Unbelievable HR Stats

[teamjesus316]

Is anyone else having problems like this:

53 games so far and I have 3 players over 20 HRs. I wouldnt have a question about this except that it is 1910! In another league I played, in 1900 a guy hit 74 HRs. I know the stats should not match their historical stats, but shouldnt they be somewhat in the ballpark? I mean people really didnt start hitting over 20 HRs till Babe Ruth came around. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

[henry296]

Do the three players play for the same team?
 
Check the stadiums that those high HRs hitters play in.  Sometimes the default stadiums have very short fences.

[teamjesus316]

Does anyone know where to get correct stadiums from? Is there a downloadable pack of all the historical stadiums?

[PadresFan104]

This problem has come up many times now.  Is there a good "Deadball" ballpark that we could use as a reference?

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: PadresFan104

This problem has come up many times now.  Is there a good "Deadball" ballpark that we could use as a reference?

Ah, there's the rub. Some of those OLD old parks had cavernous outfields, but the PS code is only set to measure depth just so far (anyone know the exact limit?). Just look at old Shibe Park -- dead center is 515 feet. On the "design park" screen, it literally goes off the page!

We're going into familiar complaints, here, as the older parks had more data points than the game allows for, so stat irregularities will happen. Forbes Field, as represented in game dimensions, is abstracted greatly, as are several of the other "classic parks" that I play in.

To be honest, I think we'd better accent the fact that while the game offers reasonable facsimilies for real players, there are a multitude of variables than can skew the stats. Hell, I don't want an exact simulation, and I honestly believe that no one should expect an exact sim. What would be the point? That's what you have documentaries and historical box-scores for -- to relive a past event.

If nothing else, this is the strongest argument for using strictly fictional players. No preconceived expectations are present. In Pure Sim, a real-life Hall-of-Famer just may end up a washout, while a guy who just came up for a cup of coffee might, just might, become a superstar for ten years in your association's alternate history path.

[PadresFan104]

Ok, I did a little research, and while I thought that the older ballparks 1900-1920 had ridiculously large dimensions, not all of them are so bad.  The lack of HR's back then was due to other factors such as the ball itself, the pitchers abilility to add tobacco and spit to the ball, and the approach the hitters took.  Still, when playing in the deadball era, one should probably be using ballparks with dimensions of around 350' down the lines, and 400 to 500' to dead center.  Anything shorter than that will probably lead to problems.

Didn't someone already make a Deadball ERA XML file for this?

[KG Erwin]

All good points, Al, and I'd also make a radical suggestion -- a way to import all of the player data and history from a given association into a newly-created association that recreates a newer era.  
 
This is one way to move the players/history from the "Deadball Era" association into the 1920-45 "Pre-Golden Age" Era --  the historical-era boundaries could be of your own choosing. 
 
See what I'm getting at?  Does it make sense, and more importantly, is it doable?   In this way, the historical expansion of the leagues and relocations of teams could be re-created.  In other words, "linking associations", for lack of a better term.
 
I mention this because I'd envisioned my " Golden Age" association to only last from 1946 to 1960.   IF I had the ability to go into 1961 with pre-existing in-game players and history in a NEW association, the expansion era could be done.         
 
 

[Nukester]

I tried using correct dimensions for the parks used in 1903 and gave up. You cant edit to correct dimesions. The game comes with a bunch of historical parks, so you can move a few teams around to the stadiums they used later on (like moving the Cardinals to Sportsman's Park instead of trying to create Robison Field, and the Cubs to Wrigley Field instead of trying to create West Side Grounds.

If I recall, I was getting very bad numbers using South End Grounds for the Boston Beaneaters, so I jsut moved them to Braves Field early.

[Nukester]

Here is a nice spreadsheet showing dimensions and whatnot (not sure where I got this. One of the ballpark sites, or maybe someone created......dunno. Ive had it for a long time)

You have to change the .txt extension to .zip after downloading it

[BauerPower]

The problem is definitely the ballparks. I always import all the Old Time Baseball” Classic MLB Ballparks from PadreFan's website and no one ever has more than 12 HRs. I don't care that the Cubs are playing in Wrigley in 1908. One thing I do modify is Fenway because the Red Sox team tends to have a ton of HRs in the deadball era with the Fenway from the "Old Time Baseball" ballpark, so I move the fences back about 20 feet.

[SittingDuck]

I don't think making the historical ballparks by themselves should get it all correct.  The xml has got to be altered to replicate the 'dead' ball itself.  I think you can only affect the number of HRs - not necessarily the length of the drives themselves.  Or perhaps the game automatically does that - cuts down on the long drives if you drop the HR parameters.

Either way, the ball (and other things we can replicate like pitcher tactics and so on) was the big issue, along with a few outrageously large parks (some without fences!).  But those parks are then counter-balanced by the bandboxs like Polo Grounds.