Author Topic: 2105 Season Thread (Read 18083 times)

Huckleberry · « **on:** August 19, 2016, 06:40:52 AM »

This is the thread for all discussion for the 2105 season, our league's sixth. This first post will be updated throughout the season and will also include links to other threads or amendment votes that come up during this time.

Next sim is TBD pending offseason owner recruiting and the offensive stats discussion and pending vote.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #1 on:** August 19, 2016, 06:43:40 AM »

OOTP Preseason Predictions:

Huckleberry · « **Reply #2 on:** August 19, 2016, 08:45:57 PM »

Season off to a decent start for me. Lost the series in São Paulo but runs scored for the series were 17-16 in the Toucan's favor.

The defending world champion Stars were the only team to escape the first sim undefeated, they're 4-0.

reflections311 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 19, 2016, 11:51:30 PM »

Lost two out of 3 to Singapore. Had my ace throw a shut out in the first game. Second game one of my relievers decided to choke it up.. and got shut out in the 3rd game. All my expensive offensive signings appear to have been loaded up on Aussie girls and XXXX bitter. They acted like a bunch of bogans.
Hopefully we can turn it up this week, or I may have to send in the dingoes.

sumhzrd · « **Reply #4 on:** August 20, 2016, 10:27:10 AM »

The preseason predictions are interesting. I don't think my pitching is going to be as strong as it has been, but I'd be willing to bet a 6 pack of VB that Brisbane will finish less than 24 games ahead of the Merlions

reflections311 · « **Reply #5 on:** August 20, 2016, 12:35:34 PM »

Quote from: sumhzrd on August 20, 2016, 10:27:10 AM

The preseason predictions are interesting. I don't think my pitching is going to be as strong as it has been, but I'd be willing to bet a 6 pack of VB that Brisbane will finish less than 24 games ahead of the Merlions

I'll take that bet if you thrown in some SG's from Australia lol

claphamsa · « **Reply #6 on:** August 21, 2016, 10:35:06 PM »

Kassiya became the alll time leader in wins...with 86

Echo127 · « **Reply #7 on:** August 21, 2016, 10:58:11 PM »

Ze Vargas became the all-time HR king!

Huckleberry · « **Reply #8 on:** August 22, 2016, 08:23:39 PM »

I'm hanging in there early but can't avoid the injury bug.

reflections311 · « **Reply #9 on:** August 22, 2016, 08:40:48 PM »

Brisbane has taken over first with a 4-1 week.
See you in the playoffs lol

Huckleberry · « **Reply #10 on:** August 24, 2016, 08:56:53 PM »

Okay, so the injury bug is apparently contagious in my outfield this year. Third outfielder down, at least this one was only for about two weeks. No point putting him on the DL.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #11 on:** August 24, 2016, 09:03:23 PM »

Brisbane has a 6-1 sim with the only loss coming when Seoul's Kitaw Jalali throws a rain-shortened no-hitter against them. He still gives up a run on a walk, stolen base, groundout, groundout sequence.

reflections311 · « **Reply #12 on:** August 24, 2016, 09:40:22 PM »

Pitching is lights out, Fielding is top notch and hitting is starting to come around.
Brisbane getting all cylinders firing.

Txhorns · « **Reply #13 on:** August 25, 2016, 05:57:49 AM »

Is it too early for me to throw in the towel on this season and go for the top draft pick again?

Huckleberry · « **Reply #14 on:** August 25, 2016, 01:03:08 PM »

That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out for my team. They're piddling along at 0.500, not good enough for me to feel like I have a real shot but not bad enough to throw in the towel.

Yet.

claphamsa · « **Reply #15 on:** August 25, 2016, 06:07:33 PM »

im buying

reflections311 · « **Reply #16 on:** August 26, 2016, 11:15:29 PM »

9 game winning streak. 6 1/2 in front of Karachi.
The party is going on in Brisbane.

Echo127 · « **Reply #17 on:** August 27, 2016, 12:13:02 PM »

My last 2 1st round draft picks are really disappointing me...

