MLB Player Development Study (could be useful for BM/Puresim/OOTP)

[Ben E Lou]

2001 Retirees, >1000 AB's...

NAME	AB's	Debut	350 AB 1st	350 AB Last	Last AB
Ducey, Rob	1279	22	xxx	xxx	36
Bogar, Tim	1516	26	xxx	xxx	34
Branson, Jeff	1555	25	26	26	34
Mouton, James	1570	25	xxx	xxx	32
Santangelo, FP	1691	27	28	30	33
Eusebio, Tony	1739	24	28	28	34
Buford, Damon	1853	23	27	30	31
Davis, Russ	1980	24	27	29	31
Abbott, Kurt	2044	24	26	27	32
Wilkins, Rick	2114	24	26	29	34
Sanders, Deion	2123	21	26	29	33
Frye, Jeff	2155	25	29	30	34
Servais, Scott	2493	24	29	30	34
Jaha, John	2775	26	27	33	35
Veras, Quilvio	2780	24	24	28	30
Lewis, Mark	2795	21	22	28	31
Taubensee, Ed	2874	22	29	30	32
Brogna, Rico	2958	22	25	29	31
Meares, Pat	3287	24	25	31	32
Oliver, Joe	3367	23	24	27	35
Spiers, Bill	3408	23	24	34	35
Hill, Glenallen	3715	24	27	33	36
Brosius, Scott	3889	24	28	34	34
Curtis, Chad	4017	23	23	29	32
Sprague, Ed	4095	23	25	31	33
Lansing, Mike	4150	25	25	33	33
Magadan, Dave	4159	23	26	30	38
Hamilton, Darryl	4577	23	26	34	36
Bell, Derek	4578	22	24	31	32
Buhner, Jay	5013	22	26	35	36
Javier, Stan	5047	20	24	35	37
Hayes, Charlie	5262	23	25	35	36
Davis, Eric	5321	22	24	36	39
Martinez, Dave	5795	21	22	35	36
McGwire, Mark	6187	22	23	35	37
Caminiti, Ken	6288	24	26	35	38
Bichette, Dante	6381	24	26	37	37
Canseco, Jose	7057	20	21	34	36
Joyner, Wally	7127	24	24	36	39
Bonilla, Bobby	7213	23	23	34	38
O'Neill, Paul	7318	22	25	38	38
White, Devon	7344	22	24	38	38
Fernandez, Tony	7911	21	23	37	39
Gwynn, Tony	9288	22	24	39	41
Baines, Harold	9908	21	21	40	42
Ripken, Cal	11551	20	21	40	40
		Debut	350 AB 1st	350 AB Last	Last AB
	Avg	23.02	25.07	32.60	35.09
	St Dev	1.62603	2.131345974	3.77422042	2.935046
	1 Std Dev Bot	21.40	22.94	28.83	32.15
	1 Std Dev Top	24.65	27.20	36.38	38.02
	Max	27	29	38	39
	Min	20	21	26	30

(2000 study in progress, thread closed until then.......)

[Ben E Lou]

2000 Retires, >1000 AB

NAME	AB's	Debut	350 AB 1st	350 AB Last	Last AB
Amaral, Rich	1788	29	31	31	38
Becker, Rich	2227	21	23	25	28
Belle, Albert	5853	22	24	33	33
Berroa, Geronmio	2506	24	29	32	35
Berry, Sean	2413	24	30	30	34
Brown, Brant	1056	25	xxx	xxx	29
Clark, Will	7173	22	22	34	36
DiSarcina, Gary	3744	21	24	30	32
Elster, Kevin	2844	21	23	31	35
Gaetta, Gary	8951	22	23	39	41
Greene, Willie	1902	20	25	26	28
Guillen, Ozzie	6686	21	21	33	36
Howard, Thomas	2483	25	27	31	35
Hunter, Brian	1555	23	xxx	xxx	32
Huskey, Butch	2078	21	24	27	28
Huson, Jeff	1875	23	25	25	35
Jefferies, Greg	5520	19	21	30	32
Johnson, Lance	5379	23	26	33	36
Jones, Chris	1021	25	xxx	xxx	34
Kelly, Roberto	4797	22	24	32	35
Leyritz, Jim	2527	26	30	33	36
Mieske, Matt	1547	25	28	28	32
Morandini, Mickey	4558	24	26	34	34
Morris, Hal	3998	23	26	33	35
O'Brien, Charlie	2232	25	xxx	xxx	40
Polonia, Luis`	4840	23	23	30	36
Reed, Jeff	3101	21	xxx	xxx	37
Stanley, Mike	4222	23	30	36	37
Stocker, Kevin	2773	23	25	27	30
Webster, Lenny	1450	24	xxx	xxx	35
Whiten, Mark	3104	23	24	29	33
		23.00	25.36	30.88	34.10
	St Dev	2.0166	2.89942523	3.38279963	3.228569
	1 Std Dev Bot	20.98	22.46	27.50	30.87
	1 Std Dev Top	25.02	28.26	34.26	37.33
	Max	29	31	39	41
	Min	19	21	25	28

