Understanding Minor League Performance in OOTP 26

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by kq76

jpeters, stop and take a breath. I think you know I'm more than willing to agree with you when I think you're right. But I really think you're wrong here, at least about all your 1 current rating tests. You're familiar with the concept of garbage in, garbage out, right? Well, you're feeding the sim straight garbage and you're expecting something different. It's just not reasonable. Please, go back to my earlier post and re-read the part about floors. We just can't expect the game to give us any meaningful data if we feed it something the devs wouldn't expect it would ever have to deal with. Sure, it'd be nice if it worked the way we expect it to if we fed it extremes, but that's just not how engines often work. They only work for the ranges of inputs we program them for.

Please see post 56

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

The thing is, you're literally just breaking the engine here. Obviously doing so says something about the mechanics where you're breaking things, but it doesn't mean the game itself is broken or justify such a sky is falling sort of response.

Please see the 2nd half of post 56

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

Consider this additional test. I simmed a season in a standard MLB game, turned off scouting, and found the highest rated international signing. I gave him average rating relative to rookie ball and then locked him to AAA.

He still had a 102 OPS+... come on

This seems pretty accurate, actually.

Take Leo De Vries, an actual top IAFA prospect, and look at his Davenport translations for his first MiLB year.

https://www.claydavenport.com/ht/D/D...0061011A.shtml

You'll see they roughly come out to around Jake Meyers 2024 MLB season, which is a .646 OPS in MLB

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

Please see post 56

Those current ratings are perfectly fine for a AAA player. A little on the low side, but easily playable. Which is exactly what he seems to have been. EDIT: The gap in-game between average A ball player and filler AAA player is probably not as wide as you think it is.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

As far as the purpose of minor league stats though, I think you're trying to use these for something that even real life minor league stats cannot be solely used for, to gauge MLB readiness.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of players, including many top prospects who put up awesome MiLB stats, but then never turned out to be ready for MLB.

Their minor league stats really told you nothing about them, because they could never replicate them in MLB.

That's where the term 'AAAA player' comes from. Also the term 'scouting the stat line'. These sort of guys exist in large numbers in real life, and they generally tend to be top or at least well regarded prospects.

I think you’re shifting the discussion away from what the actual problem is.

Of course real life minor league stats do not perfectly translate to MLB. Of course there’s noise. Of course there are AAAA players. That’s not what’s being tested here.

This is about whether minor league stats in OOTP reflect actual current ability. And what these tests show repeatedly is that they don’t. A player with zero skill by the game’s own rating scale can produce at a competent level in Triple-A if his potential is high. That has nothing to do with real life and everything to do with how the engine is built.

You’re saying this is “just like real life,” but it’s not. In real life, a guy who hits .300 in AAA has real tools, even if they don’t carry over. In OOTP, a guy with no tools at all is hitting .300 just because he might someday develop them.

If the engine is giving players a performance bump because of potential, then it’s not simulating baseball. It’s simulating projection models. That’s fine for development curves. It’s not fine for in-game performance.

And calling that out isn’t “breaking the engine.” It’s showing what the engine is actually doing.

[WhiskyTango]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

I don't think running a test with parameters that would never naturally occur in-game provides any particularly useful information.

Given that the game would never create a player with a 1 current rating and a 550 potential, this is basically just testing whether entering extreme values manually can break the engine, which I don't think anyone should be surprised that it can.

But it's not breaking the engine, it's producing normal results. iow the engine is conforming/massaging extreme inputs into normal outputs.

The basis scenario is equivalent to figuring out how well sunscreen would work at 1000 degrees.

I think it's the opposite, meaning you wouldn't expect the sunscreen to produce normal results. The whole realistic/unrealistic direction is misleading because the engine is not producing extreme outputs with extreme inputs, so it is the opposite in theory with the sunscreen analogy.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

I think you’re shifting the discussion away from what the actual problem is...

I think I'm clarifying what the problem is YMMV though.

Ultimately, we probably have a fundamental difference in our conception of how this should work, which is fine.

Potential ratings are tools, current ratings are ability. The fact is, that players in real-life with loud tools (potential ratings) often play over their ability (current ratings) in the minors and only get exposed in MLB. I think we both even agree on that.

So then, what's happening here is that the game is really just simulating that part of reality, that loud tools do help players perform better, up to a certain point.

Now, whether the mechanism is perfectly balanced in-game, or maybe should be tweaked a bit and possibly provide a slightly smaller bonus, that's a different discussion and one worth having for sure.

