"I'm sure you've noticed."

High strikeout pitchers don't  get as many strikeouts as in MLB.

Also, pitchers with very high control ratings still walk quite a few batters, more than the very low BB pitchers in MLB.

Could this be helped?  I would suggest an adjustment in the "engine," rather than something like increasing or decreasing players' ratings over many seasons.

You slay me. Slay me!

It's funny that some people don't recognize that each player doesn't play in a vacuum.    When a 98 control pitcher faces a 98 eye batter, what is supposed to happen?

I will admit that, admittedly without doing any research of my own (as I'm sure that Arlen has also not done any research, because facts and data often get in the way of his arguments), that it does "feel" that HBD does not seem to have the same outliers that MLB does in terms of strikeouts and walks.  I could be wrong, but that's just a casual observation/feeling.

But . . . much of that is self-inflicted by us, the owners.  We place premiums on ratings such as contact and batting eye for hitters . . . maybe too much of a premium, at least when compared to what MLB managers will tolerate.  We also place less of an emphasis on velocity for pitchers, considering it a secondary, or less important rating.

I think there may also be too much of a premium on control for pitchers, compared to MLB.  Case in point: Carlos Marmol, the Cubs closer.  Last season he saved 38 games, had a 1.18 WHIP and a 2.55 ERA.  He also walked 52 batters in 77.2 IP.  In HBD terms, that's a control rating of maybe 40 or so.  Not too many HBD owners are going to be willing to live with a closer with a control rating of 40, even if his splits are in the high 80's.

I just looked at the K/9 and BB/9 leaders for my worlds compared to the rates for MLB during the time frame that HBD was released (the last two years have been a serious gamechanger in MLB in terms of pitching numbers) - they actually look really good.  You probably aren't ever going to see a Randy Johnson (Ks) or Greg Maddux (BB) type outlier in HBD, but I don't know that you program for that in a sim, and other than that, things look pretty consistent.

I really don't think HBD should constantly have engine tweaks to try to keep in line with MLB stat trends, unless things get really outlandish, and I don't see that they are right now in this area.

Well, here's some pretty extensive research.     MLB averages(pro-rated for 162):
516 BB
1128 K

Hamilton(just completed)
489/1070

Coop(160 games and pro-rated for 162)
522/1053

MG(105 and pro-rated)
507/1038

While strikeouts are a little low, BB seem pretty close.  If you consider the following:  Eye/control are valued(walks), contact is valued and velocity is secondary, it looks about right.    Perhaps not individually, which is probably Arlen's gripe, but as a whole. 

Arlen wants to see outliers.  That's basically what he's looking for.

Fair enough.   But, if you want the 1.04/BB9 pitchers, concessions have to be made elsewhere.   And, trust me, we(as a group) would bastardize the stats by using those guys extensively.

Which, IMO, is what creates the "problems".   If something works, all of us want it.  If 94 control pitchers are going to start walking 1 batter per game, we're going to want 94 control pitchers.    If 96 velocity starts whiffing 1 batter per inning, bullpens are going to be full of 96 velocity pitchers.    Suddenly, we'll see 400 walks/1250 strikeouts as league averages.  If it's producing pennants, we'll seek high eye and high contact hitters to combat it.   We're dealing with simple numbers.  We can see what produces what and we know what can counter it. 

Good arguments here and I don't disagree per se with any of them. But, keep in mind that bb and k are not a result of ONLY 1 rating or skill in RL. Take Marmol, he walks a ton of guys in part because he's wild. He also walks guys because he is so hard to hit. Marmol gets so many swings and misses that he often has to throw 3 strikes to get an out. By contact a Buerhle type walks few in part because he pitches to contact. Even if only 1 pitch in an AB is a strike, that pitch is far more likely to be put in play. To generate the outliers, you have to consider all the ratings together. There shouldn't be very many 97 VE guys that also have multiple pitches in the 90s and splits in the 90s like say Randy Johnson. Those once a generation players can and do exist, but they don't seem to pit up 10+ K/IP rates.

I just like to see things happen like in real MLB -- but this is not a biggie with me.

IMO, this is one of the biggest areas for improvement in HBD.  The spread of player performances could match more closely to the historical performances of MLB.

There is no such thing in HBD and a high K/9, high BB/9, low OAV pitcher.  There have been a lot of them MLB. Nolan Ryan stands on top of the pile, but there have been a lot of other pitchers who match those stats.  Some in the HoF, some had very short careers. (I'm not saying every world should have a Nolan Ryan.)

There is no such thing in HBD as a high K, high BB, medium to low BA slugger.  There have been plenty of those in MLB.

SB is another example.  HBD seems to have gotten the team averages pretty good.  But they get there by having top base stealers SB/CS stats 85/5 and other players go 10/20.  Both are fairly common in HBD and extremely rare in MLB.

It's one thing to get the overall team averages close to MLB.  IMO, it would be a better game if there was more spread. Would make salary decisions more challenging.  The production difference between a few million dollar backup and a guy you can pick up in Rule 5 is pretty small in HBD.  And there are a lot of them. There's a vast difference in MLB between the skill level & overall performance of a vet 2B and the Rule 5 guys.

Nothing I'm proposing results in anything Mike put forward as a problem.  96 control guys would only walk 1.04 / 9, but there wouldn't be any more of them to go around.  If they didn't have other good ratings, they'd get hit hard.

96 velocity guys would strike out more batters, but there wouldn't be any more of them either.  If they had bad control, they' walk more batters.  If they had other bad ratings the balls hit in play would be hit hard.

We'd all have make choices on what we want and how much we'll pay for it.. The only change I'm proposing is more variety.  More player stats further from the middle than there is now.  A closer match to MLB.

Would be nice, alright.

If there are more outliers, then the "good" outliers will be overvalued, and the "bad" outliers would be further shunned.  Overall stats would shift further from reality.

I think part of the definition of outliers is there aren't a lot of them.

If better Ps and Hs were added proportionally, how do stats shift?