OOTP vs STRAT-O-MATIC - Page 4

old fat bald guy · 01-02-2017, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweed

Did you play it in the mid '80s? Once they went to action cards, and nerfed FGA for players that didn't shoot much IRL, keyed rebounding to (I think) rebounds to minutes played, among other changes I can't recall off the top of my head I thought it became a great game.

Nope. My college roommate bought Strat-O basketball in the mid-1970s and we played one game. We hated it. I think we finished the one game because we were amused by how bad it was.

The closest thing to a good basketball game I ever played was one Research Games Inc. put out almost 50 years ago. It was called Oscar Robertson's Pro Basketball Strategy. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/...tball-strategy It was playable but not realistic -- the scores were too high and if you wanted substitutions for any reason other than foul trouble, you had to invent house rules.

RGI also made Gil Hodges' Pennant Fever, a football game that at different times was named after Vince Lombardi and Fran Tarkenton, and the wonderfully named Rod Gilbert's Violent World of Pro Hockey. They were not bad for the late 1960s, and a lot cheaper than Strat-O. (They used rating systems rather than individual cards for players, and you could pretty much figure out a way to update the game yourself by doing the ratings yourself.)

The best thing about Pennant Fever was the park effects. If a long drive was hit, unless it was a no-doubt 480-foot job, you rolled again on a separate set of charts that was specific to the stadium. It worked really well.

robrien13 · 06-21-2020, 07:10 PM

Ok, since I own and have played all the baseball sims mentioned in this thread, I would like to comment to some of the statements in this thread.

First, "Whenever I engage a person who plays Diamond Mind, Action PC Baseball, SOM or other similar game, the minute I say I'm playing OOTP they cease communications." Really, this is a pretty assumptive attitude. All the games mentioned in this thread are excellent in their own way, so to say that OOTP is the end all of baseball sim games, is ridiculous.

"Strat doesn't even come close to the accuracy of OOTP. Some say SOM is "more accurate" for single-season replays, but from the perspective of a statistician, it is a somewhat misleading form of accuracy. SOM will give a pitcher a low BABIP in a year if that's what the pitcher actually received that year.

I have both OOTP 20, and SOM, and replayed the 2018 season 10 times using both games with the following result.
MLB League Total RunsPG BA OBP SLG
2018 Actual 4.45 .248 .318 .409
SOM Replay 4.49 .248 .317 .417
OOTP Replay 3.75 .223 .289 .375
So, clearly SOM wins when it comes to accuracy.

"So SOM will replay a season pretty closely with the "right" proportions of popouts, hits allowed, etc., but won't actually let a season replay as it "could have" played out had pitchers not been unlucky with their fielding, say." SOM uses dice to determine results, so saying it can't playout a season differently because of luck is ridiculous. If you understand math and standard deviation, you know this statement is untrue.
"In terms of big-picture realism, OOTP actually has SOM beat, because OOTP accords better with baseball theory (how we know the game actually works)."
I have no idea what this means, really, baseball theory?

"I haven't seen anyone discuss lefty/right splits. Strat-O-Matic is far superior there.
Because of the small sample size, a season's worth of L/R data can be very misleading. Generic splits, as I recall from a lengthy article I read somewhere, are probably closer to real abilities (in most cases)." A SOM Lefty/righty example - Louis Polonia hit .526 vs. left-handed pitching in 19 at-bats during 1996. Some of our competitors don't even bother rating players for lefty/righty ability so in their games Polonia will be given some kind of a "platoon rating" which has no basis in reality and actually makes him a better hitter against right-handed pitching! Not very realistic. Other competitors go awry just as far in the opposite direction and simply rate Polonia to hit .526 against lefties! Now isn't that realistic - to have a player on your bench who you know is going to hit .526 if your opponent dares bring in a lefty? Of course it's not - no major league manager ever has that kind of advantage (if they did you'd never see a left-handed pitcher come in against that team). So what to do with this situation? Clearly some common sense is in order. What Strat-O-Matic does in cases like this is research the batter's past three seasons and make an adjustment to his lefty/righty balance based upon the man's actual ability. Of course this, like all of the other ratings that we do, takes time and effort. And that's why the only place you'll find a realistic lefty/righty ratings is in the Strat-O-Matic game.

