MLB 10 News Post

With Baseball Stats, Trying to Synthesize Real, Fun (Kotaku)

11:52 PM - May 1, 2010 by Dabeeds

Quote:


	"The more true-to-life the machine simulation, the more repulsive humans find it. That's the "uncanny valley." After hundreds of games I realize baseball on my Xbox 360 and PS3 will always battle that conundrum - and not in their visuals. MLB 10 The Show is acclaimed and marketed as the most realistic baseball simulation on a games console. So I had to snort when I got to the end of a season and noticed that Alex Rodriguez, at 34, had clubbed 61 home runs for the New York Yankees. My God, given that team, that number and that player, the mind reels at it actually happening in real life. That's realistic? It strains the imagination, but let's ask what would be, if not repellent, more disappointing to the human eye: A game that does allow A-Rod a one-for-the-ages home run performance, or one so painstakingly mathematically accurate he's handcuffed to half that total, which is more what he's expected to deliver this year?"

Game: MLB '10: The ShowReader Score: 9/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3Votes for game: 66 - View All

MLB '10: The Show Videos

Member Comments

# 1 acts238shaun @ 05/02/10 12:44 AM

good read, don't agree 100% but there were good points.

great find

# 2 Snowman1025 @ 05/02/10 05:13 AM

I can't believe that park factors aren't taken into effect with simulations in this game.

# 3 econoodle @ 05/02/10 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman1025


	I can't believe that park factors aren't taken into effect with simulations in this game.

shocked as well

# 4 tabarnes19_SDS @ 05/02/10 09:53 AM

I could've sworn one of the devs said that park factors were present in game.

# 5 countryboy @ 05/02/10 10:06 AM

So he took two players who were having subpar seasons and came to the conclusion that the park factors aren't present in the game?

Wow...tough to argue with those findings..

---

And yes..its been stated that park factors are indeed present in the game. I'll take the word of the people who actually developed the game vs someone who used such an in-depth scientific formula to come to their conclusion.

# 6 The House @ 05/02/10 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabarnes19


	I could've sworn one of the devs said that park factors were present in game.

Playing it, yes. Simming it, no.

# 7 RedsManRick @ 05/02/10 01:18 PM

Nice article. Sort of a shame that The Show feels the need to do their own stat analysis when there are professionals such as BP, THT, and Fangraphs who I'm sure would be happy to work with them. The inability to account for park factors is just silly, to say nothing of their presumed ignorance towards controlling for luck driven effects seen through via stats like BABIP and FIP.

# 8 BobSacamano @ 05/02/10 01:24 PM

I'm in the middle of my 2nd franchise with the Red Sox, and in the first go Buchholz and Beltre were terrible. In my 2nd franchise, they're still terrible. I guess it's nice to know that I should just go ahead and edit them rather than wait for them to turn it around.

In addition to park effects, the Show really needs to work on old guys playing like they're old. Guys like David Ortiz, Jermaine Dye, and Vlad Guerrero should be getting worse, not producing like it's 2005.

# 9 countryboy @ 05/02/10 01:37 PM

LOL..Vlad is hitting .326 right now and Jermaine Dye hit 27 homeruns last year. Jeter hit .334 last year at age 35 which was good for 5th in all of baseball for guys with 500+ AB.

You can't just say well..he's old so he shouldn't produce. Talent and skill level still have a say.

# 10 BobSacamano @ 05/02/10 02:01 PM

Jermaine Dye is a free agent right now because he can't play defense and he put up a .590 OPS in the 2nd half last year. Given his nonexistant knees and horrific second half, it's not exactly a stretch that he'll never be the same player again. In fact, I'm pretty certain of it.

Have you checked Vlad Guerrero's home/away splits? He's put up a 1.153 OPS at the launching pad in Arlington and a .427 OPS on the road (

). Granted that's an extremely small sample size, but given his nonexistant knees (Hey, I'm seeing a trend! You need knees to hit), decline in production the previous two seasons, and the aforementioned spits, I'm not at all convinced that he'll sustain that level of production. Guerrero always relied on an extremely quick wrists, which doesn't bode well for his later years when he can't get the bat through the zone as fast.

Derek Jeter is a slap hitter. It's not really surprising that he's aging differently than power hitters.

I won't disagree with you that talent plays a big role in how quickly someone declines, but age and injuries play an even bigger role. Neither of those factors are on Dye, Guerrero, and Ortiz's side.

This is a long-winded post, but the point was that three-year splits are only a part of the equation in predicting players going forward.

# 11 countryboy @ 05/02/10 02:13 PM

your comment initially was that old players shouldn't be able to produce. And thats what I responded to. There are several examples of guys who were 32+ that still produced.

Yes..a player starts declining due to age, but that doesn't mean that he automatically shouldn't be able to produce, especially in a video game. I mean, at what age would you put the cutoff?

But in any event, thats a different discussion for a different thread as this one is about how a guy noticed that 2 players were having subpar seasons and formed an opinion off of their stats.

# 12 BobSacamano @ 05/02/10 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by countryboy


	your comment initially was that old players shouldn't be able to produce

...like it's 2005. My point was that this guys should be declining, not sustaining their production. I don't think you need some uniform age cut-off, since I'm pretty sure there are age models that tell you how much the average player declines/improves at certain ages.

I love this game, but the player evaluation/progression could be improved. In my opinion, it tends to overrate older, established guys (the Jermaine Dyes of the baseball world, the Johnny Damons) and underrated the younger, likely-to-breakout guys (the Matt Wieters, the Andrew McCutchens).

Anyways, your point about the article is certainly correct. Weird that a guy who is clamoring for more scientific player models is drawing conclusions on a sample size of... two.

# 13 ComfortablyLomb @ 05/02/10 05:32 PM

The effect of reduced PED usage in MLB isn't really reflected in The Show. The way it produces outcomes and career paths it feels more like the 90s and early 00s. Tough for the devs to hit a moving target though.

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With Baseball Stats, Trying to Synthesize Real, Fun (Kotaku)