[Ben E Lou]

1999...

NAME	AB's	Debut	350 AB 1st	350 AB Last	Last AB
Allensworth, Jermaine	1031	24	25	26	27
Blauser, Jeff	4522	21	23	32	33
Blowers, Mike	2300	24	28	33	34
Boggs, Wade	9180	24	25	40	41
Brumfield, Jacob	1575	27	30	31	34
Cangelosi, John	2004	22	23	23	36
Cedeno, Domingo	1219	24	28	28	30
Davis, Chili	8673	21	22	39	39
Garcia, Carlos	2178	22	25	29	31
Gates, Brent	2329	23	23	25	29
Goodwin, Curtis	1014	22	xxx	xxx	26
Howard, David	1583	24	29	29	32
Howell, Jack	2639	23	24	27	37
Jackson, Darrin	2629	22	28	31	36
Jefferson, Reggie	2123	22	24	28	30
Kelly, Pat	1988	23	25	25	31
King, Jeff	4262	24	25	33	34
Leius, Scott	1536	24	26	29	33
Macfarlane, Mike	3602	23	26	32	35
Manwaring, Kirt	2982	21	27	29	33
May, Derrick	2200	21	23	25	30
McGee, Willie	7649	23	23	34	40
McRae, Brian	5114	22	23	31	31
Nilsson, Dave	2779	22	24	27	29
Nixon, Otis	5115	24	32	39	40
Phillips, Tony	7617	23	24	40	40
Sorrento, Paul	3412	23	26	32	33
Steinbach, Terry	5369	24	25	36	37
Strawberry, Darryl	5481	21	21	29	37
Sveum, Dale	2526	22	23	24	35
		DEBUT	350 AB 1st	350 AB Last	Last AB
	Avg	22.83	31)"> 25.17	30.55	33.77
	St Dev	1.34121	31)"> 2.53643402	4.80019499	3.997269
	1 Std Dev Bot	21.49	22.64	25.75	29.77
	1 Std Dev Top	24.17	27.71	35.35	37.76
	Max	27	31)"> 32	40	41
	Min	21	31)"> 21	23	26

[Ben E Lou]

And finally, our three-year totals.

	DEBUT	350 AB 1st	350 AB Last	Last AB
Avg	22.96	25.18	31.55	34.43
St Dev	1.66498	2.445277376	4.09018291	3.364947
1 Std Dev Bot	21.30	22.73	27.46	31.06
1 Std Dev Top	24.63	27.62	35.64	37.79
Max	29	32	40	42
Min	19	21	23	26

[korme]

Great study. Looks like OOTP has it pretty well with people falling off at 36-38. Looks like average players are usually out of the game by their mid 30's.

[korme]

SkyDog, how did you com up with 350 at bats? I am about to check the stats for retirees in our online league, see how they compare, but we only play 140 game seasons and thus I need to proportionalize.

[Ben E Lou]

Shorty:

Well, there are actually at least two fundamental flaws in development/aging/AI that exist in OOTP as of version 6.12, (and Markus would acknowledge both of these as problems, I'm pretty sure):

1. Far too many mediocre 32 and ups are staying in the lineup instead of what should be happening, turning those spots over to younger players. This study shows that around 31.5 is the average of when an everyday player ceases to be an everyday player. It further tells us that roughly 1/3 of players should get their first 350 AB season in the 22-25 age range. 6.12 wasn't coming even CLOSE to that figure.

