Too Much Offense?

[ryanb13]

I was wondering if anyone was experiencing waaay too much offense in their leagues. With my Brewers team, 4 of my starting pitchers have ERAs over 6. One is a 3 star, one a 2 and a half, and two 2 star players.
I don't expect them to be stellar pitchers, but this is a bit ridiculous.It is almost the end of the season.
Any idea how to add more pitching/ less hitting to the game to add more realism or if anyone is having this similar issue?

[Bunktown Ballers]

Originally Posted by ryanb13

I was wondering if anyone was experiencing waaay too much offense in their leagues. With my Brewers team, 4 of my starting pitchers have ERAs over 6. One is a 3 star, one a 2 and a half, and two 2 star players.
I don't expect them to be stellar pitchers, but this is a bit ridiculous.It is almost the end of the season.
Any idea how to add more pitching/ less hitting to the game to add more realism or if anyone is having this similar issue?

It happens....James Shields opened the season with 8 inn 3 hits 1 run 1 walk 9 k's. Believe me I didnt give it back bc next start wasn't pretty. But I'm just saying 1 almost part of a season don't really mean the scoring was too high, just happens sometimes. Just a bad year I'd chalk it up to really. I'm sure you had players have career years & some down years. I would never want my season to be near exact to IRL bc why would you play the game...Just saying....Maybe bad fielders, bad luck.
Next seasons up!!

[NoOne]

a default quickstart or any other template that comes with teh game shouldn't have this problem.

go to Stats and AI and autocalculate the modifiers -- only available during preseason. i suggest opening day before any game is played (really anytime between when the ai sends their ST players down and opening day is best -- just in case they are disproportionately included in the calculation if on mlb roster??).

if after that you still get certain pitchers with elevated stats relative to what you want to see, you may need to reduce certain power stats or hits modifiers etc..

don't change th totals, simple reduce the modifiers.. e.g. too many home runs, then reduce the HR LTM after you click auto-calculate an additional amount.

tip: don't autocaclulate every year. it is not mean for that type of use. it merely callibrates the totals/modifiers and current players in your league to "jive". after you click, the league-wide results should be ~close to the league totals. minor ajdustments may be wanted after taht for individual results.

fyi, i think you are allowing a small sample to be a bit too important. relative to the new totals used, homeruns are sky high and a league wide ~4.30era is more likely than the ~3.8-4.00 you saw immediately following the crack down on steroids a decade ago... theres going to be more sp with ~6 era now than the previous 10 years in RL. if the league era elevates nearly ~10% it must be expected. the average to below average guys will soak up a larger portion of the increase too.

they clearly have some new designer steroirds, because in real life they just hit ~600 more hr than ever before, including known steroid-riddled years. so, what we got used to with the low-offense seasons that followed the crackdown is not how things are currently or for the forseeable future.

** if you see a league ERA of ~4.50-5.00 in peak years, then you may have too much offense... if it's 4.30-4.40 in a peak year, it's probably fine. simply adjust teh modifiers on stats and ai, and it is solved.

[scott1964]

I am thinking that way. I started in 1871 and I am up to almost the end of 1874. My Grand Slams are numerous.

May 27th 1871 Gat Stires (NY Mutuals)
April 3rd 1872 Jimmy Wood (Troy Haymakers)
May 8th 1872 Marshall King (Baltimore Canaries)
May 2nd 1873 Mike Brannock (Baltimore Marylands) 
July 13th 1973 Lou Say (Brooklyn Eckfords)
August 31st 1873 Tom Barlow (Washington Blue Legs)
May 28th 1874 Cap Anson (Hartford Dark Blues)
June 25th 1874 John McMullin (Brooklyn Atlantics)
July 7th 1874 Marshall King (Baltimore Canaries)
August 11th 1874 Gat Stires (NY Mutuals)

[David Watts]

6105 Home Runs! 4.65 runs a game! .255 batting average and 4.35ERA.

[NoOne]

yeah, those are modern #'s right now. are those the real life 2017 #s or from your league? lol.

