New Pitching Model

[1of9MarlinsFan]

I just completed a 15 inning game, which I lost when the computer hit a 3-run shot. Anyway, the computer brought in his closer with an endurance rating of 6 for the late innings, meanwhile I utilized my 5th starter with an endurance of 70. The computer closer ended up with a pitch count of 77 while earning the win. The next day this closer was fairly tired at about 60%, while my 5th starter, who threw only 18 pitches was even more tired than the closer. The computers closer's arm should be dragging.

I've never had this problem before, just bringing it up to see if anybody else has encountered this possible glitch. As always great game.

[PadresFan104]

Sorry for the lame question, but this was with 1.60 correct? Haven't seen this glitch myself yet...

(edit) - wow 1000th post! [:)]

[Frozen Stiffer]

Not that I'm trying to justify or solve the error, but I too have a potentially lame question. The #5 starter you called in- what was his condition at the time you brought him in? If he was already tired from a recent pitching session, that could easily explain his exhaustion level. Granted, that does nothing to explain the reliever.

Just as PadresFan mentioned, I have not seen this glitch either. My relievers suffer if I keep them in too long. Going into my second extra-innings game in a row, I was out of pithcers to call on and had to go to my setup man. His stats are amazing, high 90s stuff - high 80s Control - low 80s Velocity, but his endurance is quite low, a 16. He ended up going 4 innings (and pitched them quite well) before I had to pull him in and go with a Tired reliever. In the end, we won the game in 15 innings, but the very next day, my closer was at a 'Dead' -10% fatigue level. Okay, he wasn't that bad, but he was BAD... I think it was at 5-8%. It wasn't pretty, but it was expected; you cannot push someone that hard and not expect to drain them. Backtracking, I cannot explain why the reliever was so 'healthy' after his prolonged outing. Pardon the potentially obvious suspicion, but was there perhaps more than one game in between the day their reliever pitched and when you checked his health? Perhaps they had a day off.

Just a thought.

(edit) - wow 386th post!

[:(]

....doesn't have the same ring to it.

[1of9MarlinsFan]

It's OK for asking such questions because personally I've never had this problem before.  Anyway, my 5th starter was %100 healthy when he entered the game, and we just completed the first game of a three game series, so there was not a day off in between.  At this point I'm over it and consider it a fluke, having said that; I might start putting out trade offers for their reliever and maybe he can do the same thing for me.
 
Thanks for the replies.

[Frozen Stiffer]

Just one last question... what was the pitch count for your #5?

[1of9MarlinsFan]

OK here's the pitching line:

Computer's Pitcher -- closer (6 Endurance) 4 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 77 pitches / Next Day 69%
My Pitcher -- #5 starter (83 Endurace) 1 2/3 IP, 3 H, 3R, 3 ER, 18 pitches Next Day 52%

Thanks

[PadresFan104]

Ok, that's certainly interesting... I'll keep my eye on this in my association.  Maybe Shaun will see this and offer his thoughts...

[KG Erwin]

This is making me curious, too. It's obvious that a number of factors play into the level of fatigue and recovery rates. It's also obvious that managers need to understand the criteria, since we don't have pitching coaches or visits to the mound.

Are these defined in the 1.6 XML? Crap -- I looked and all the XML gives is fatigue levels vis a vis the text descriptors, not the actual formulas.

So, once again, are we to discover these by actual usage, which means maintaining our own charts, or beg Shaun to look "behind the curtain"?

Well, this begs the question, perhaps, but what info would a real-life manager have? Is actual in-game endurance one of those "crystal ball" facets that SHOULDN'T be strictly defined? After all, it can change from start to start, or appearance to appearance.

The same goes for position players, so in my opinion, the pitchers shouldn't be exempt from this uncertainty.

I know, I just contradicted my opening statement, but I frequently have to write it out before making up my own mind.

What do you guys think?

