High negro player values

[Garlon]

The big issue is that negro league stats are not accumulated under the same conditions as the National League and American League in those seasons. The talent level of those leagues are tough to compare. The compromise may be to report their real negro league stats and then use the a set of neutralized stats for their equivalencies. The equivalencies may be much stronger than what people want though. Another issue is that when you add 200 or do negro league players into the talent pool you are going to raise the level of talent available in the league without adding teams.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by Garlon

The big issue is that negro league stats are not accumulated under the same conditions as the National League and American League in those seasons. The talent level of those leagues are tough to compare.

I think the issue will remain but until the OOTP database actually uses updated NeL stats from Seamheads, we don't know how they'll perform. Could be at a higher or lesser level than the current one but until the database is updated, we don't know. Start with accurate stats and then the conversation can begin.

Originally Posted by Garlon

The compromise may be to report their real negro league stats and then use the a set of neutralized stats for their equivalencies. The equivalencies may be much stronger than what people want though.

Even the neutralized stats on-hand were likely built off of stats that are out of date. Be it "neutralized" stats or MLEs, the starting point is the real-life stats being put in the OOTP database first. It's going to be a multi-year/edition effort but one worth undertaking.

Originally Posted by Garlon

Another issue is that when you add 200 or do negro league players into the talent pool you are going to raise the level of talent available in the league without adding teams.

Yup. As soon as the color-line is dropped, one is in what-if territory. But that's the beauty of the game

[sprague]

Originally Posted by Garlon

The big issue is that negro league stats are not accumulated under the same conditions as the National League and American League in those seasons. The talent level of those leagues are tough to compare. The compromise may be to report their real negro league stats and then use the a set of neutralized stats for their equivalencies. The equivalencies may be much stronger than what people want though. Another issue is that when you add 200 or do negro league players into the talent pool you are going to raise the level of talent available in the league without adding teams.

Garlon makes 2 important points here.
The first is the forumula that is turning raw stats into "the level value used by players". a AA player who hits .360 is not going to be rated as .360 batter, he is going to be downgraded based on the league level. the challenge is negro stats are hard to properly "translate into mlb equivalents." it is obvious not 100% but how much should they be downgraded to match the mlb. 5% 10%. It is important too due to short seasons there are wide varieties where a player hits .412 one year and .288 the next. But when making the potentials the AI zeroes in on the 412 year and ignores the 288.


The second is an issue right since the begining and the need for the slogan "free the minor league database." Adding all sorts of good negro players into mlb when you cant expand, stuck with 16 teams, means that stat distribution will be too wide and the player values seem odd. When I play the normal game and manually bring in negro players I have 20 MLB teams by 1920 to help cover the influx of good talent.


I still really can not understand after all these years why we can not use the minor league DB anyway we want. One subleage, 2, have 8 teams or 40 teams, have minors get rid of minors. It makes no sense to have the whole game customizable but not the minor league db, we are stuck only with history as it is. I dont play it as I hate having 45 minor leagues the 1950's.

[luckymann]

I must say, I am happy to leave the number of teams at 16. Let's face it, if there was no IRL color bar then many of the players missing out in-game would theoretically have missed out IRL with the introduction of those consigned to the NeL.

That said, I couldn't agree more with the points you have raised. As long as it takes a massive unwieldy save just to include the NeLers because you've had to invoke full minors, many will remain deterred from doing so.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by sprague

Garlon makes 2 important points here.
The first is the forumula that is turning raw stats into "the level value used by players". a AA player who hits .360 is not going to be rated as .360 batter, he is going to be downgraded based on the league level. the challenge is negro stats are hard to properly "translate into mlb equivalents." it is obvious not 100% but how much should they be downgraded to match the mlb. 5% 10%. It is important too due to short seasons there are wide varieties where a player hits .412 one year and .288 the next. But when making the potentials the AI zeroes in on the 412 year and ignores the 288.


The second is an issue right since the beginning and the need for the slogan "free the minor league database." Adding all sorts of good negro players into mlb when you cant expand, stuck with 16 teams, means that stat distribution will be too wide and the player values seem odd. When I play the normal game and manually bring in negro players I have 20 MLB teams by 1920 to help cover the influx of good talent.


I still really can not understand after all these years why we can not use the minor league DB anyway we want. One subleague, 2, have 8 teams or 40 teams, have minors get rid of minors. It makes no sense to have the whole game customizable but not the minor league db, we are stuck only with history as it is. I don't play it as I hate having 45 minor leagues the 1950's.