historical stuff matching up is a whole 'nother hornets nest of issues.

their main problem is that they shift the ltm/totals and then the ratiings mean completely differnet things as an era changes.. so the old players are not the same, funamentally, even though their ratings remain the same after an era imports new LTM/LTs. a shift is their output is almost guaranteed to be significant.

now, if ty cobb plays in 1950, does he hit more home runs, if his power rating stays the same (or same muscles in his body/dna etc)? in the game yes it is possible, but in real life no! he cannot hit more than he was capable of before (adjusted for any equipment differences - again a tangible and causal change) the era change doesn't cause the difference... changes to player abilty and strategy and equipment CAUSE the era change. ** maybe he hits a few more and has a little less BA due to different strategy? but it would be a significan change in hr, because he's just as stong as he was before - that stuff can be controled by a dropdown strategy option and not changing LTM/LT - players would deviate around a new center of aggressiveness etc**

until they fix that, every \transition will be sucky and impossible to truly callibrate in an easy and predictable manner. otherwise the process would be much easier to make it look ~normal.

other reasons it is difficult:
not to mention getting each era's players tuned and distributed in order to get results similar to that time period. one of the notes in this years game updates is that they have improved that in some ways.

they should just apply the same ZIPs formula and that will make all the ratings from 1871-2017 on the same page... if they need to asthetically manipulate them for the user's eye, that's better than them being 'different' players relative to ratings->output translation. too many moving parts without reason making it even more difficult to accomplish this goal. if this stuff isn't apples and apples, it can never work well.

they are working on it. but with so many years and the shifting #'s it's always going to be "worked on"

the way they've choosen to do certain things makes this endeavor incredibly ardous and requires extreme effort. if they stuck to tangible, cuasal effects, it would be easier move from one era to the next instead of changing LTM/LT and inevitably borking all carryover players from previous era. then you make more adjustments to 'fix' that problem and it gets even messier -- either 1 set is borked or they both are etc (previous era holdovers and new players).

pcms are in teh game, why aren't they the sole cause of era changes? (and stratagies / equipment - tangible, causal things) -- not only that, things don't chagne 1 year... they change over time.

LTM/LTs shoudlnt even be seen... that is the stuff that needs to be locked then pcm's cause different players that cause changing stats. it could be fundamental flaw in teh whole model and impossible to avoid too.

[spleen1015]

I don't know if it an issue or not. I have seen the same thing with the Orioles pitchers in MLB quickstart. There are pitcher like Mychal Givens who are ending the season with 6+ ERAs when their RL stats were never that close.

I chalk it up to sample size and go play fictional leagues.

[CaseIH]

Originally Posted by NoOne

a default quickstart or any other template that comes with teh game shouldn't have this problem.

go to Stats and AI and autocalculate the modifiers -- only available during preseason. i suggest opening day before any game is played (really anytime between when the ai sends their ST players down and opening day is best -- just in case they are disproportionately included in the calculation if on mlb roster??).

if after that you still get certain pitchers with elevated stats relative to what you want to see, you may need to reduce certain power stats or hits modifiers etc..

don't change th totals, simple reduce the modifiers.. e.g. too many home runs, then reduce the HR LTM after you click auto-calculate an additional amount.

tip: don't autocaclulate every year. it is not mean for that type of use. it merely callibrates the totals/modifiers and current players in your league to "jive". after you click, the league-wide results should be ~close to the league totals. minor ajdustments may be wanted after taht for individual results.

fyi, i think you are allowing a small sample to be a bit too important. relative to the new totals used, homeruns are sky high and a league wide ~4.30era is more likely than the ~3.8-4.00 you saw immediately following the crack down on steroids a decade ago... theres going to be more sp with ~6 era now than the previous 10 years in RL. if the league era elevates nearly ~10% it must be expected. the average to below average guys will soak up a larger portion of the increase too.

they clearly have some new designer steroirds, because in real life they just hit ~600 more hr than ever before, including known steroid-riddled years. so, what we got used to with the low-offense seasons that followed the crackdown is not how things are currently or for the forseeable future.