And when it comes to fielding ratings, here is SOM method. There is a great parallel here with the trouble our competitors have in the area of rating fielding abilities. You see when it comes to rating fielding ability they develop their own "speedometers" which are simply mathematical formulae utilizing fielding statistics. Or they use someone else's "speedometer" which might include range or zone factors. Once they have settled on which "speedometer" they are going to use they never question it again. Whatever that speedometer reads becomes, in their minds, the physical reality of the situation. But, unfortunately for them, the speedometer that they use can be wrong just as often as it is right. Imagine that -- imagine if the speedometer in your car was wrong just as often as it was right!

You see the people who work at Strat-O-Matic have been developing fielding ratings for over 35 years. Believe us, we have tried every speedometer out there. We have tried them individually. We have tried them in concert. We have tried developing our own. And after years of trying we have come to the sad conclusion that none of them are close to giving you a true feel for a player's fielding ability. Now why do I say "the sad conclusion"? I'll tell you why -- because unlike every other company out there we don't accept mediocrity when it comes to rating our players. So instead of using a faulty speedometer we opt to spend months of research in order to give you accurate fielding ratings. It's slow and painful research that keeps us burning the midnight oil. And it saddens our spouses greatly!

It's research that demands we spend countless hours reading scouting reports and newspaper accounts, sifting through boxscores, interviewing experts, comparing results and, yes looking at every statistical speedometer on the market (including some of our own). We have found that this is the only way you can consistently get good results when rating players' fielding abilities.

Now some people want to argue that Strat-O-Matic is wrong in this area, that we should just use the range rating or zone rating since these reflect the reality of the situation. Of course they completely ignore the fact that sometimes the range rating indicates that a player is great in the field while at the same time the zone rating indicates that he stinks! And, getting back to our analogy, it is sort of like arguing that you shouldn't worry about your car's speedometer. If it says you're going 65 you are going 65 mph. Forget the physical world that the speedometer is trying to measure -- that's meaningless. The reality is the speedometer.

An example will be necessary to explain this more clearly. Omar Vizquel has outstanding range and ability at short stop. Only those who have never seen the man play shortstop could possibly argue that he does not have great range and fielding ability. Yet the speedometers that our competitors use rates Omar Vizquel as an AVERAGE FIELDER!!! Now isn't this a ridiculous thing? Aren't they sitting in their car staring at the speedometer and insisting that they are traveling at 65 mph, when in fact they are barely moving at all? Do you really want to play a game that starts with the premise that Omar Vizquel is a mediocre fielder?

Think of this in terms of a player's true worth. Let's say you have a light hitting but great fielding shortstop. Now this man has value -- he is an outstanding shortstop. But let's say a game rates this guy as a poor fielding shortstop (and this often happens with our competitors' games). Now, based upon this faulty rating, what value does this shortstop have? Little if any. So, you see, this is a very important area we are concerned with here. This mistake has taken a player who could be considered a commodity in real life baseball, and turned him into a minor league reject. That is one reason why accurate fielding ratings are so important. And Strat-O-Matic is the only company dedicated enough to spend the time to give you the accuracy that you demand and deserve.

Now, let us take a detailed look at this problem. We'll try to draft a team of great defensive players from 2002 using the Strat-O-Matic game and one of our competitors who we'll call "DM".

POSITION PLAYER 2002 SOM RATING 2002 "DM" RATING
C Bengie Molina Outstanding Fair
1B J.T. Snow Outstanding Average
2B Brett Boone Outstanding Average
SS Omar Vizquel Outstanding Average
3B Eric Chavez Outstanding Very Good
LF Darren Lewis Outstanding Average
CF Jim Edmonds Outstanding Average
RF Larry Walker Outstanding Very Good

Looking at this list one can quickly determine that if you put together this team in real-life they might be the greatest defensive team off all time. Imagine having a gold-glover at every position! Similarly, the Strat-O-Matic version of this defensive unit is going to be just as outstanding. However, using competitor DM this team would be a mediocre defensive team - and anyone who knows baseball can easily see just how ridiculous this is.

Even Atlanta's Andruw Jones and Minnesota's Torii Hunter don't get the top rating in the DM game! Is Andruw Jones really only slightly better than Chipper Jones in the outfield?! And is Doug Glanville really a below average fielder? Come on!!!

A similar list can be developed with any of our competitors products because no other company spends the time and effort to give you accurate fielding ratings the way that Strat-O-Matic does. It would probably be better off if they didn't bother trying to rate players defensively than to offer a fatally flawed system like the one you see exposed above.

