Posted by davep on 5/14/2015 4:06:00 PM (view original):
The ballparks don't seem to matter much. When I load up with triplers & pick a favorable park; they don't get nearly as many 3B's as one would expect. The same holds true for doublers in what should be a favorable park for them.

I don't agree with this entirely, in doubles and triples parks it may be true but with Homerun teams in Homerun Parks, I almost always win 10 to 25 more games at home. When you're hitting 150 or more homeruns at home and giving up less than 50, believe me, it's not hurting you..

You have us all intrigued ArlenWilliams. This is already sounding like fun. Can't wait to see your solutions to these. 

Thanks, IP. Probably Thursday if not sooner. There will be a fairly elegant commissioner's fix for the artificial hitting boost! A couple other spruce-ups of the skews, and for fun and gritty realism both... the opportunity for a scr... let's say a "deal on you," or two... or three.  SLB should be fun as well as painful.

I just came over to the boards here to vent about something I'm seeing out of one of my players...and this seems like a perfectly acceptable thread for it, so here goes.

I'm in a 120 mm theme league that currently has a league ERA of 4.49. 

1948 Stan Musial (I'm playing in Busch Stadium, which has -2 HR for LF/RF)

Just past the 1/4 mile marker here: Musial's slash line...304/.365/.380. He hits one XBH per 19 AB.

His '48 stats are of the .376/.450/.702 variety, and he hit one XBH per 6.24 AB.

This is a guy whose XBH slash line from '48 was 46/18/39. This season's totals have him at NINE EXTRA BASE HITS, with an XBH slash line of 7/0/2. So, despite Busch Stadium with its +1 3b rating, the 18 triple hitting, .376 batting Stan Musial is currently awaiting his first triple of the season.

Again, this is a not so extreme theme league, League ERA 4.49 / OAV .266 / OBP .332 / SLG .394 WHIP 1.42. The theme's pitching right now is pitching to a .726 OPS against. Musial's 1948 NL league pitching pitched to a .715 OPS against, and its relative OPS+ is actually .93. So that season was pitching dominated, more so than what this theme is doing.

So THIS is my entry into the skewed/warped contest.

Crossing my fingers. I hope I win!

Posted by pinotfan on 5/14/2015 2:28:00 PM (view original):
Another thing that doesn't skew in regards to deadball base stealers: if they're so bad at stealing, why aren't there more A and A+ catchers' arms in the deadball era?  There are only 13 deadballers in the database with 500+ PA/162 with A+ arms.  Who the hell is throwing these guys out?

this is the best observation in this thread and reveals the most overlooked flaw in WIS

'48 Musial's XBH prowess has now dipped to one XBH in every 20 AB. That is to say: 7 doubles and 2 HR in 180 AB.

Posted by popfischer on 5/19/2015 1:36:00 PM (view original):

Posted by pinotfan on 5/14/2015 2:28:00 PM (view original):
Another thing that doesn't skew in regards to deadball base stealers: if they're so bad at stealing, why aren't there more A and A+ catchers' arms in the deadball era?  There are only 13 deadballers in the database with 500+ PA/162 with A+ arms.  Who the hell is throwing these guys out?

this is the best observation in this thread and reveals the most overlooked flaw in WIS

Most likely because the respective base stealers of the era were in fact, so bad at stealing bases anyway. When a guy gets thrown out 50% of the time, it doesn't matter who's throwing to 2b. When it does matter is when a guy gets thrown out 20% of the time. That's where C arms begin to separate men from boys. That, and also, if you prop up catchers' arms from the dead ball era (if all base stealers suck, it isn't necessarily because the C stock was just 'that good'), you risk over-valuing catchers arms from said era when you begin using them in the WIS universe.

"Most likely because the respective base stealers of the era were in fact, so bad at stealing bases anyway. When a guy gets thrown out 50% of the time, it doesn't matter who's throwing to 2b"

Wrong ^

Yeah, I'm not seeing your logic here popfischer. 