I think the game itself is reaching (past?) the point where it makes sense to breakout the MiLB into more of its parts. If only so it isn't a spreadsheet with a billion rows and growing. I've mentioned Watts' notion of breaking out the databases, so it is three (MLB, MiLB and NeL) but there is a strong case for it to be more. Even just four with MLB, NeL, High Minors and Low Minors. Those MiLB distinction matter less in the modern game but make a big difference in the nascent days of the minor league system. But I don't know how the game uses the files and if it is even possible or, if possible, how realistically feasible it is to do.

Some of the reason there cannot be that much customization is just how the game is built. There will always (well, for a very, very, long time) a single MLB with two subleagues (AL/NL) and every version thereof will break the league out that way. But there is still a ton of customization. That .360 hitter for example can get calc'ed the way we tell the AI to do it, 1-year, 3-, 5-, double count of current year stats or not, deleted out, nerfed via editor, etc.

I think the game would benefit from more of the manual hitting up FAQs on topics like this so people, instead of getting results that confound them, can better use the toggles and options in the game to customize a world where the color barrier drops. How many teams should I add, when, what's a good recalc, etc. Some of that is the role of the forums, I get that. But the game has an opportunity to lean into the Quickstart tool better to create scenarios that show different versions of how the world could have been. The QSs get lost as it is. If you are a casual user and on the front page (maybe to celebrate the addition of SH stats to their record and after a run through beta) there was a featured QS for the color line dropping in 1920 with, i dunno, four landmark NeL franchises joining the league. How great would that be for those users to just click-and-play?

[Garlon]

Another solution could be to add select negro leaguers to the mlb database and code their ID a certain way, like with 00 as the last two values or something. Then have an option in the game to include these players in the draft. If you select this option, the game will import players with the 00 in their ID and if not they will not import.

Then we could select the Negro Leaguers to be included instead of all of them and work out their MLE and add them to the DB so that we have a limited number of players. What if we only included the Negro League players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, which is 28 or so players?

[sprague]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Another solution could be to add select negro leaguers to the mlb database and code their ID a certain way, like with 00 as the last two values or something. Then have an option in the game to include these players in the draft. If you select this option, the game will import players with the 00 in their ID and if not they will not import.

Then we could select the Negro Leaguers to be included instead of all of them and work out their MLE and add them to the DB so that we have a limited number of players. What if we only included the Negro League players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, which is 28 or so players?

I like that idea, of a second stats DB that adds negro players with some MLB equivalents for them.
though maybe more than 28 HOF, maybe an additional top 50 to make a group of 78 best negro league players.
That way a player can get the players, and still have the functionality of the stats DB to set up the game as they want.
This might be a nice first step to the full minor league DB being available the same way.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by sprague

I like that idea, of a second stats DB that adds negro players with some MLB equivalents for them.
though maybe more than 28 HOF, maybe an additional top 50 to make a group of 78 best negro league players.
That way a player can get the players, and still have the functionality of the stats DB to set up the game as they want.
This might be a nice first step to the full minor league DB being available the same way.

I like the idea too. I'd like to see those 50, the HoFers and some of the others we've seen overperform in the sims to date and get those stats updated to Seamheads first. As MLEs are considered (and if approved as an approach, developed), cleaning up the stats and bios of those 50 is manageable and would allow users see the NeL players perform as updated stats dictate versus the out-of-date ones.

If the players are in the MLB database and the color-line is off, they are masked regardless. So, would the colorline have to be off and the new toggle to accept the "00" ones into the game need to be turned on?

If the color line is off and Real NeL and Minors turned on, I assume these select players are not in the MiLB database to prevent duplication, correct?

Why not put them all in the MLB database and tier them as "00" for the top, second toggle "000" for all the others? Wouldn't then turning off the color line (if the game is in the past) and turning on the 00 and 000 allow the NeL'ers in on Random Debut leagues? That'd be great.

In the same way that I can turn on Italian leagues but not Korean leagues, can we break out NeL's team structure so I can turn on NeL but not "all minors"? For file size and to limit "Ballplayer X from the "white" D-leagues from crowding the field as well, allowing more targeted integrated play between NeL players and MLB players?

If import rookies to historic teams were on and the "00" approach implemented, where and when does Satchel come in?

I like this idea and find myself itching to flesh it out ;P