But the idea that things are fundamentally broken because a mechanism to make the game behave more realistically doesn't work in the specific way you think it should work (or not work) is where we kind of part ways.

[LD84]

I cannot believe what I am reading


So Lukas
You are pretty much stating that current ratings should have no bearing on minor league performance but should for major league performance?

That is what I am taking away from your responses.

If so, then I have no words.

[LD84]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

I think you’re shifting the discussion away from what the actual problem is.

Of course real life minor league stats do not perfectly translate to MLB. Of course there’s noise. Of course there are AAAA players. That’s not what’s being tested here.

This is about whether minor league stats in OOTP reflect actual current ability. And what these tests show repeatedly is that they don’t. A player with zero skill by the game’s own rating scale can produce at a competent level in Triple-A if his potential is high. That has nothing to do with real life and everything to do with how the engine is built.

You’re saying this is “just like real life,” but it’s not. In real life, a guy who hits .300 in AAA has real tools, even if they don’t carry over. In OOTP, a guy with no tools at all is hitting .300 just because he might someday develop them.

If the engine is giving players a performance bump because of potential, then it’s not simulating baseball. It’s simulating projection models. That’s fine for development curves. It’s not fine for in-game performance.

And calling that out isn’t “breaking the engine.” It’s showing what the engine is actually doing.

Could you try a test for me?


Make a player have 1/600 potential ratings but 600/600 in all of of their current ratings.

Turn off development so that the ratings do not move.

Play the player a full season at the highest ML level.

I am curious if potential ratings have any bearing on the underlying baseball engine at the ML level, or if it is just at the minor league level.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by LD84

I cannot believe what I am reading


So Lukas
You are pretty much stating that current ratings should have no bearing on minor league performance but should for major league performance?

That is what I am taking away from your responses.

If so, then I have no words.

Not in the least. I'm saying that players with very loud potentials (tools), more or less get a boost to their current ratings in the minors.

That's it, that's all that's actually being discussed here once you cut to the chase.

This discussion doesn't even affect the vast majority of the players in OOTP. We're only talking about a very, very small subset of players with elite potentials here. The vast majority of of guys in OOTP who do not have stratospheric potentials will more or less play to their current ratings, even in the minors.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Those current ratings are perfectly fine for a AAA player. A little on the low side, but easily playable. Which is exactly what he seems to have been. EDIT: The gap in-game between average A ball player and filler AAA player is probably not as wide as you think it is.

Well this was relative to rookie league, not Single A. If you think it's reasonable for a rookie level hitter, or even Low A, to have an above average AAA season, then we are not on the same planet.

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

This seems pretty accurate, actually.

Take Leo De Vries, an actual top IAFA prospect, and look at his Davenport translations for his first MiLB year.

https://www.claydavenport.com/ht/D/D...0061011A.shtml

You'll see they roughly come out to around Jake Meyers 2024 MLB season, which is a .646 OPS in MLB

I don't understand what you think this proves. For starters, idk what's going on in that link so I just looked at his BB Ref page. He's doing ok in A+ so I'd presume his real life current ability is roughly that of an A+ player... That's not what my test in post 56 demonstrated. IRL, take a rookie ball player and put him in AAA and he will not hit for a 102 OPS+

[kq76]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

Please see post 56

I read it. I'm not saying there's still not something wrong. What I am saying is we obviously don't know what's going on and we shouldn't jump to conclusions just because it's not giving us what we expect it to.

My guess, and I admit I don't have the skills to work this out, is the algorithm says something like below rating X, don't follow the normal programming, but just act something like X. Although I'm sure it's more complicated than that. I'm not at all surprised if it also factors in the player's potential and maybe even other things.

I'm going to bow out of this thread now because without knowing more myself, I don't think I can contribute anything more of value.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

I don't understand what you think this proves. For starters, idk what's going on in that link so I just looked at his BB Ref page. He's doing ok in A+ so I'd presume his real life current ability is roughly that of an A+ player... That's not what my test in post 56 demonstrated. IRL, take a rookie ball player and put him in AAA and he will not hit for a 102 OPS+

What's going on here is that Clay Davenport's projection system projects that average A+ line to be roughly the equivalent of a (EDIT, accidently put .601) .701 OPS in MLB, which if you then translate down to AAA, probably then comes out somewhere around a league average OPS+, like you posted. At least, not super far from it either way.,

Now, I'm not sure that 'proves' anything in and of itself, except that one pretty highly regarded projection system sees a top IAFA guy in his age 17 year as likely able to be somewhere around an average AAA hitter, which is what you were finding so implausible.

[LD84]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Not in the least. I'm saying that players with very loud potentials (tools), more or less get a boost to their current ratings in the minors.