What I'm saying is this:

When you have 12 grades for arm strength, the grades have to be extrapolated out across all eras. Sure, you can normalize, but you also have to take a few other things into account:
a) CS wasn't even a stat in a good chunk of the dead ball era.
b) MLB as a whole were being thrown out about 50% of the time. AS A WHOLE.
c) MLB in the modern era probably steals successfully at around a 2.5 or 3:1 clip.

So...How do you account for this? Simple. You tank the C of the dead ball era, and make it so that those lousy arms still throw out 50% of the nominal runner, but then to grade up, you have to pass the mustard in seasons where the average base stolen is done so at a 3:1 clip. Those catchers, who throw out better than that clip, most likely earn Bs or better. 

Not sure this is fact, but I'm going to accept it as my working notion rather than your "wrong".

"MLB as a whole were being thrown out about 50% of the time"

The highest CSPT between 1885 and 1915 is 45% held by four players.

Pinot's point stands... who was throwing these guys out?

There is a disconnect between the base stealers of that era ( the best of whom are in the 2/3 success ratio according to the WIS database) and the best CPST being 45%. It is a flaw. Either the CPST must be much higher or the base runners must have been more successful.

This will be the last I post on this because I am well beyond message board back and forth in my life.

There isn't data for CS in many of those deadball era years. The best you can do is extrapolate, as was done via Stephen Drake's website in 2007, where he estimated that the CS rate was 58%. 

As I stated earlier, you can't have an equal footing for catchers throwing out base stealers then and have their #s affect players from different eras. Hence, you will have a few guys who are A+, and many who are Ds. The "D" will throw out 58% of the nominal runner. That adjustment won't distort future eras, anymore than any other adjustment made. The benefit of doing it this way is that you get to break out the catchers' true value in throwing out base stealing in the eras where it became more of a focused, and therefore successful art. 

The game isn't messing it up. This isn't message board "back and forth", except that we're posting about this topic, and in doing so, we can perhaps further assist others in gaining knowledge, or you know, to the point of this thread. You're well beyond it, yet you posted just to make a proclamation?

So, to summarize, the ratings of the D catcher will throw out somewhere around 55% or so of the baserunners who stole bases at the success rate of the deadball era. They will fare worse against runners with higher %s. You're seeing this anomaly so as to not distort the overall affect these catchers have on future eras.

In progressives that go through the 1910's crzystengel sets his team to steal 0 bases.  He won 3 it all at least 3 times.

Ojo, it seems that pitchers' effectiveness as WIS assesses it, makes a very big difference in whether or not batters hit as many extra base hits as they did in real life. In your theme, is Musial facing a lot of dead-ball era pitchers with good ERC+ and ERA+?

Go Blackhawks! Beat the Ducks.

Isn't a chicken and egg thing as to whether the base stealers  were bad or the catchers had good arms?

What I've noticed is that when you play the deadballers against more modern catchers they steal bases at a better rate. Are they saying that these old 50% guys would do better against Bench, Rodriguez and Molina?

Actually, I just did a spot check of the teams in my league (the years-range for each team). Two of the teams in my division have pitching staffs generally from the dead ball era (all of whom have '3.00-.400' ERAs though). One other team in my 'National' League has a rotation of primarily dead ball ERA starters (again, all of which have 3.00-4.00 ERAs).


Comparable Players XBH in my division

Year	Player	Actual	Current
1930	Gehrig	6.12	9.05
1927	Ruth	5.88	6.58
1937	Medwick	6.87	11.47
1948	Musial	6.24	20.78
1927	Gehrig	5.26	8.85
1927	Ruth	5.88	8.25
1901	Lajoie	8.53	10.6
1911	Jackson	8.52	13.86

The bolded ones play on teams that has one of the dead ball era rotations. I emphasized their #s to show that they're facing less pitching from the dead ball era than the others.

So, essentially, while this does emphasize that the old adage of "good pitching beats good hitting" bears out here, I'm not seeing Musial's complete XBH depletion due largely to the pitching he's facing here.