Quote: Originally Posted By JohnGPF on 5/15/2008
And then I get to wondering how much luck is involved in real life: when Barry Zito can't live up to his high-value contract or when a Walt Dropo comes along and has one sensational season and then falls into mediocrity. Luck in the form of random outcomes must be more of a factor in the sim than in life, but I wonder if luck isn't a much larger factor in real life than most of us are accustomed to thinking that it is.

...while "luck" is almost certainly a greater fact in a computer simulation than real life, i really agree with your last sentence...i think one of the keys to long term careers as a player, manager and gm is the equanamity that comes from realizing how much luck plays a role in the relative short term...

Quote: Originally Posted By JohnGPF on 5/14/2008
...the site uses an electronic 1000 sided die to determine it's basic results...presumably because baseball deals in so many 3 digit numbers---.310, .405, .788 etc...

...let's say there is a player who has a .299 AVG and no walks and there are no other effects in the game to alter his AVG....to get a hit all he has to have is a "die roll " between 1-299 and he has a hit...he has 299 successful hit numbers out of the 1000 possible numbers...

...let's say that in SIM play he achieves exactly 700 PA which for him would be 700 ABs...there is a very, very small chance he will get 700 different die rolls in his 700 PAs...there is a very, very, very minute chance that all 700 will be above 299...in which case he'll bat .000...

...no alteration to his stats, no introduction of streaks, no being cursed by hateful programmers, just incredilby bad "luck"....

...and the SIM is much more complicated than that simple example...sometimes his "target" number will be 250, sometimes 400...and there is no telling when he'll get a die roll of 325...if he gets it when the target is 250, he's out...if he gets it when the target is 400, he has a hit...

Quote: Originally Posted By doubletruck on 5/14/2008




Most of us have experienced the kind of weird variation that John's example invokes.

On my current teams, the same Bobby Abreu is playing on two very similar teams, both in $80m leagues in RFK Stadium.

One of them has 174 PA, 3 HR, 15 RBI, a .215 BA and .322 OBP.
The other one is 113 PA, 4 HR, 22 RBI, a .337 BA and .398 OBP.

Given the same talent and similar context, the rest is just luck.

What drives must of us stir crazy is when bad luck sticks to one player -- or one lineup spot or roster position -- and won't go away.

I've used both Sandy Koufax and Joe Wood in their best years in the same rotation spot on one high-cap team that is in first place just barely. If either Sandy or Joe came anywhere close to expectations, the team would have a sizeable lead. Instead, Koufax went 2-7 and Wood is 1-8. Two other Joe Wood '12 iterations on other teams in the league are 7-5 and 7-7.

And then I get to wondering how much luck is involved in real life: when Barry Zito can't live up to his high-value contract or when a Walt Dropo comes along and has one sensational season and then falls into mediocrity. Luck in the form of random outcomes must be more of a factor in the sim than in life, but I wonder if luck isn't a much larger factor in real life than most of us are accustomed to thinking that it is.