Perhaps Peter Gammons said it best when in the April 27th, 1997 issue of Baseball America he said "Maybe the computer people should watch Roberto Alomar instead of running programs. Alomar is the best defensive second baseman of the modern era. He makes the most brilliant, far-ranging and creative plays to his right of any second baseman. Yet some computer printout says he doesn't get to enough balls to his right. Who does? Wil Cordero? There never has been a valid way to evaluate range statistically."

"Can this be the reason Stratomatic charges so much for their season rosters?" Exactly, they put many more man hours in their subjective player ratings than their competitors. They also have been putting out their seasons annually every year since 1961, so they made these player ratings shortly after the seasons took place.

"I dreamed of having a game that would play a full season, with standings and stats, though I never thought it would happen. You also couldn't have wet fields or windy days in Strat." Both a full statistics package and weather, and stadium factors have been included in Strats computer game for many years.

06-21-2020, 07:10 PM	#62
robrien13 Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 1	Ok, since I own and have played all the baseball sims mentioned in this thread, I would like to comment to some of the statements in this thread. First, "Whenever I engage a person who plays Diamond Mind, Action PC Baseball, SOM or other similar game, the minute I say I'm playing OOTP they cease communications." Really, this is a pretty assumptive attitude. All the games mentioned in this thread are excellent in their own way, so to say that OOTP is the end all of baseball sim games, is ridiculous. "Strat doesn't even come close to the accuracy of OOTP. Some say SOM is "more accurate" for single-season replays, but from the perspective of a statistician, it is a somewhat misleading form of accuracy. SOM will give a pitcher a low BABIP in a year if that's what the pitcher actually received that year. I have both OOTP 20, and SOM, and replayed the 2018 season 10 times using both games with the following result. MLB League Total RunsPG BA OBP SLG 2018 Actual 4.45 .248 .318 .409 SOM Replay 4.49 .248 .317 .417 OOTP Replay 3.75 .223 .289 .375 So, clearly SOM wins when it comes to accuracy. "So SOM will replay a season pretty closely with the "right" proportions of popouts, hits allowed, etc., but won't actually let a season replay as it "could have" played out had pitchers not been unlucky with their fielding, say." SOM uses dice to determine results, so saying it can't playout a season differently because of luck is ridiculous. If you understand math and standard deviation, you know this statement is untrue. "In terms of big-picture realism, OOTP actually has SOM beat, because OOTP accords better with baseball theory (how we know the game actually works)." I have no idea what this means, really, baseball theory? "I haven't seen anyone discuss lefty/right splits. Strat-O-Matic is far superior there. Because of the small sample size, a season's worth of L/R data can be very misleading. Generic splits, as I recall from a lengthy article I read somewhere, are probably closer to real abilities (in most cases)." A SOM Lefty/righty example - Louis Polonia hit .526 vs. left-handed pitching in 19 at-bats during 1996. Some of our competitors don't even bother rating players for lefty/righty ability so in their games Polonia will be given some kind of a "platoon rating" which has no basis in reality and actually makes him a better hitter against right-handed pitching! Not very realistic. Other competitors go awry just as far in the opposite direction and simply rate Polonia to hit .526 against lefties! Now isn't that realistic - to have a player on your bench who you know is going to hit .526 if your opponent dares bring in a lefty? Of course it's not - no major league manager ever has that kind of advantage (if they did you'd never see a left-handed pitcher come in against that team). So what to do with this situation? Clearly some common sense is in order. What Strat-O-Matic does in cases like this is research the batter's past three seasons and make an adjustment to his lefty/righty balance based upon the man's actual ability. Of course this, like all of the other ratings that we do, takes time and effort. And that's why the only place you'll find a realistic lefty/righty ratings is in the Strat-O-Matic game. And when it comes to fielding ratings, here is SOM method. There is a great parallel here with the trouble our competitors have in the area of rating fielding abilities. You see when it comes to rating fielding ability they develop their own "speedometers" which are simply mathematical formulae utilizing fielding statistics. Or they use someone else's "speedometer" which might include range or zone factors. Once they have settled on which "speedometer" they are going to use they never question it again. Whatever that speedometer reads becomes, in their minds, the physical reality of the situation. But, unfortunately for them, the speedometer that they use can be wrong just as often as it is right. Imagine that -- imagine if the speedometer in your car was wrong just as often as it was right! You see the people who work at Strat-O-Matic have been developing fielding ratings for over 35 years. Believe us, we have tried every speedometer out there. We have tried them individually. We have tried them in concert. We have tried developing our own. And after years of trying we have come to the sad conclusion that none of them are close to giving