[Frozen Stiffer]

Well, I think that limiting yourself as a real manager by removing access to certain information that a real manager would not know, must be balanced by access to information that a real manager would know.

Thus, though a real manager would not necessarily know what a pitcher's endurance is, there must be some sort of gauge or marker by which he could measure the pitcher's condition. A real manager has past statistics, personal experience, visual signs as well as the pitcher's ability to communicate his condition to the manager. Half of these are unavailable to us in PureSim, so I suspect that a pitcher's endurance rating, and our ability to easily access that, as well as a running pitch count, combine to help bring us closer to this real-world knowledge that's just out of reach for us.

[Frozen Stiffer]

More just came to mind...

Theoretically assuming he were to agree, asking Shaun to make public the value of all factors taken into consideration when determining how many pitches impact the effectiveness of a hurler or what the algorithm is used to calculate a pitcher's ending exhaustion level would be WAY too much. Imagine something like : [#_of_pitches_thrown] / {END} x [AGE] + (TEMPERATURE / FAVORITE_COLOR) - 6.

How realistic is that? Seriously now, can you envision Terry Francona with a scientific calculator, an abacus and a laptop, punching in numbers to see how long he should keep Beckett out there? Revealing all of this information is the same as creating a "TAKE HIM OUT NOW, HE'S TOO TIRED TO PITCH SKILLFULLY" warning light.

That's no fun. It's too much and completely unnecessary if you ask me. I think that whatever imperfections the exhaustion model may exhibit actually fit-- they mirror the imperfections of real life combined with the unpredictability of the human body.

I say you take the good and take the bad, you take them both and there you have... the facts of baseball.

[KG Erwin]

I agree, Frozen Stiffer. Here I go again, singing the game's praises, but it somehow factors in the intangibles (the humanistic stuff) that make every game an adventure.

A strict statistical replay don't have those human elements which keep us wondering, "what in the world's gonna happen next?", which could cause the human manager to either jump out of his chair and do the "Snoopy dance" or hang your head in despair and disgust.

[Frozen Stiffer]

Exactly.

How many managers that decide to leave pitcher X in for another inning, only to see their lead erased on a series of crappy pitches, would have left their pitcher in knowing that this would happen? None, of course. However... they DON'T know this is going to happen.

...and neither should we.

[Frozen Stiffer]

This is one of the things that I like about this community. We discuss the game until we turn blue, sure... but we also discuss the principles of the game, the unspoken honor, loyalty and devotion to everything that IS this game.

This is a good, good place.

A happy place.

[:)]

[CrashDavis]

Something that I am curious about, and I haven't seen anyone mentioning this yet: which XML file are you guys using? The puresim.xml default that comes with the install?
 
I personally use the "Talent_and_Trade_PureSim.xml" (renamed of course to puresim.xml). I got that from PadreFans site.

[KG Erwin]

Crash, I make it a "house rule" to use the default XML that comes with the latest version of the game. The only changes I make are "environmental (ballparks & photos)".

[KG Erwin]

Complete games leaders in 1947 for my league. Now, since I use a real-player draft league, some results may be skewed, but none of it seems implausible:

[KG Erwin]

The one thing that stands out to me is the size of the association. I use the historical 16 teams at that time, and 50-man drafted rosters.

For more modern eras, does keeping the talent pool within reasonable levels guarantee that semi-realistic results will be obtained? The presence of too many generated scrubs can throw things off considerably.

Have I been lucky enough to find a "happy zone"? If so, then there must be others. I used "early entry", and it seems that 1946 was a great "trigger point".

Surely there are other "trigger points", when a sudden influx of talent within a 3-year period manifested itself.

To narrow it down, look at the starting points of the Hall of Famers' careers. I did that, and that's what lead me to believe that the 3-year window starting in 1946 was something special.

[Frozen Stiffer]

Same here as with KG. I use the default .XML file, changing only pitcures, names, ball park names, etc. Park dimensions and the like went untouched.