2104: I draft 1B Pedro Alejandre because his batting potential ratings were 8-9-7-5. One year later he's down to 6-8-6-4.
2105: I draft SP Jose Guzman because his pitching potential ratings were 9-8-7. One month into the season and he's already down to 8-7-5.

And that's why it doesn't pay to tank for draft picks.

$:-\$

Coop · « **Reply #18 on:** August 27, 2016, 01:19:01 PM »

Glad to hear I'm not the only one experiencing that. My worst one was a pitcher named Akshey Imani. When I drafted him he was listed as having 4.0 star potential. When he showed up for spring training, his ratings had dropped so much, his potential was down to 1.0 star. I have to assume he was a skydiving enthusiast who forgot to take his parachute. Can't think of anything else to explain that much of a talent deterioration in one month's time.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #19 on:** August 29, 2016, 08:25:13 PM »

Yeah, my only #1 overall pick so far in the WBA went to crap. Control rating never developed and the potential cratered, now he's in AAA.

I think my team is just teasing me this season. A 5-1 sim means I will keep trying to compete but I have a feeling I'm just going to end up wasting a potential rebuilding year. Oh well, I'll keep trying to compete as long as it makes sense.

claphamsa · « **Reply #20 on:** August 29, 2016, 11:03:56 PM »

Quote from: Huckleberry on August 29, 2016, 08:25:13 PM

Yeah, my only #1 overall pick so far in the WBA went to crap. Control rating never developed and the potential cratered, now he's in AAA.

I think my team is just teasing me this season. A 5-1 sim means I will keep trying to compete but I have a feeling I'm just going to end up wasting a potential rebuilding year. Oh well, I'll keep trying to compete as long as it makes sense.

this sentiment is why i love fast sim....no one waffles

reflections311 · « **Reply #21 on:** August 30, 2016, 03:51:41 PM »

Brisbane is rolling so far. 1st in pitching, 1st in hitting and 2nd in fielding.
Attendence has increased.

The move to Brisbane has been a crazy good success so far

Coop · « **Reply #22 on:** September 01, 2016, 07:59:37 PM »

Hey, I don't want to make this sound like a huge complaint, because in general I think this league has been terrific fun, but I mentioned once before that the batting averages seem a little low, and today I decided to do a little study to see how things are going in the 2105 season. Here are the results.

The ABL is hitting about .249 as a whole. Sao Paulo has the highest BA (.283) and Florida has the lowest (.214).

The IBL is hitting about .238 as a whole. Brisbane has the highest BA (.270) and Black Forest has the lowest (.217).

Overall WBA batting average is .243, as near as I can figure it.

I compared these numbers to the current National League (the American League isn't a good comp because it uses the DH). The National League is hitting .253. The highest BA is from Colorado (.275), the lowest is from Philadelphia (.238).

So it appears to me that we're about ten points low. Also, we have nine teams with BAs lower than the .238 BA posted by the Phillies. If it was just one team with a horrendous team BA I'd shrug it off, but look at this list: Mexico City .237, Rome .236, Seoul .231, Buenos Aires .225, Scottish .222, Singapore .220, New York City .220, Black Forest .217, Florida .214. Are these teams playing with bats made of balsa wood?

Anyway, how does everyone else feel about this? Personally, even if the batting averages never go up, I'll still enjoy the league; it's not like we absolutely need higher batting averages in order to have fun. (My team is hitting .217, and my starting first baseman is hitting .155, but I'm still having a blast.) If I had my druthers, though, I'd like to see a little more hitting. But (a) I don't know how the other GMs feel about it, and (b) I'm not sure how easy it is to fix this.

Thoughts?

reflections311 · « **Reply #23 on:** September 01, 2016, 08:45:02 PM »

Although it's early in the season, maybe the pitching is a little better in the Intercontinental.
I'm not sure if the league uses like a variation on having pitching become stronger or what not.. but there are still a lot of standout hitters.

