Crazy single season strikeout totals

[David Watts]

This was from a random debut league I created using 2022 as the starting point and stat base. I was fast simming and just playing the post season, so it took me awhile to notice the crazy. Look at Granderson. 338 strikeouts in a single season. He hit .121 with a .184 obp over 691 plate appearances. Cal Ripkin whiffs 292 times out 665 plate appearances good for a .103 batting average and .168 obp. In the season leading up to Ripkin's death season, he whiffed 129, 123. 132 and 102 times, winning a platinum stick in each of those seasons.

[Lucas718]

Something is way off there. IRL Hack Wilson never even struck out 100 times in a season

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Lucas718

Something is way off there. IRL Hack Wilson never even struck out 100 times in a season

It's random debut, so I would expect Wilson to whiff more than in real life, but something is definitely way off. Might be just a case of random debut not working well in the modern stat environment.

[reflections]

Originally Posted by Lucas718

Something is way off there. IRL Hack Wilson never even struck out 100 times in a season

True but Hack did lead the league 5 times in strike outs. So in a different environment, it wouldn't be odd for him to be more of a strike out type hitter.

[Brad K]

Is this what OOTP is predicting for the future?

[Marinersfan51]

Are there any super wild strikeout totals for pitchers? Could there be something weird happening with deadball era pitchers who have high stuff ratings because they had a K/9 of like 3 back when that was high getting crazy strikeout totals in the modern high K environment?

Or is it just that the leaguewide totals are miscalibrated and strikeouts are too high overall? Basically is every pitcher/batter striking out too much relative to a 2022 environment or are the extremes just getting warped by the relative outliers?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Marinersfan51

Are there any super wild strikeout totals for pitchers? Could there be something weird happening with deadball era pitchers who have high stuff ratings because they had a K/9 of like 3 back when that was high getting crazy strikeout totals in the modern high K environment?

Or is it just that the leaguewide totals are miscalibrated and strikeouts are too high overall? Basically is every pitcher/batter striking out too much relative to a 2022 environment or are the extremes just getting warped by the relative outliers?

Here are the top single season pitchers. Nothing crazy.

[David Watts]

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Is this what OOTP is predicting for the future?

You mean reincarnated Homer Smoot? I sure hope so!

[Marinersfan51]

Huh, the league wide total isn't notably up either (that difference is about 300 Ks league wide at actual 2022 AB totals). My only guess would be a lot of the deadball era batters have very high avoid K ratings so the strikeouts needed to get leaguewide totals in line are being pushed to the smaller pool of players with the low avoid K ratings. I'm not even sure if that is how the engine works, but it's the only thing that seems to line up with the facts.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Marinersfan51

Huh, the league wide total isn't notably up either (that difference is about 300 Ks league wide at actual 2022 AB totals). My only guess would be a lot of the deadball era batters have very high avoid K ratings so the strikeouts needed to get leaguewide totals in line are being pushed to the smaller pool of players with the low avoid K ratings. I'm not even sure if that is how the engine works, but it's the only thing that seems to line up with the facts.

The player pool for this league was 1902-Current day.

[koohead]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Here are the top single season pitchers. Nothing crazy. Attachment 954625

There is nothing crazy but the number of pitchers who have 250+ K's is out of whack. You said you started with 2022 league totals. Are any of the modifiers looking exceptionally strange, as in more than 2.000 or less than .5?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by koohead

There is nothing crazy but the number of pitchers who have 250+ K's is out of whack. You said you started with 2022 league totals. Are any of the modifiers looking exceptionally strange, as in more than 2.000 or less than .5?

Strikeout modifier for the season that produced this is 1.246

[rink23]

I have had some crazy strike out and walk totals with my St. Louis Cardinals franchise, which I began with the 2023 season on OOTP 24 before switching to OOTP24 with the beginning of the 2025 season.
I am now playing in August of 2026. I play out all games.
The Cardinals set the NL record for strikeouts in 2025 with 1,834.
The top three strike out team totals are 1, STL (2025), 2, San Diego 1,757 (2025) and 3, Cincinnati 1,710 (2,024).
The Cardinals own the top three spots for team walks in a season with 778 (2023 and 2024) and 747 (2025).
Looking across the league, the top 16 strike out totals of all-time have occurred between 2023 and 2025.
The 2026 edition of the Cardinals are on pace for 1,665 strikeouts and 706 walks.

[David Watts]

Has to be a matter of random debut and the modern game not mixing well. I started another random debut starting this one in 1950. I've been fast simming the regular seasons and then watching the post season games in one pitch mode. I'm up to 1964 and the numbers are great. No crazy strikeout numbers whatsoever.

[uruguru]

Might want to check that this isn't the player exhaustion bug. In that case, a player doesn't have a backup at a position and has to play every game. He quickly becomes exhausted and his offensive performance plummets.

However, this seems to be happening to lots of players so that is probably not the issue. Wouldn't hurt to check their games played for the affected seasons..

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Has to be a matter of random debut and the modern game not mixing well. I started another random debut starting this one in 1950. I've been fast simming the regular seasons and then watching the post season games in one pitch mode. I'm up to 1964 and the numbers are great. No crazy strikeout numbers whatsoever.

Some of those players are modern players though.

I mean, Curtis Granderson, not like he is a 19th century player

Random debut should work no matter what year you play.

There has to be an issue here, I hope someone can identify it.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by uruguru

Might want to check that this isn't the player exhaustion bug. In that case, a player doesn't have a backup at a position and has to play every game. He quickly becomes exhausted and his offensive performance plummets.

However, this seems to be happening to lots of players so that is probably not the issue. Wouldn't hurt to check their games played for the affected seasons..

I looked at Ripkin and he did start all 162 games, which is strange because I use high fatigue. Also, he was the only SS on his team at the end of the season. Not because the team didn't have players rated to play SS on their reserve roster, but due to OOTP AI not caring that the team didn't have a backup SS. Just poor roster construction. You might be on to something. The two players I mentioned in the opening post, Ripkin and Granderson are such extreme cases in horrible play that I could very well see it being a matter of over fatigue crippling the player's abilities. Granderson did not play all 162 games though, I think he played roughly 140+ games, but if he did so without rest, he may be a fatigue victim as well. I like high fatigue because it forces the AI to use the entire roster, but if it's going to cause nonsense, I'm not going to use it.

[uruguru]

I don't mind players getting exhausted from overplay, but the effects of exhaustion in OOTP are too debilitating.

Carlton Fisk had a season where he started 150 games at catcher. At Catcher. That is impossible to replicate without globally setting Fatigue to low which turns 3/4ths of the league into Lou Gehrig.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by uruguru

I don't mind players getting exhausted from overplay, but the effects of exhaustion in OOTP are too debilitating.

Carlton Fisk had a season where he started 150 games at catcher. At Catcher. That is impossible to replicate without globally setting Fatigue to low which turns 3/4ths of the league into Lou Gehrig.

I really do think if minor injuries(ones that don't require trips to the IL) would force players to miss 1-3 games, instead of just supposedly affecting their performance and increasing their odds of further injury, the normal fatigue setting would be perfect.