 in 1876 then tanked just like in my league but now he has an era that will never be matched even by a relief pitcher at 0.81

Spritze · 12-23-2010, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vholes

Specifically, the game appears to assign unrealistically high ratings to cup-of-coffee pitchers with minimal real life stats.

The current db assigns cup of coffee pitchers and other players to replacement player values. The version prior to the latest one did not. Actually it did but in the 1870's there were very few replacement players to compare to so it just didn't work all that well. For the first years of baseball it now gets its replacement values from the entire decade instead of the specific year. That makes the ratings OOTP comes up with more betterer.

12-20-2010, 12:05 PM	#1
Vholes Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 28	Weird results with Gambo/Spritze I'm playing with a 1871 historical league using the latest version of the Gambo-Spritze database. I'm playing with the default options for historical leagues, with the following exceptions: neutralized stats, scouting and coaching off, prevent recalc on. While the batting results seem fairly realistic, I'm seeing some very strange results with pitchers. Specifically, the game appears to assign unrealistically high ratings to cup-of-coffee pitchers with minimal real life stats. Two examples, after running a test league out to 1900: Bob Black is a 349 game winner and the leader in career pitching VORP by a wide margin; in real life, he played just a single season in the Union Association (with an ERA+ of just 87). Charles Witherow, who pitched just an inning of baseball in real life, has the best pitching ratings in the league in 1871, and became a 16-time all star in the sim. In fact, virtually the entire pitching leaderboard as of 1900 is filled with players with very short careers in real life. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the database, or my settings. If it's my settings, what do I need to change? And for that matter, is there a definitive list somewhere of the settings that need to be entered in order to make the Gambo-Spritze database function properly?

12-20-2010, 05:37 PM	#2
Charlie Hough Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 3,640	Your first problem obviously has to be that you have the development engine turned on. If you want players to stay close to their real life performances, then you need to turn off development. Otherwise a player can develop quite randomly.

12-21-2010, 04:13 AM	#4
Pronkytonk Minors (Double A) Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Germany Posts: 168	One -probably very dumb- question : If development is turned OFF, what exactly happens if there is no data in the database for recalc because a player does play longer than in RL ? No development means no aging - do I have to turn "retire according to history" on to avoid 40-year-old star-caliber players ?

12-21-2010, 11:47 AM	#6
David Ball Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 281	Watching mediocrities become superstar pitchers has driven me crazy when I've played early seasons with recalc turned off, and that's with the standard database. Obviously, you want some variation from reality if you're not using recalc, but I get tired of seeing Bill Stearns, Bob Black and Jim Britt, or even better short-career pitchers like McBride and Spalding, turn into Hall of Famers time after time. Statistics from the early 1870's are so unlike anything from later eras that the game engine may not be able to make sense of them. I also think part of what may be going on is that pitchers in the 1870's, and to a lesser degree in the 1880's, began their careers very young by later standards and usually burned out very quickly, and this may mislead the player development mechanism into seeing them all as budding Bob Fellers. Bill Stearns didn't have a great career, but if you simply thought of him as someone who was pitching regularly in the major leagues at age 19, he might look very promising. Changing the pitcher aging speed ought to help considerably, but I could never get it to make a really significant difference. I tried once adding a few years to each pitcher's age but I seemed to overcompensate, handicapping their development so they were all terrible and offense shot through the roof. By trial and error it might perhaps be possible to come up with increases in individual age, aging speed and susceptibility to injury that would produce more satisfactory results. The much easier way to get tolerably reasonable results would be to leave recalc off but have all the players retire according to real life. No matter how good Witherow was, you'd only have to live with him for one season. I don't know whether that would result in a scarcity of pitchers, though.

12-23-2010, 04:13 AM	#7
Chicagofan76 Banned Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Diamond, IL Posts: 6,339 Infractions: 2/2 (3)	I cant tell ya if I have development turned on or off, but through 1881 the good layers r still good the bad players r still bad. cap Anson & Ross Barnes r the best 2 hitters. Bobby Matthews while not overly great is still above avg. the only player to be great and that was only for 2 sns ( best 2 sns ever by a pitcher) was George Bradley. his 1st 2 sns is combined 59-45 0.94 1008 IP 22BB since then he hasnt made more then 5 starts in any sn for the last 5 and is now in the minors (i use PCL as my AAA)

12-23-2010, 10:32 AM	#8
David Ball Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 281	That sounds as if development is on. Bradley was highly effective his first couple of years.