2. Far too many guys were breaking into the lineup for the first time at age 31 or older. Only Nixon and Amaral did that out of 107 instances in this study, and I'd venture a pretty strong guess that if I were to run this study out 10 or 20 seasons, the frequency of that happening would drop even more. In 6.12, it was fairly common for a guy to peter along in the minors or on the bench, get a random development bump in their early 30's, and play every day until their late 30's. Of this entire study, only Otis Nixon had that kind of career.

As far as the 350 AB threshold, I threw it out there a good while ago just as a talking point to discuss the problem of younger players not getting into the lineup. At the time, myself and others were saying that too many old guys were in the league, and Markus was responding with an overall average league age as compared to MLB. Someone pointed out that the problem wasn't so much overall, but that young guys were sitting the bench. I then shifted the discussion to 350 AB players because I figured it was a good representative of the first time a guy was truly "given a shot." To get to 350 AB's for the first time in career generally means that one of these conditions would have to be true:

1. He played nearly every day from day one of the season on.

2. He was the left-handed half of a platoon all, or nearly all, of the season--meaning he got most of the at bats.

3. He replaced an injured player in the lineup for half the season or longer.

4. He got called up in mid-June or earlier, and played every day from then on out.



Since then, people have done research on league ages based on 350 AB's, so there now exists a good body of data around that particular number, so I keep using it to be consistent. I've used it in discussions with Shaun and Clay as well, and they, along with Markus, seem to accept it as a good indicator, so I guess I'll continue to use it. {shrug}



Since 140/162*350= roughly 302.5, I'd use 300 AB's with your league.

[Ben E Lou]

Shorty,

As an example of the stuff that now exists around that number, I found this on my hard drive. I think Kemp over at the OOTP boards did this study. It shows the ages of every player from 1980-2003 who got 350 AB's or more:

Age	Count	Percentage
19	1	.023%
20	9	.210%
21	33	.771%
22	82	1.916%
23	174	4.066%
24	287	6.707%
25	347	8.109%
26	415	9.699%
27	443	10.353%
28	394	9.208%
29	386	9.021%
30	347	8.109%
31	320	7.478%
32	245	5.726%
33	222	5.188%
34	179	4.183%
35	133	3.108%
36	98	2.290%
37	64	1.496%
38	44	1.028%
39	21	.491%
40	18	.421%
41	9	.210%
42	4	.093%
43	3	.070%
44	1	.023%
	4279

[korme]

2018 Retirees >1000	Doesn't include foreign imports.
NAME	AB's	Debut	303 AB 1st	303 AB Last	Last AB
Hernandez, Roberto	4811	23	23	31	37
Hideyori, Sauhachirou	1446	25	28	28	32
Hoitsu, Kinji	5788	26	28	38	39
Hoshiko, Mitsuji	3908	24	28	33	38
Izumo, Masanao	2974	27	28	34	35
Kiyonobu, Cha-ruzu	2213	25	26	35	35
LeClaire, Mark	6402	24	24	36	36
Masanori, Meison	1306	25	31	31	32
Mastin, Chris	8011	22	23	37	37
Ryushi, Kuraku	1202	25	26	26	34
Saionji, Kotsutoshi	2550	25	26	33	34
Senzo, A-ban	2364	24	27	30	36
Shunsen, Nikorai	2675	23	23	31	33
Shusake, Raishirou	5720	23	27	39	39
Sofu, Kabi	1153	28	29	29	32
Winburn, Kenrou	5585	26	26	37	37
Yoshida, Shoko	6325	24	24	36	37
		Debut	303 AB 1st	303 AB Last	Last AB
	Avg	24.6	26.3	33.2	35.5
	Max	28	19)">31	39	39
	Min	22	19)">23	26	32

16 team league, so a small sample. Looks like players are debuting about 1 year too late, same with getting their first real shot. Last at bat is about the same.

[korme]

How are you getting tables aligned so nicely? I set mine up, font sizes and everything, to mimick your first post (Arial 8, underlines where necessary etc), but it's coming out as a regular verdana here and not as clean looking due to it.

[korme]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

2. Far too many guys were breaking into the lineup for the first time at age 31 or older. Only Nixon and Amaral did that out of 107 instances in this study, and I'd venture a pretty strong guess that if I were to run this study out 10 or 20 seasons, the frequency of that happening would drop even more. In 6.12, it was fairly common for a guy to peter along in the minors or on the bench, get a random development bump in their early 30's, and play every day until their late 30's. Of this entire study, only Otis Nixon had that kind of career.