Coop · « **Reply #24 on:** September 01, 2016, 08:59:33 PM »

Sure, there are some standout hitters, but that's kind of beside the point. The point is that there apparently are not ENOUGH standout hitters. When our league has multiple teams hitting below .225, and none of the real-life teams are hitting below .238, it seems clear that the WBA teams just don't have as much hitting as the real-life teams. Maybe that's not a big deal, but still, it's pretty obvious that this is indeed the case.

Karachi_GM · « **Reply #25 on:** September 01, 2016, 09:07:56 PM »

My take: don't mess with anything. Nothing is broke. Everything is cyclical. Leave everything alone.

claphamsa · « **Reply #26 on:** September 01, 2016, 10:58:29 PM »

i would like to see overall talent level rise...and variabilty fall. but, ive also seen what happens when you tinker with good things and feel its not worth it.

Txhorns · « **Reply #27 on:** September 02, 2016, 12:23:18 PM »

I think a lot of it has to due with it being a fictional league. It seems like with the OOTP leagues based off the real leagues there is more talent around the league and in the minors. In this league there is only one way to add talent to the league, through the draft. With the draft each team will get 3-4 good to great prospects but after that it starts to drop off pretty significantly. In my opinion that is where the difference in average is coming from, the lack of depth of quality players.

Coop · « **Reply #28 on:** September 02, 2016, 01:07:43 PM »

That's possible, but personally I don't think these low batting averages can be attributed entirely to a lack of talented players, because if the league simply didn't have enough good players, that would mean that the league wouldn't have enough good hitters and the league also wouldn't have enough good PITCHERS, with the result that teams would be forced to use bad pitchers, and batting averages would rise. Obviously that's not happening.

Let me propose a couple of other possibilities.

Possibility #1. There's a setting somewhere in the system that's set too low for hitters, or too high for pitchers. If you do the math, the WBA batting average of .243 is only about 4 percent lower than the National League batting average of .253. Four percent is not a huge amount. If there's such a setting, and we could raise batting averages 4 percent across the board, it wouldn't have a dramatic impact. It's not like .200 hitters would suddenly become .300 hitters. A .200 hitter who gains 4 percent becomes a .208 hitter. A .220 hitter who gains 4 percent becomes a .229 hitter. A .240 hitter who gains 4 percent becomes a .250 hitter. It's barely noticeable on a player by player basis, but it would have an impact on the overall league stats.

Possibility #2. It could be that most of the GMs in this league have chosen to focus on pitching, with the result that most teams have great pitching staffs, and those great pitching staffs are keeping batting averages low. This is possible but it seems unlikely to me, because if the league is properly balanced with regard to available talent, there are only so many good pitchers available, with the result that not everybody can get good pitchers no matter how badly they want them, and some GMs are thus going to find that only good hitters are available --- all the good pitchers have been taken. So those GMs would be "stuck with" good hitters. I don't believe that's happening, or else the hitting and pitching would balance out, and they aren't; the pitchers are clearly dominating the WBA.

Anyway, I guess if you have a great appreciation for pitching, the WBA is the place to be.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #29 on:** September 02, 2016, 04:07:30 PM »

We will definitely visit this after this season, but I also definitely do not want to change any settings during the season.

For the record, the league is based on 1995 totals as stated in the rules:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1995.shtml

This actually makes this situation worse than you're saying because the overall MLB batting average was .267 in 1995 versus .256 this year. When I started the league I wanted a slightly higher batting average and lower strikeout/home run environment than modern baseball.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #30 on:** September 02, 2016, 04:14:55 PM »

There are the current settings.

Anyone experienced enough with settings to figure out what we should do in the offseason? I found this thread:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/suggestions-future-ootp-versions/250133-more-stats-input-league-total-modifiers.html

Claybor · « **Reply #31 on:** September 02, 2016, 04:20:42 PM »

Quote

My take: don't mess with anything. Nothing is broke. Everything is cyclical. Leave everything alone.

