OOTP Loves First Basemen

[Clark18]

Are any of you fictional leaguers noticing that almost all the prospects and high rated hitters are first basemen? Especially in the amateur draft pool. Its almost exclusively first basemen with the occasional left and right fielder sprinkled in.

[jfb8300]

Agreed.

[BirdWatcher]

Hmm. My fictional league experience with OOTP is pretty minimal so far but in my current fictional project I have an aging first baseman who is falling off a cliff fast (and nobody in the minors as an obvious replacement) and when the draft pool became available a few days ago (fictional league time) nary a good first baseman in the lot. Heavy on the starting pitcher prospects though probably the top guy is a center fielder.
Maybe I need to borrow a few of your first base prospects. I wish I had your situation.

[r0nster]

the only thing about the 1B defense ability in range is horrible and usually below average error rating as well as DP is low too.

[Coja]

It feels like this to me as well.

Specifically, 1B that can't field - that are much better vRHP.

[NoOne]

it's a position of depth in mlb for exactly the reasons mentioned about defensive ability, or lack there of...

not sure if it's out of proportion in thi sversion, but you always saw a larger quantity with decent to good ratings compared to other positions

[jfb8300]

Just noticed batters in my fictional HOF consist of:

12 - 1B
1 - LF
1 - CF
1 - RF

Anyone else getting a 1B dominated HOF?

[Coja]

Originally Posted by jfb8300

Just noticed batters in my fictional HOF consist of:

12 - 1B
1 - LF
1 - CF
1 - RF

Anyone else getting a 1B dominated HOF?

75 Years, Fictional league - AI handles Hall of Fame.
(my sim engine is geared to produce mid 80s baseball stats)

1B : 12
2B : 9
SS : 1
3B : 3
C : 0
LF : 1
CF : 2
RF : 6

SP : 35
RP : 0
CL : 27

[BradG223]

I ran a fictional league about 150 years based on 1987 stats. Hall of Fame induction percentage is set at 80. Here is my distribution.

1B : 27
2B : 20
SS : 14
3B : 18
C : 1
LF : 20
CF : 16
RF : 15

SP : 27
RP : 0
CL : 11

On another note, is WAR weighted more to position players more than in years past? I have nine pitchers with WAR greater than 80; while I have 42 such position players.

[Syd Thrift]

Was this where they ended their career or where they played the majority of their games?

[NoOne]

you give a bit more weight to position they played as well as their stats.

in real life a SS can get in with lower numbers than a first baseman.

e.g. you will never see a 1st baseman with Ozzie Smith's numbers in the HoF.

(this excludes early years, if an exception exists.)

for that matter, ozzie smith's #'s would never make my HoF at any position, lol.

war isn't an 'answer' it should only be a piece of the puzzle. you are better off looking at rates of success and comparing to baselines. it's a poor metric to be using to compare players in an absolute way. with a large sample like a career, ops+ and era+ are better.

e.g ozzie smith, again: war looks good, but his ops+ clearly shows him as a severely sub-average hitter compared to 'average' and even worse when you compare to a HoF baseline. he is a good example of popularity getting you into the HoF

[Syd Thrift]

I think the game does more or less go by WAR with some additional milestones the "voters" take into account. What I do think is happening is that the game is counting the Harmon Killebrews and George Bretts of the fictional OOTP world as first basemen, that is, it's taking the last position a player was listed at when he retired and saying that's his position.

I haven't built up enough time in the league I'm doing to have a HoF (and this run probably won't because doing the thing where you play out every game even from the 7th inning on means the universe is veeeeeeeeery slow) so can someone inspect their Hall and see if those "first basemen" really did play the majority of their career at the position?

[Gorinski]

Originally Posted by BradG223

I ran a fictional league about 150 years based on 1987 stats. Hall of Fame induction percentage is set at 80. Here is my distribution.

1B : 27
2B : 20
SS : 14
3B : 18
C : 1
LF : 20
CF : 16
RF : 15

SP : 27
RP : 0
CL : 11

On another note, is WAR weighted more to position players more than in years past? I have nine pitchers with WAR greater than 80; while I have 42 such position players.

This post provides additional evidence to a thread I started concerning the lack of quality catchers.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=288485

[Syd Thrift]

Just to follow up with my 19 league, I again don't have anywhere near enough time spent to have a Hall of Fame but I did notice that of the top 10 players in the league in WAR, *maybe* 1 or 2 of them play first. I don't have the computer I run that league on at work, unfortunately.

Again, I *suspect* that what's happening is that if a player starts his career at age 20 in center field, moves to left at age 33, and then plays first base for the last 2 years of his career, the game puts him into the Hall of Fame as a first baseman because that was the last main position that he played at. If this is the issue, this part of things is easy enough to fix: the game already looks at the most games (I think? Maybe it's WAR) a player had per team to determine who he goes in the Hall with. It should be able to do the same with positions.

The issue with catchers is well noted (and I think that anecdotally speaking I've seen this) but I think is separate.

[BradG223]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Again, I *suspect* that what's happening is that if a player starts his career at age 20 in center field, moves to left at age 33, and then plays first base for the last 2 years of his career, the game puts him into the Hall of Fame as a first baseman because that was the last main position that he played at. If this is the issue, this part of things is easy enough to fix: the game already looks at the most games (I think? Maybe it's WAR) a player had per team to determine who he goes in the Hall with. It should be able to do the same with positions.