Looks like Brady Clark is on pace to have an abnormality like that this year.

Originally Posted by Skydog

As far as the 350 AB threshold, I threw it out there a good while ago just as a talking point to discuss the problem of younger players not getting into the lineup. At the time, myself and others were saying that too many old guys were in the league, and Markus was responding with an overall average league age as compared to MLB. Someone pointed out that the problem wasn't so much overall, but that young guys were sitting the bench. I then shifted the discussion to 350 AB players because I figured it was a good representative of the first time a guy was truly "given a shot." To get to 350 AB's for the first time in career generally means that one of these conditions would have to be true:

1. He played nearly every day from day one of the season on.

2. He was the left-handed half of a platoon all, or nearly all, of the season--meaning he got most of the at bats.

3. He replaced an injured player in the lineup for half the season or longer.

4. He got called up in mid-June or earlier, and played every day from then on out.



Since then, people have done research on league ages based on 350 AB's, so there now exists a good body of data around that particular number, so I keep using it to be consistent. I've used it in discussions with Shaun and Clay as well, and they, along with Markus, seem to accept it as a good indicator, so I guess I'll continue to use it. {shrug}



Since 140/162*350= roughly 302.5, I'd use 300 AB's with your league.

Did the same math before seeing this, and came up with 303.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

How are you getting tables aligned so nicely? I set mine up, font sizes and everything, to mimick your first post (Arial 8, underlines where necessary etc), but it's coming out as a regular verdana here and not as clean looking due to it.

I do tables in Excel, but then copy and paste them to FrontPage before posting over here. I discovered this trick accidentally, when writing dynasty reports. As you probably know, when using Word and WYSIWYG, you get extra goofy characters. I found that I could use Frontpage and not have the goofy characters. So, in the process, I would copy my tables from excel into FrontPage, so I could just post the whole dynasty thread at one time. I noticed at some point along the way that my tables from FrontPage were lining up much more neatly than the ones from Excel, so I now do it that way every time, even if I'm only posting a table. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the technical aspects of using tables, HTML, etc.; I just got lucky on that one.

[korme]

Nice idea. Got it to work. First, I just copied it on the "normal" tab and everything came out horrendous, but copying it from the "preview" tab in frontpage did the trick

[Ben E Lou]

Shorty,

How'd you get all the retirees in an OOTP season? I just now realized how tedious doing that might be. I was about to compare these numbers to 6.5 for the beta board, but I can't figure an easy way to look at all of them.

[korme]

Very hard to do it in the game. I imagine you'd have to check the almanac's for a list of retirees then check their player reports, I think that's possible but yes that would take forever.

For me, it was simple, ScottVib puts our Catobase reference up every season http://www.jbl.ootp-online.com/reference/ so all I had to do was check the batting register for each letter, searching for players with a last year of 2018 and more than 1000 at bats. With a small league like 16 teams, it was easy to go through. Probably took 10 minutes to collect all of the players.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

Very hard to do it in the game. I imagine you'd have to check the almanac's for a list of retirees then check their player reports, I think that's possible but yes that would take forever.

For me, it was simple, ScottVib puts our Catobase reference up every season http://www.jbl.ootp-online.com/reference/ so all I had to do was check the batting register for each letter, searching for players with a last year of 2018 and more than 1000 at bats. With a small league like 16 teams, it was easy to go through. Probably took 10 minutes to collect all of the players.

Yup. That's precisely what I feared you had done. I was thinking that the only way to do it without Catobase would be to print out the retiree list from year x, then open the almanac from year x-1 and find each player by last name, then look at the >1000 AB ones. I really want to give Markus some feedback on this with 6.5, so I guess I'll do it for one season and see how it goes...

[sovereignstar]

That Otis Nixon. He's done more harm than good.

[korme]

It seems that's the only way for now. A lot of people put their solo fic. leagues online with Catobase, but alas, they are all 6.12 or older for now.. sorry

[Ben E Lou]

I had to edit the 3-year totals section. I didn't extend the formulas to cover the entire range of players initially. It has now been corrected.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

It seems that's the only way for now. A lot of people put their solo fic. leagues online with Catobase, but alas, they are all 6.12 or older for now.. sorry

Actually, even if they were out there for 6.5, they wouldn't be all that useful. It is a twofold problem, part of it having to do with how players develop, but part of having to do with the AI choosing its lineups.