suppose any league everyone's from the same year they go with the + not the #

more likely though your numbers are wrong and you should check check double check

I promise you my numbers are not wrong.

yeah its odd. other progressives I've played in the modern era don't have this problem. there must be something about the way strikeouts normalize in very low strikeout eras, where the formula is too weighted towards the hitter.

using SimMatchup to run a bunch of 1903 Rube Waddell starts against another 1903 team, I happened to choose the Cardinals

Start 1: 9 innings, 0 K
Start 2: 9 innings, 1 K
Start 3: 9 innings, 2 K
Start 4: 9 innings, 3 K
Start 5: 9 innings, 2 K
Start 6: 9 innings, 4 K
Start 7: 9 innings, 1 K
Start 8: 9 innings, 1 K
Start 9: 11 innings, 2 K
Start 10: 9 innings, 1 K

Thats 17 Ks in 92 innings, when he should be around 80.

Formula is busted.

How does Waddell do against modern hitters?

How does Verlander do against deadballers?

I'm in a single-season prog that started in 1901 and is now in 1952. Here are a few deadball pitchers' career real life and prog totals (all played between 1901-1919):

Doc White:
Real Life 3041 IP, 1384 K
Prog 3427 IP, 456 K

Mordecai Brown:
3172 IP, 1375 K
2486 IP, 582 K

Ed Walsh:
2964 IP, 1736 K
3227 IP, 780 K

Addie Joss:
2327 IP, 920 K
2654 IP, 348 K

Ed Reulbach:
2632 IP, 1137 K
2064 IP, 456 K

Something's off!

Posted by ozomatli on 9/6/2020 12:58:00 AM (view original):
How does Waddell do against modern hitters?

How does Verlander do against deadballers?

1903 Waddell against 2019 Astros in sim matchup:
8ip/8k
8ip/3k
7ip/4k
8ip/5k
8ip/2k
7ip/4k

46ip/26k

2019 Verlander against 1903 Athletics
7ip/4k
6ip/3k
7ip/5k
7ip/1k
7ip/2k
7ip/2k

41ip/17k


I think the problem in the formula lies with the deadball hitters

I agree that most of the issue is with the hitters. I did a quick search for the years 1900-1909 on SO/100AB. The highest was 1902 Socks Seybold at 9.58. The reality is that strikeouts weren't an official stat for batters during the dead ball era. I know that BR shows them for those years, but having done research myself in that era, I can say that they weren't tracked back in the day. According to BR, 1903 AL teams had between 461 and 588 Ks and the 1903 NL teams had between 381 and 628. Waddell and Mathewson each accounted for slightly more than 7% of their league Ks that year. The league averages per 600 PA were about 62 in the AL and 53 in the NL. Ollie Pickering led MLB with 75 Ks, which was 1.8% of all AL Ks that year. That would equate to roughly 385 Ks in 2019 baseball. For the period 1900-1909, every hitter's contact rate is at least .900 with a maximum of .964 by 1908 Dave Brain. Clearly, Ollie Pickering's contact rate of .910 and SO/100AB of 8.98 in 1903 aren't correct.

However, I wonder a bit about the pitchers when I see the limited Waddell results above. 1903 Waddell has K/9# of 10.47 with K/100 of 25.20. The 2019 Astros had the fewest batter Ks in the AL with 1,166, well below the AL average of 1,428, but still 7.2 K per game. In the limited sample above, Waddell averaged 5.09 K/9 against the Astros. Given that his K/9 of 8.4 was more than double the league average of 3.9 and more than 50% better than the second-place total of 5.5 by Bill Donovan, I would expect more Ks from him. Obviously, six games isn't a statistically significant sample but only in the first game did he approach the performance that I would expect against the 2019 Astros.