Leagues will ebb abd flow just like real baseball. I see no issue at this point. The best are the best regardless of their actual numbers.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #32 on:** September 02, 2016, 04:22:45 PM »

I agree with that in theory but we are definitely having an issue with depressed offense league-wide. Besides, I don't mind having this discussion every season, heck it happens in real life too every time the numbers seem out of whack with previous years.

Claybor · « **Reply #33 on:** September 02, 2016, 04:29:07 PM »

Baseball today is all about the hitting and homeruns. If you want to compare numbers to the past, homeruns are way way up and have been for 25+ years. Should we fix that by reducing the number of homeruns hit, or do we now call it the norm? (It's the norm now, everyone expects a ^%$#ton of homeruns.) Homeruns are great and all, but quite frankly they are BORING now that everybody and their brother can hit one by just being there and waving the bat around a bit. I guess it all comes down to expectations, and people today expect what they see today. I don't subscribe to that way of thinking, but then again I am older then the average ootp player.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #34 on:** September 02, 2016, 04:30:23 PM »

After further reading it looks like what I haven't been doing is selecting 1995 as the season year and then hitting auto-calc modifiers every preseason.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/earlier-versions-ootp-general-discussions/209987-my-favorite-new-feature-autocalc-league-total-modifiers.html

Coop · « **Reply #35 on:** September 02, 2016, 05:10:54 PM »

I feel like I've stirred up a hornet's nest; sorry, didn't want to upset anybody. But I enjoy this league too much to remain quiet when I see something I think needs fixing. If we as a group choose not to fix it, okay; the league will still be fun. But if we can fix it this offseason, we should at least consider it.

I just went to baseball-reference.com (terrific site, by the way) and got the National League totals for BA and HRs. I avoided the American League because the DH inflates their numbers; we don't use the DH, so the NL stats seem more appropriate for us. Here are the numbers from 1995 through 2015, the last season for which there are complete numbers:

Year NL overall BA NL HRs per game
------------------------------------------
1995 .263 0.95
1996 .262 0.98
1997 .263 0.95
1998 .262 0.99
1999 .268 1.12
2000 .266 1.16
2001 .261 1.14
2002 .259 1.00
2003 .262 1.05
2004 .263 1.10
2005 .262 0.99
2006 .265 1.10
2007 .266 1.04
2008 .260 1.01
2009 .259 0.96
2010 .255 0.93
2011 .253 0.88
2012 .254 0.94
2013 .251 0.89
2014 .249 0.83
2015 .253 0.94

As you can see, HR totals were way up during the "steroid years," but they're down to a more normal level now. I don't know how the WBA stacks up with regard to HR totals; haven't done the math. Offhand, I think our HR totals are okay. But our batting averages are definitely low, even compared to the rather low BAs of 2014-2015 (and quite a bit lower if you want to use 1995 as a baseline).

APMP · « **Reply #36 on:** September 02, 2016, 06:33:51 PM »

Huck, what's the net effect of not hitting auto-calc? The league "drifts" on its own? (I don't know that such an organic drift is bad, but want to understand before opining).

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Txhorns · « **Reply #37 on:** September 02, 2016, 08:52:32 PM »

Well my pitchers are certainly doing everything they can to keep league averages up this year.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #38 on:** September 02, 2016, 08:53:32 PM »

Quote from: APMP on September 02, 2016, 06:33:51 PM

Huck, what's the net effect of not hitting auto-calc? The league "drifts" on its own? (I don't know that such an organic drift is bad, but want to understand before opining).

Not sure yet. Still looking into it but I think that drift idea is probably it.

Claybor · « **Reply #39 on:** September 02, 2016, 09:41:56 PM »

No hornets nest as far as I am concerned. I am pretty opinionated, but I am quite aware that they are just my opinions and generally not shared by others. I love a good discussion and debate, and certainly never mean to offend or annoy anyone.

The only reason I said anything is that I'd prefer to wait and see if things 'average' out on their own before making any changes. I am in an online league thats been going for 13+ real years and 40+ years in game, and it has seen some fairly substantial stat changes over the years, and it does bounce around between hitting and pitching at times just as I think we should expect. The same things have been discussed in that league, but we never made any changes and things seemed to have worked themselves out each time.