** if you see a league ERA of ~4.50-5.00 in peak years, then you may have too much offense... if it's 4.30-4.40 in a peak year, it's probably fine. simply adjust teh modifiers on stats and ai, and it is solved.

Its either new untraceable PEDS, or MLB has made changes to the baseball, that they are not admitting too. Pitchers have been saying, the seams on the balls, are much tighter, which in turn makes the ball harder, and more bouncy. Being a former pitcher, I definitely could see why pitchers seem to be getting more blisters the last couple yrs, and Im not rocket scientist, but a ball with less seems sticking up, it would seem, to take more arm action to get the same type of break on it, which IMO, could lead to more arm injuries.
Now Im a farmer not a doctor, but there has to be a reason why we see so many more arm issues with pitchers. Now I know guys arent nearly as tough as they used to be in general, people are softer as a whole, whether it be in life or athletes, but in a time we live in, where they have all this high tech training stuff, and how players come into camp in shape, where it use to be spring training was to get in shape,lol.
Something just dont add up. Is it the baseball being changed, causing more Hr's, and/or possibly more arm injuries? I think there couldbe something to it. I know way back in my day, when I was coming up as a pitcher, there wasnt much in way of rules to protect kids arms, like nowdays. Geesh, back in Pony League baseball, I thru 2 complete games in 1 day, in a all day double elimination tourney, not to toot my horn, but I thru a perfect game, and a 2 hit shut out, striking out 11 in 1 the perfect game, and 15, in the 2 hitters,lol. Im old, and broken down, let me have a second to pat myself on the back Anyway, back on track, Im not dumb enough to believe, everyone is playing by the rules either due to the drug testing. Im sure there are people out there trying and testing out new PEDS that are not detected in test. Always going to be someone trying to find a way to cheat, even if it has negative side effects down the road on them, so people will do anything for fame and fortune, even if it means, taking a risk of getting caught, they care more about the money and chance at fame, than they do there self pride, that goes with doing it the right way.
But I also dont put in past the commissioner to make changes to the baseballs, to get HR numbers up across the league. Heck this Manfred has shown, he risk harming the integrity of the game, to make a change, like with this stupid intentional walk rule, and some of the ridiculous rules he has pushed for.
Something is definitely going on with with the spike in HR totals by teams. Only time will tell, what the reason is, but the truth eventually will come out, whether it be a good thing or bad. Didnt mean to write a book with the post, sorry

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by NoOne

** if you see a league ERA of ~4.50-5.00 in peak years, then you may have too much offense... if it's 4.30-4.40 in a peak year, it's probably fine. simply adjust teh modifiers on stats and ai, and it is solved.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I prefer a run average a little below that (think about four and a quarter), which knocks the league ERA a bit below 4.00. Hate bazookaball. Hate deadball. Gimme something in between and I'm a happy camper.

[Reggie]

After a month and a half of the season I thought too many guys were batting over 300 and too many pitchers had an ERA over 4.00. Then I looked at the real life MLB 2017 stats and my game ( if it ended today ) wouldn't be that far off.

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by NoOne

a default quickstart or any other template that comes with teh game shouldn't have this problem.

go to Stats and AI and autocalculate the modifiers -- only available during preseason. i suggest opening day before any game is played (really anytime between when the ai sends their ST players down and opening day is best -- just in case they are disproportionately included in the calculation if on mlb roster??).

if after that you still get certain pitchers with elevated stats relative to what you want to see, you may need to reduce certain power stats or hits modifiers etc..

don't change th totals, simple reduce the modifiers.. e.g. too many home runs, then reduce the HR LTM after you click auto-calculate an additional amount.

tip: don't autocaclulate every year. it is not mean for that type of use. it merely callibrates the totals/modifiers and current players in your league to "jive". after you click, the league-wide results should be ~close to the league totals. minor ajdustments may be wanted after taht for individual results.

fyi, i think you are allowing a small sample to be a bit too important. relative to the new totals used, homeruns are sky high and a league wide ~4.30era is more likely than the ~3.8-4.00 you saw immediately following the crack down on steroids a decade ago... theres going to be more sp with ~6 era now than the previous 10 years in RL. if the league era elevates nearly ~10% it must be expected. the average to below average guys will soak up a larger portion of the increase too.

they clearly have some new designer steroirds, because in real life they just hit ~600 more hr than ever before, including known steroid-riddled years. so, what we got used to with the low-offense seasons that followed the crackdown is not how things are currently or for the forseeable future.