In the sim, there are 41 seasons in which K/9# is 10 or greater. Dazzy Vance had five, followed by Bob Feller with four. Waddell, Ryne Duren, and Nolan Ryan had two each. Feller's 21.52 in his 1936 rookie year is by far the best ever. As Ks have become more common, there have been fewer of these seasons. Since the end of WWII, there have been only 16 seasons with at least 10 K/9#. The last was by Rob Dibble in 1992. These pitchers should post astronomical K numbers against any hitters compared to the real-life average of that season. 1924 Dazzy Vance (K/9# of 15.27) should be a candidate to strike out 400 hitters if he played against 2019 major leaguers. I'm not certain that he would because the sim determines hit or out before determining a strikeout.

The second round of the WIS Championship has a theme at a $90M cap at which the team's pitchers/hitters have to fall into one of the following two buckets:
1) Pitchers > 7 K/9# and Hitters > 12 SO/100 AB, or
2) Pitchers < 3 K/9# and Hitters < 4 SO/100AB.

Rationally, I think option 1 should be the clear winner especially at a $90M cap. However, I wonder whether the dead ball pitchers are really the best answer because the high K/9 won't ever really come into play.

I've played this game for years. I like playing it. For me it isn't about winning. I like the day to day managing of the lineups, pitch counts etc.
BUT, I've always had issues with the algorithm. I think it's basically garbage IF realism is your actual objective. I don't think it is here!

There may indeed be new flaws, however it's always been very unrealistic IMO. I'd quit if that was all that mattered to me.
This site has suffered greatly from over a decade of little interest (in improvements) by Corp. ownership.
I have witnessed many long term veterans "retire" out of basic frustration with the "flaws".

It's very sad IMO, because this site/game could be so so much better!!
The lack of any effort to actually save/fix the LIVE game is a great example.
As I only found this site about 10 years ago I never even got to play LIVE!
Just heard about how cool it WAS!!! With the way I use this "gaming site" the LIVE would have been 99.9% of my own usage IF it had been fixed.
The last decade has just plainly revealed how we (us USERS) are nothing but the money source. Management feels that we will continue shelling out the game fees over and over again and never really quit playing because they have us by the addicted balls! And for most of us that's very true!!

Until and unless, the vast majority of users demand an upgrade to the algorithm AND WEBSITE FUNCTION, nothing will change short term. EVER!!
But remember, realism means many more 2 -1 ballgames. Years ago, I've been told, this website made the decision to forego realism in favor of runs and hits and built in an advantage to the hitters. And apparently, this was done because the users here wanted it!!

IMO, this website has been used (by the owners) as a small cash cow (an easy source of available CASH) and they have little incentive to actually put the money back into the site and make large (and needed) changes as that in itself would require much resources, cash, effort, etc and would only yield results that MAY work swell, or may make the entire user base disgusted with the changes. Too much risk is probably the calculus.

BUT, for my $$$, I personally would like an entire algorithm rewrite to render more realism COMBINED with a smart and logical dynamic pricing system.
That idea (dynamic pricing) was a solid idea, implemented horridly with mistakes that SHOULD have been easily avoided.
My 2 cents

The salaries are ridiculous. There's no logical reason for '08 Joss to cost so much more than '10 Walsh on a $/IP basis, for 1 example.

And... There's very little reason to roster a pitching season prior to 2015 (due to the dynamic pricing among other things)... When everyone else figures this out (thanks in part to this comment, I suppose) It's going to create a lot of parity in a lot of league.

Another consequence to strikeouts being suppressed is an increase in errors. If a PA outcome is determined to be an out, but not a strikeout- an error can occur. If a pitcher should be averaging 7k/9 but is only avg 2-3k/9, that's 4-5 opportunities that can turn into errors that shouldn't.

This is a TINY annoyance but still............ How many managers are so stupid that they continually call for a Hit and Run play with 2 strikes!!!!???
For crying out loud..........how is it that after years and years here, that the play by play outcome of hit and run events still result in a strike 'em out, throw 'em out DP time after time after time. You'd THINK that a few of us owner/managers would have initiated Hit and Run calls, with LESS Than 2 strikes on the batter!!!! But nope, not here! Completely ridiculous to have so many Hit/Run events result in that DP!!
In this algorithm the strike em out/throw em out DP occurs in a HUGE amount of Hit and Run events. It's really as IF every occurrence of a Hit and Run play happens with 2 strikes on the batter. No manager is that stupid!