Now if we are shooting for a specific era stats wise and consistantly not achieving it then I guess something may need to be done.

Coop · « **Reply #40 on:** September 03, 2016, 07:40:25 AM »

It's very true that statistical trends fluctuate and that sometimes problems correct themselves. But if Huck is aiming for this league to hit about .265, and it's instead hitting .243, that's a problem which (in my opinion) is unlikely to correct itself; the gap is just too large. I believe it's going to require manual intervention.

By the way, in an earlier post I listed the BA and HR numbers for the National League over the past 21 years, so I decided to do a quick study of the WBA's home-run rate in the 2105 season. Our rate is 0.93 HRs per game. That's right in line with the National League's rate, so no problem there. The problem seems to be confined to batting average.

(For those who may be curious ... the highest HR rate at present is Karachi's, at 1.43 per game. Lowest is Florida's, at 0.59 HRs per game.)

Echo127 · « **Reply #41 on:** September 03, 2016, 09:21:06 AM »

Was the batting avg higher in previous seasons for this league? I never really paid attention to it.

Coop · « **Reply #42 on:** September 03, 2016, 10:23:24 AM »

Here are the numbers:

2100 --- ABL .247, IBL .247, WBA total .247
2101 --- ABL .251, IBL .253, WBA total .252
2102 --- ABL .257, IBL .242, WBA total .250 or .249
2103 --- ABL .261, IBL .246, WBA total .254 or .253
2104 --- ABL .254, IBL .245, WBA total .250 or .249

We're at .243 overall in 2105, which is an all-time low. Could go up some by end of season, of course. Still a long way from the goal of .265 or thereabouts.

Claybor · « **Reply #43 on:** September 03, 2016, 10:48:02 AM »

Hmmm, perhaps the issue has nothing to do with the underlying league numbers. Have you all looked at the teams? There are a total of two 8's and eight 7's in contact in the whole league. ( I only looked at starting lineups.) Nearly every team I look at has better pitching then hitting in my opinion. Either the draft hitting is weak, or hitters are not developing very well.

(IBL only)

ABL has 2) 8's and 11) 9's

Karachi_GM · « **Reply #44 on:** September 03, 2016, 11:21:15 AM »

Quote from: Claybor on September 03, 2016, 10:48:02 AM

Hmmm, perhaps the issue has nothing to do with the underlying league numbers. Have you all looked at the teams? There are a total of two 8's and eight 7's in contact in the whole league. ( I only looked at starting lineups.) Nearly every team I look at has better pitching then hitting in my opinion. Either the draft hitting is weak, or hitters are not developing very well.
(IBL only)
ABL has 2) 8's and 11) 9's

Karachi definitely does not.

APMP · « **Reply #45 on:** September 03, 2016, 12:03:39 PM »

Mumbai was SUPPOSED to be an offensive juggernaut with good enough pitching to compete.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #46 on:** September 04, 2016, 11:22:56 PM »

Clifford Mitchell with a no-hitter.

Santo Domingo with another good week and another outfield injury.

Claybor · « **Reply #47 on:** September 05, 2016, 10:36:12 AM »

Bah, tried to post an image but no luck.

I have a player saying;

Please don't insult me with a minor legue offer. Let me restate my demands:

A minor league contract.

Echo127 · « **Reply #48 on:** September 05, 2016, 11:08:43 AM »

Maybe offer a 50k signing bonus?

I had some weird contract experiences this off season, too. Players saying they need more money, then asking for exactly what I offered.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #49 on:** September 05, 2016, 11:51:21 AM »

Quote from: Claybor on September 05, 2016, 10:36:12 AM

Bah, tried to post an image but no luck.

I have a player saying;

Please don't insult me with a minor legue offer. Let me restate my demands:

A minor league contract.

That's an OOTP overall issue. I've had that happen multiple times both in online leagues and solo games. It's extremely frustrating.

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Author Topic: 2105 Season Thread (Read 18083 times)

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