The issue with catchers is well noted (and I think that anecdotally speaking I've seen this) but I think is separate.

I didn't go through every single player but induction position seems to be determined by the position which the player has the most experience. I'll check it out later.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by BradG223

I didn't go through every single player but induction position seems to be determined by the position which the player has the most experience. I'll check it out later.

Yeah, I don't think it's just games played, but more or less it should be the position they played the most in their career.

[Coja]

Originally Posted by Coja

75 Years, Fictional league - AI handles Hall of Fame.
(my sim engine is geared to produce mid 80s baseball stats)

1B : 12
2B : 9
SS : 1
3B : 3
C : 0
LF : 1
CF : 2
RF : 6

SP : 35
RP : 0
CL : 27

Went through my HoF 1B. All of them were definitely 1B, save maybe 1 which kind of split.

Of my 12 HoF 1B :

• 6 were full time 1B
• 4 played 200 games at another position (3-LF & 1-3B) - with around 2,000 at 1st.
• 1 played 700 games at 3B (with 2,000 at 1st) - but, was a real 1B (His first 7 seasons were at 1st).
• 1 Played 700 at 3B, and 1000 at 1B - (same as above - played 7 years at 1st before his first season at 3rd .. actually played his final 5 seasons at 3rd) - And, I'm pretty sure he DH'd some too.

[stealofhome]

Do any of you use feeder leagues? I'm running tests on the draft and found this after testing over 10 years. Scouting turned off so the ratings are accurate.

MLB Quickstart 1B with 65+ Potential in the draft: 7
MLB Quickstart C with 65+ Potential in the draft: 7

MLB Feeder League 1B with 65+ Potential in the draft: 36
MLB Feeder League C with 65+ Potential in the draft: 1



I've seen issues like this repeatedly with different leagues over many years. The problems that people have with the draft are not just one bad year. There is something wrong with the way all players are created for the draft and in particular with feeder leagues.

[stealofhome]

Additionally, over 23 years in different league setups and over different spans of league history:

Number of draftees: 36,746
Number of C from High School with 65+ potential: ONE. 1. 0.003% of all draftees were catchers with at least 65 potential from high school, representing one person with exactly 65 potential as a catcher. None of those 36,746 draftees were catchers from high school with 70, 75, or 80 potential.

Here's a comparison of where the 65+ potential players come from, split by position and where eligible from. There are far too many high potential relievers and not enough high potential position players.

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, I've definitely seen it where the game essentially produces pitchers in particular at the same rates that pitchers exist at the major league level. This is exacerbated by feeder leagues IMO because every single college and high school has a full complement of players at every position. IRL colleges don't play every day and so don't use large rotations so much and on top of that tend not to have full bullpens. Pretty much anyone who is good enough to play pro ball is good enough to either be in the rotation (even if they only throw 2 pitches for strikes) or are a closer.

With position players, in real life like 90% of guys in high school who are good enough to play pro ball and are right-handed come out as shortstops. They may not be projected to play short but that's what they're doing in high school, simply because they're the best athlete on the team and at that level the best athlete plays the toughest position. In OOTP you see a more even distribution, especially if you're using feeder leagues. Bear in mind that real life there aren't a couple dozen high school "academies", there are *thousands*.

With left-handers it's a bit tougher because the guys who throw well were converted to pitchers by the time they turned 16. Still, if they're good enough to play in the pros they almost certainly are good athletes in their own right - Jeremy Brown types don't get picked much, even when a good HS coach is smart enough to overlook their body type.

Basically, in a nutshell *very* few major-league quality prospects, particularly those coming out of high school, should be starting out at first base. Just a quick look at the top 15ish guys in 1B innings last year, to take an example:

Joey Votto - Came up as a C/3B, though he only spent a year doing that in the fall league before he got converted over to first

Anthony Rizzo - did play first all the way, although I will say that it looks like there were extenuating circumstances: he missed most of his first full season with cancer and the Cubs apparently felt that his bat needed to play in the major leagues, so they kept him at first

Eric Hosmer - also played first from the get-go, although this looks like it had more to do with the Royals fast-tracking him than anything else. Even in the pros, he played a few innings in right field

Will Myers - came up as a RF and even won the ROY at that position

Justin Smoak - came up as a 1B, played 1B in college, and was never considered anything but a 1B

Paul Goldschmidt - the rare right-hander who came up as a 1B; played it throughout college, it looks like

Carlos Santana - came up and played his first few years in the majors as a catcher

Jose Abreu - International signing

Josh Bell - started out as a RF and played his first 3 seasons in the minors there

Mark Reynolds - played the first 5 years of his career at 3B

Mitch Moreland - the Rangers tried him in right field for several years before moving him to first full-time

Ryan Zimmerman - played at 3B for the first 8 years of his major league career

Yuri Guriel - International signing; played 3B in Cuba and Japan

Chris Davis - tried at 3B for a year before being put at 1B the rest of the way

Logan Morrison - came up as a LF

Yonder Alonso - played college at 1B but was *still* tested for a bit in LF in the minor leagues

Tommy Joseph - came up as a catcher

Joe Mauer - came up as a catcher (of course)

Danny Valencia - came up as a third baseman

Matt Carpenter - came up as a third baseman and was converted into a kind of utility player before transitioning to first in the majors