Then we have a very fundamental disagreement in how sports management games should be designed and coded.


To me, current ratings should be just that. Current ratings that apply to where the player is currently at relative to other players ratings and the league they are in.


Potential ratings should be where the player could potentially reach one day.


I find it utterly absurd that potential ratings should have any bearing on statistical output at any level.

I cannot think of any other game that is designed that way. Or any real life scenario that would support such a design.


It is a frankly nonsensical approach to game design and makes absolutely no sense to me.


If I am fresh out of university and beginning a new career. I am not going to be very good at my job from day 1.

I may become better at that job faster than others because I have a better potential for that sort of work.
But my potential for any career field does not make me better on day 1.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by LD84

But my potential for any career field does not make me better on day 1.

What you're stating here might apply in a regular job, but doesn't really apply to baseball as such though.

Players viewed as having high potentials, are generally seen that way based on things like physical tools, which provide them with with an advantage compared to other players, especially at the lower levels of the game.

Often, players with raw ability can dominate at lower levels just based on those tools, even if their game remains raw overall.

Once they get to higher levels, especially MLB, then that advantage goes away, because the overall physical level is much higher. Many of those formerly highly regarded players, who have performed well at every level up until MLB then fail, because their actual abilities (current ratings) are not high enough and they can no longer depend on their physical tools (potentials).

This is a pretty well known phenomenon in most sports.

[LD84]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

What you're stating here might apply in a regular job, but doesn't really apply to baseball as such though.

Players viewed as having high potentials, are generally seen that way based on things like physical tools, which provide them with with an advantage compared to other players, especially at the lower levels of the game.

Often, players with raw ability can dominate at lower levels just based on those tools, even if their game remains raw overall.

Once they get to higher levels, especially MLB, then that advantage goes away, because the overall physical level is much higher. Many of those formerly highly regarded players, who have performed well at every level up until MLB then fail, because their actual abilities (current ratings) are not high enough and they can no longer depend on their physical tools (potentials).

This is a pretty well known phenomenon in most sports.

But OOTP does not provide for raw athletic skills like in some other sports sims.

I mean we get speed, but who even knows what that rating does anymore?

All of the raw athletic skills are wrapped up into other ratings.


A player might be really strong and have great hand to eye coordination.

We do not get strength or dexterity or hand to eye or whatever one wishes to call it.

We get BABIP and Power and Gap



As I said earlier, we have a fundamental disagreement about this. And I do not feel like we ever going to agree on it.


I guess OOTP is unique. I play a lot of other sports management sims, and I cannot think of a single one that operates like this.

I am just one person. If others are okay with this, then so be it.
But it is utter nonsense to me and I do not feel like any further discussion is ever going to make it make sense.

[jpeters1734]

At this point, I understand Lukas isn’t likely to acknowledge this as a flaw, and I get that. He has a job to do and a product to protect.

But for anyone else reading: the tests speak for themselves. Whether you use extreme values or more common ratings, the pattern holds. Minor league sim performance is affected by potential, even when current ability is nonexistent. That makes stats misleading and forces users to rely more on ratings than results whether they want to or not.

If that works for you, fine. But let’s not pretend it’s realistic, transparent, or how the system is marketed. The issue is real, even if the official response is to deflect and look the other way.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

At this point, I understand Lukas isn’t likely to acknowledge this as a flaw, and I get that. He has a job to do and a product to protect.

But for anyone else reading: the tests speak for themselves. Whether you use extreme values or more common ratings, the pattern holds. Minor league sim performance is affected by potential, even when current ability is nonexistent. That makes stats misleading and forces users to rely more on ratings than results whether they want to or not.

If that works for you, fine. But let’s not pretend it’s realistic, transparent, or how the system is marketed. The issue is real, even if the official response is to deflect and look the other way.

We've never been about 'protecting' the product and in fact have almost certainly erred far too much over the years on the side of trying to take user feedback into account too much, to where we try to make everyone happy, which can lead to issues.

My responses here are simply clarifying and explaining why this is how it is, and how it fits in with the realities of real-life baseball. Not to say it's perfect or beyond improvement.

You and anyone else are certainly free to disagree that things should be that way or feel they should work another way.

So now that I've clarified why some things might work the way they do, I'll bow out and let you folks debate if that's the right way for them to work or not.

We'll follow those debates and if we see changes as being needed based on the discussions, we'll make them.

[WhiskyTango]

.

[FlexD]

I'm 100% on board with jpeters on this. It really should make anyone rethink playing in a stats only league. .