you a true feel for a player's fielding ability. Now why do I say "the sad conclusion"? I'll tell you why -- because unlike every other company out there we don't accept mediocrity when it comes to rating our players. So instead of using a faulty speedometer we opt to spend months of research in order to give you accurate fielding ratings. It's slow and painful research that keeps us burning the midnight oil. And it saddens our spouses greatly! It's research that demands we spend countless hours reading scouting reports and newspaper accounts, sifting through boxscores, interviewing experts, comparing results and, yes looking at every statistical speedometer on the market (including some of our own). We have found that this is the only way you can consistently get good results when rating players' fielding abilities. Now some people want to argue that Strat-O-Matic is wrong in this area, that we should just use the range rating or zone rating since these reflect the reality of the situation. Of course they completely ignore the fact that sometimes the range rating indicates that a player is great in the field while at the same time the zone rating indicates that he stinks! And, getting back to our analogy, it is sort of like arguing that you shouldn't worry about your car's speedometer. If it says you're going 65 you are going 65 mph. Forget the physical world that the speedometer is trying to measure -- that's meaningless. The reality is the speedometer. An example will be necessary to explain this more clearly. Omar Vizquel has outstanding range and ability at short stop. Only those who have never seen the man play shortstop could possibly argue that he does not have great range and fielding ability. Yet the speedometers that our competitors use rates Omar Vizquel as an AVERAGE FIELDER!!! Now isn't this a ridiculous thing? Aren't they sitting in their car staring at the speedometer and insisting that they are traveling at 65 mph, when in fact they are barely moving at all? Do you really want to play a game that starts with the premise that Omar Vizquel is a mediocre fielder? Think of this in terms of a player's true worth. Let's say you have a light hitting but great fielding shortstop. Now this man has value -- he is an outstanding shortstop. But let's say a game rates this guy as a poor fielding shortstop (and this often happens with our competitors' games). Now, based upon this faulty rating, what value does this shortstop have? Little if any. So, you see, this is a very important area we are concerned with here. This mistake has taken a player who could be considered a commodity in real life baseball, and turned him into a minor league reject. That is one reason why accurate fielding ratings are so important. And Strat-O-Matic is the only company dedicated enough to spend the time to give you the accuracy that you demand and deserve. Now, let us take a detailed look at this problem. We'll try to draft a team of great defensive players from 2002 using the Strat-O-Matic game and one of our competitors who we'll call "DM". POSITION PLAYER 2002 SOM RATING 2002 "DM" RATING C Bengie Molina Outstanding Fair 1B J.T. Snow Outstanding Average 2B Brett Boone Outstanding Average SS Omar Vizquel Outstanding Average 3B Eric Chavez Outstanding Very Good LF Darren Lewis Outstanding Average CF Jim Edmonds Outstanding Average RF Larry Walker Outstanding Very Good Looking at this list one can quickly determine that if you put together this team in real-life they might be the greatest defensive team off all time. Imagine having a gold-glover at every position! Similarly, the Strat-O-Matic version of this defensive unit is going to be just as outstanding. However, using competitor DM this team would be a mediocre defensive team - and anyone who knows baseball can easily see just how ridiculous this is. Even Atlanta's Andruw Jones and Minnesota's Torii Hunter don't get the top rating in the DM game! Is Andruw Jones really only slightly better than Chipper Jones in the outfield?! And is Doug Glanville really a below average fielder? Come on!!! A similar list can be developed with any of our competitors products because no other company spends the time and effort to give you accurate fielding ratings the way that Strat-O-Matic does. It would probably be better off if they didn't bother trying to rate players defensively than to offer a fatally flawed system like the one you see exposed above. Perhaps Peter Gammons said it best when in the April 27th, 1997 issue of Baseball America he said "Maybe the computer people should watch Roberto Alomar instead of running programs. Alomar is the best defensive second baseman of the modern era. He makes the most brilliant, far-ranging and creative plays to his right of any second baseman. Yet some computer printout says he doesn't get to enough balls to his right. Who does? Wil Cordero? There never has been a valid way to evaluate range statistically." "Can this be the reason Stratomatic charges so much for their season rosters?" Exactly, they put many more man hours in their subjective player ratings than their competitors. They also have been putting out their seasons annually every year since 1961, so they made these player ratings shortly after the seasons took place. "I dreamed of having a game that would play a full season, with standings and stats, though I never thought it would happen. You also couldn't have wet fields or windy days in Strat." Both a full statistics package and weather, and stadium factors have been included in Strats computer game for many years. Last edited by robrien13; 06-23-2020 at 04:53 PM.