Seems like the baseline for normalizing Ks is off.
The better K pitchers from the last 2 years have their K/9 normalized almost to half of their raw numbers. I certainly understand why, but I think that's a little overboard. Maybe they didn't adjust the formula in the past several years to account for the big influx of high K hitters/pitchers.

Posted by laramiebob on 12/29/2020 8:19:00 AM (view original):
I've played this game for years. I like playing it. For me it isn't about winning. I like the day to day managing of the lineups, pitch counts etc.
BUT, I've always had issues with the algorithm. I think it's basically garbage IF realism is your actual objective. I don't think it is here!

There may indeed be new flaws, however it's always been very unrealistic IMO. I'd quit if that was all that mattered to me.
This site has suffered greatly from over a decade of little interest (in improvements) by Corp. ownership.
I have witnessed many long term veterans "retire" out of basic frustration with the "flaws".

It's very sad IMO, because this site/game could be so so much better!!
The lack of any effort to actually save/fix the LIVE game is a great example.
As I only found this site about 10 years ago I never even got to play LIVE!
Just heard about how cool it WAS!!! With the way I use this "gaming site" the LIVE would have been 99.9% of my own usage IF it had been fixed.
The last decade has just plainly revealed how we (us USERS) are nothing but the money source. Management feels that we will continue shelling out the game fees over and over again and never really quit playing because they have us by the addicted balls! And for most of us that's very true!!

Until and unless, the vast majority of users demand an upgrade to the algorithm AND WEBSITE FUNCTION, nothing will change short term. EVER!!
But remember, realism means many more 2 -1 ballgames. Years ago, I've been told, this website made the decision to forego realism in favor of runs and hits and built in an advantage to the hitters. And apparently, this was done because the users here wanted it!!

IMO, this website has been used (by the owners) as a small cash cow (an easy source of available CASH) and they have little incentive to actually put the money back into the site and make large (and needed) changes as that in itself would require much resources, cash, effort, etc and would only yield results that MAY work swell, or may make the entire user base disgusted with the changes. Too much risk is probably the calculus.

BUT, for my $$$, I personally would like an entire algorithm rewrite to render more realism COMBINED with a smart and logical dynamic pricing system.
That idea (dynamic pricing) was a solid idea, implemented horridly with mistakes that SHOULD have been easily avoided.
My 2 cents

To the point about realism, I do agree that there will always be some people who play to get as close to realistic as possible and maybe just as many who are less concerned so long as it is entertaining.

I've played another sim for about 18 years that doesn't use real MLB players. It's a GM-based game with fictitious players who you develop from draft through their whole careers. Anyway, at one point I engaged directly with the site's creator about increasing injuries to realistic levels and causing players to lose skills in certain areas (i.e., knee injury at 28 causes a skills reduction in speed and range).

The upshot was he wouldn't consider it because he knew it would cost him business. Owners would get mad that the player they developed lost time and skills to injuries. They wouldn't want them to happen just because they are realistic. They enjoy players doing well more than performing realistically.

It would not surprise me if that same calculus is in play here to boost offense somewhat. Certainly the 10% bonus in PA helps good players get into more games than realism would dictate. I get it. If I draft Babe Ruth, I want him in the lineup as much as possible, right?

I'm not sure that's a good comparison.
The 10% applies to pitchers too, and this is so if you wind up in an unexpectedly offensive league, you have a little bit of a safety net.

Lots of strikeout wouldn't affect the customer experience, if my Ruth strikes out 120 times instead of 80 times, but main numbers, Avg, HR, RBI etc. remain the same, I don't see why that would cost business. On the other hand, and injury which removes your player from the game, or significant impairs them going forward, definitely would. I wouldn't keep paying money for a game that would take away my star player because of a random number generator.