I understand that a deadball pitcher will create more errors for his own defense. If I am wrong on that, feel free to correct me. But I read on a post that they also affect their own team's hitting, but I am skeptical about it because, from a purist's perspective, your pitcher should not hurt his own team's offense. So I have a few questions for those who know the sim better than I.

1. If you have a rotation of deadball pitchers, will they lower your own team's HR totals?
2. If so, is the effect the same as it is on the opposing team, or is it a lesser impact? 
3. Do other pitching stats also affect their own offense. E.g., If your pitchers have super low OAV, will your teams hit like crap because of it?

1.) No
2.) N/A
3.) No.

Deadball pitchers don't cause more errors in the way you may be thinking. They tend to result in more errors simply because they generally have lower K/9 rates (and, in some cases, lower BB/9) than modern pitchers, which means more balls are put in play, which means there are more chances for your fielders, which means that there will be more errors (though, at or around the same rate).

This is incomplete.  Fielding is normalized in a different way than hitting and pitching are.  Fielding is influenced by the era of the fielder, the hitter, and the pitcher.  Hitting is influenced only by the era of the hitter and of the pitcher.

Posted by ozomatli on 7/24/2015 7:20:00 PM (view original):
Deadball pitchers don't cause more errors in the way you may be thinking. They tend to result in more errors simply because they generally have lower K/9 rates (and, in some cases, lower BB/9) than modern pitchers, which means more balls are put in play, which means there are more chances for your fielders, which means that there will be more errors (though, at or around the same rate).

As contrarian implied, but maybe didn't state outright, this has not been correct for some years now.  Deadball pitchers do, in fact, raise the rate of error commission for their fielders.  Not sure if commission is a correct word there.  I think it is...

Interesting! That's what happens when you're away from the game for a few years. Thanks!

Thanks for the clarification, contrarian. Raising the rates of errors is the only way I can justify the lower prices for deadball pitchers. They do seem to come at bargain prices, but the degree of the bargain is not as great as it looks when you factor in more errors and thus, more unearned runs being allowed by them.

Their HR suppression makes up for the increased error rate, at least to me in most cases.

Does the SIM use some algorithm to "decide" that certain players are going to do poorly in an individual game/group of games/full season, or is it completely random? If my closer is getting bombed (even though he is at 100% strength), would it benefit me to rest him for a few games, or should I just keep putting him in save situations?

Every at bat, every game, is completely independent.  There is no streakiness - good or bad - built into SLB.

Posted by contrarian23 on 7/27/2015 9:36:00 PM (view original):
Every at bat, every game, is completely independent.  There is no streakiness - good or bad - built into SLB.

This.


It took me quite awhile to break away from my 'normal' baseball thinking & adjust to the raw numbers of the game

Posted by firesalt on 7/25/2015 10:18:00 AM (view original):
Thanks for the clarification, contrarian. Raising the rates of errors is the only way I can justify the lower prices for deadball pitchers. They do seem to come at bargain prices, but the degree of the bargain is not as great as it looks when you factor in more errors and thus, more unearned runs being allowed by them.

That may factor into it, but I think that they cost less because they throw fewer pitches overall because they strike out fewer batters, and often walk fewer. 

But I may be falling into a fallacy here - maybe someone else is surer of this?