** if you see a league ERA of ~4.50-5.00 in peak years, then you may have too much offense... if it's 4.30-4.40 in a peak year, it's probably fine. simply adjust teh modifiers on stats and ai, and it is solved.

I've never touched anything "under the hood" but is this something I should be doing anyway?

I put together a lights out staff that dominated that last few years in 18, but they have been getting shelled early on. walks galore, even from my aces who never did that. not panicking because I'm only about 20 games in (small sample size).

maybe a related question: do players have rust early on that I never noticed before?

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I prefer a run average a little below that (think about four and a quarter), which knocks the league ERA a bit below 4.00. Hate bazookaball. Hate deadball. Gimme something in between and I'm a happy camper.

definitely, but i think the context of what i replied to is about ~normal real life stuff.


nothing is too high or too low from teh right perspective.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by IanIachimoe

I've never touched anything "under the hood" but is this something I should be doing anyway?

I put together a lights out staff that dominated that last few years in 18, but they have been getting shelled early on. walks galore, even from my aces who never did that. not panicking because I'm only about 20 games in (small sample size).

maybe a related question: do players have rust early on that I never noticed before?

that's all about opinion. i like to forge my own totals and modifiers, but it takes more work to do that. i can't do it in earnest until after the patching process some years and can't predict which years those wil be ahead of time (reactionary process).

after clicking auto-calculate (this ignores any transition from 1 era to the next or any new fictional league <20years or so old) -- i would say adjusting modifiers to tweak league output is the best option.

my opinion -- i get league totals into a ballpark area, then i make sure various talents of players are capable of hitting certain high water marks. i get this info from long term sims from hammering out LTM -- the average baseline that results, plus a scan of league records. what i want isn't exactly historically correct, either. impossible to know what that is, so i just make it so hr guys can get to 500+ in a similar proportion and whatever else i key in on.

you can do the same thing with adjusting modifiers after an autocalculate and it won't be much different.

i wouldn't worry one bit about elevated stats on great players after 20g. even more so for pitchers than batters -- used far less frequently and that much more susceptible to 1 bad outing having a disproportionate effect on their stats.

if they are interchangeable talent-wise with other available options, musical chairs won't guarantee anything but at least you'll feel like you did something.

betting on the better odds doesn't guarantee anything, but it is absolutely the best path... anyone who says differently is <censored>. a cy young capable pitcher with a 1-year era of 5.00 is still a cy young capable pitcher. he will still be a better odds of performing well than a less-rated player who has outperformed them during a 1-year sample. play it out in infinity and it's impossible to ignore. this is no different than understanding why a coin flip can sometimes come out as 3 heads in a row even though it's not likely.

[Reggie]

Looking back at real life stats..I didn't realize how many HR's were hit league wide in 2017. Most since the 2000 season. Strikeouts were pretty high too. Right around the expansion year in 1993 the league wide offensive totals went up noticeably. Most of you guys probably already knew that but it is new to me.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Reggie

Looking back at real life stats..I didn't realize how many HR's were hit league wide in 2017. Most since the 2000 season. Strikeouts were pretty high too. Right around the expansion year in 1993 the league wide offensive totals went up noticeably. Most of you guys probably already knew that but it is new to me.

Actually in 2017 the most ever HR were hit.

Regarding this topic, if you think there is too much offense, simply fine tune the league total modifiers, it's simple and work, so everybody can get the stats they feel are right.

The current 2018 quickstart mirrors 2017 numbers, by the way.