Historical/no recalc/development only question

[David Watts]

I have question that I really hope someone can answer.

My question is in regards to the adjust/weaken settings. The default adjust/weaken settings when creating a historical league are 200/50 for hitters and 25/10 for pitchers. If I'm creating a random debut league or a straight up historical game using the OOTP development engine only,(recalc turned off) should I simply use the default 200/50 and 25/10 adjust weaken settings, or should I edit those settings? I guess in a way, I'm asking if the game assigns initial ratings to development only players based on a 1, 3 or 5 year evaluation? In other words, should I adjust the default adjust/weaken settings x 3 or x 5 as I would if I was using recalc? I don't play a lot using development only, but when I do, I've never really known if I should edit the adjust/weaken settings, or just fly with defaults. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me in regards to this.

[Matt Arnold]

It depends what you want. In any historical game, the initial ratings are created using the settings you choose (whether in recalc or dev, random debut or not, etc...). You can still set the recalc mode even in development-only leagues, in those case then yes, they are only used for player creation to set their initial ratings.

Whether to use the defaults, or adjust them higher when you have a higher recalc setting, is more of a philosophical question. Is the primary reason for the adjust/weaken in your mind to control for small sample size as a whole, or to control for a small sample individual season? To me, someone with 500 AB over a 3 or 5 year period has enough that I wouldn't want to adjust them down. But to others, if they were doing a 5 year recalc, they'd want that limit at 1000 because you want the "200 per recalc season" limit in place.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

It depends what you want. In any historical game, the initial ratings are created using the settings you choose (whether in recalc or dev, random debut or not, etc...). You can still set the recalc mode even in development-only leagues, in those case then yes, they are only used for player creation to set their initial ratings.

Whether to use the defaults, or adjust them higher when you have a higher recalc setting, is more of a philosophical question. Is the primary reason for the adjust/weaken in your mind to control for small sample size as a whole, or to control for a small sample individual season? To me, someone with 500 AB over a 3 or 5 year period has enough that I wouldn't want to adjust them down. But to others, if they were doing a 5 year recalc, they'd want that limit at 1000 because you want the "200 per recalc season" limit in place.

Thank you so much for this. This helps a lot. I think for now I will just use the default 200/50 25/10 settings. My main concern is not having the adjust weaken settings crush guys in my inaugural draft if they happen to import in a random debut league during a down year. The default settings will be low enough that they should prohibit a lot of the never was guys from over producing, but not kill veterans that come in during an off year in their real life careers.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

It depends what you want. In any historical game, the initial ratings are created using the settings you choose (whether in recalc or dev, random debut or not, etc...). You can still set the recalc mode even in development-only leagues, in those case then yes, they are only used for player creation to set their initial ratings.

Whether to use the defaults, or adjust them higher when you have a higher recalc setting, is more of a philosophical question. Is the primary reason for the adjust/weaken in your mind to control for small sample size as a whole, or to control for a small sample individual season? To me, someone with 500 AB over a 3 or 5 year period has enough that I wouldn't want to adjust them down. But to others, if they were doing a 5 year recalc, they'd want that limit at 1000 because you want the "200 per recalc season" limit in place.

Discussion of "adjust" seems to have the assumption that players are only adjusted down. Over performance of top players is often attributed to this. But then there is the separate "weaken" feature.

So aren't, in some cases, players adjusted up?

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Discussion of "adjust" seems to have the assumption that players are only adjusted down. Over performance of top players is often attributed to this. But then there is the separate "weaken" feature.

So aren't, in some cases, players adjusted up?

Technically yes. If someone went 0-20 and was imported, their ratings would be adjusted up to some replacement level caliber of player.

Anything under the "weaken" line will push players towards a replacement level of player. Anything under the "adjust" line will push them to some level somewhere between replacement level and average. It's just that mostly people care more about some player going 1-4 with a HR and having a power rating higher than Aaron Judge, than whether someone is a 20 vs a 25 overall.

[Brad K]

OK, thank you. Great explanation.