Baseball Mogul 2006 Preview Thread (Yes, Virginia, there ARE lefties and righties!)

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by LionsFan10

So, I read about six or seven pages of this thread and finally I couldn't handle it no more. What is the word on this game, worth a purchase? I have OOTP 6, but that's not cutting it for me right now. Which is better for baseball sim needs, this or PureSim?

I'd say that the verdict is still out on both. Both have great potential, but need some work in some areas that (for me) are key. PureSim is probably a little farther along than Mogul right now, but right now I can get into neither for a serious career.

[LionsFan10]

Thank you SkyDog.

[Dreslough]

Originally Posted by oykib

Here's the biggest question:

Has Lefty/Righty been implemented in this, BBM's seventh iteration?

As I thought was already mentioned in this thread, BBM 2K6 has Lefty/Righty functionality. That is:

1) We record and display batting and throwing hands for every player.
2) Righties hit lefties better, and vice versa (I haven't yet seen good research showing that individual players have DIFFERENT platoon differentials so I haven't implemented these).
3) Every stadium has adjustments for lefties and righties. Some stadiums boost lefty average, some boost power. All depends on dimensions (although for existing and historical stadiums, we use historical stadium adjustments).

What we weren't able to do yet in this version was:

4) Display lefty/right splits for every player. IMHO, these would actually be somewhaty pointless since every player has the same platoon differential.

5) Add 'vs. Lefty' and 'vs. Righty' lineups. You can however change your lineup every day depending on the opposing starter.

[Dreslough]

FYI, new Baseball Mogul Version posted (8.08) with significant work done on the again algorithms and AI.

I've also added some new stats to the Roster Dialog like "Debut Age" so you can more easily track this stuff.

And I finally got the Fictional Database feature fully implemented for everyone who's been waiting for it...

Clay

[Ben E Lou]

Suh-weet! The new fictional database feature does something I've never seen: each fictional player in the original universe starts with a fictional stats history. It appears that it actually does something of a sim at the beginning. When the fictional universe option is selected, first you get "Creating Players," then "Simulating Seasons," then you end up with a team of players with past stats. Nice!

[Ragone]

5) Add 'vs. Lefty' and 'vs. Righty' lineups. You can however change your lineup every day depending on the opposing starter.


Sure we can change the lineups.. but the cpu managers aren't.. i imagine anyway which would create some unrealistic results, dunno though.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

As I thought was already mentioned in this thread, BBM 2K6 has Lefty/Righty functionality. That is...

Thanks - this definitely clears up the debate. We now know that BBM 2K6 does not have Lefty/Righty functionality.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by Ragone

5) Add 'vs. Lefty' and 'vs. Righty' lineups. You can however change your lineup every day depending on the opposing starter.


Sure we can change the lineups.. but the cpu managers aren't.. i imagine anyway which would create some unrealistic results, dunno though.

Plus, the only place batting side and throwing hand are shown is in the players card. So, you have to open every card and memorize whether they are left handed or right. Why have it if your not even going to display it in a useable manner?

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by HomerJSimpson

Plus, the only place batting side and throwing hand are shown is in the players card. So, you have to open every card and memorize whether they are left handed or right. Why have it if your not even going to display it in a useable manner?

I would like to see it displayed in the overall roster(s) somewhere.


Todd

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I would like to see it displayed in the overall roster(s) somewhere.


Todd

I agree that is a great idea.

[jbmagic]

For you guys that have version 8.08

how is it now?

are you guys going to play with BM 2k6 again? or going to put it away still?

[mgadfly]

I'm downloading 8.08 right now. I'll see what changes.

[Ben E Lou]

Version 8.09:

• Stat discrepancies fixed with "Fictional Players" option
  
• Fixed contract lengths with "Fictional Players" option
  
• Player aging algorithms and AI adjusted
  
• Find Players no longer shows Hall Of Fame players during Fantasy Draft
  
• Some small text bugs fixed

[jbmagic]

Skydog

are you planning to do the age test with version 8.09.

would love to see how that is now.

and your overall review on BM 2k6 now with latest patch.

thanks

[mgadfly]

Another thing that I don't like about BM is that the financials don't seem to matter over the length of a career. I simmed out a couple leagues over 25-40 years. In one league all but three American League teams had negative cash values (New York, L.A., and Boston). Some were as much as 300 million in the red! (Poor Tampa Bay).

Meanwhile NY was running with an 89M salary while they had over 400 million in the bank. I'm not sure if I'm the only one seeing this, the only one that cares, or what, but it is a real buzz kill to have the CPU teams not playing according to their resources.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

Another thing that I don't like about BM is that the financials don't seem to matter over the length of a career. I simmed out a couple leagues over 25-40 years. In one league all but three American League teams had negative cash values (New York, L.A., and Boston). Some were as much as 300 million in the red! (Poor Tampa Bay).

Meanwhile NY was running with an 89M salary while they had over 400 million in the bank. I'm not sure if I'm the only one seeing this, the only one that cares, or what, but it is a real buzz kill to have the CPU teams not playing according to their resources.

I'm not even remotely seeing anything like that. I'm running an 8.09 sim right now, so I stopped it where it was: the end of 2021, to see.

At this point, only three teams in the AL (BoSox,Detroit and Texas) are in the red--and the worst is Detroit at only $2.7M in debt. Boston is at $585K, and Texas is $291K behind. No AL team has more than $25M cash (Baltimore) and only two are at over $20M.

In the NL, Cincy and Milwaukee are the only teams in the red ($1.6M and $1.2M respectively), and three teams (Wash, SF and Chicago) lead with right around $30M in cash reserves, but seven of the fourteen NL teams in the black have less than $10M. Not bad, if you ask me...

[mgadfly]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I'm not even remotely seeing anything like that. I'm running an 8.09 sim right now, so I stopped it where it was: the end of 2021, to see.

At this point, only three teams in the AL (BoSox,Detroit and Texas) are in the red--and the worst is Detroit at only $2.7M in debt. Boston is at $585K, and Texas is $291K behind. No AL team has more than $25M cash (Baltimore) and only two are at over $20M.

In the NL, Cincy and Milwaukee are the only teams in the red ($1.6M and $1.2M respectively), and three teams (Wash, SF and Chicago) lead with right around $30M in cash reserves, but seven of the fourteen NL teams in the black have less than $10M. Not bad, if you ask me...

What difficulty level do you have it on. I'm going to start up a third career to see if the problem repeats.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

What difficulty level do you have it on. I'm going to start up a third career to see if the problem repeats.

Mogul.

[mgadfly]

Well, I can't get the problem to repeat. I have two leagues where teams spending was crazy, but I've ran about 5 tests of it today and everything has worked out fine.


I'm actually starting to have a little fun with the game now. The two areas that are still annoying to me are:

1) Injuries (and I swear turning it to +100% or -100% makes no difference). There are just way too many of them. I had my organizations top 11 starting pitchers all injured at the same time.)

2) Trades (It just doesn't feel right to me. I don't want to be able to trade whenever I want to, but right now the only way I can make a trade is if I'm willing to get robbed by the computer GM--Well, I did have one "fair" trade in the past ten or so seasons. For me, I'd like trades to be rare somehow, but not by making it so that the computer won't ever give you a fair deal)

[Ben E Lou]

Posted this over at SportsMogul a few minutes ago....

I did a 100+ season sim with 8.09. Things are now progressing nicely, but I still see a few small issues. My comments...

• Player development curves are much better, and player average age is solid. However, it is now still too rare for a 37-40 year old to be productive. I'd hate it if things got too predictable, and right now it is looking like it might. I looked through all of the HOFers in this career, and for the huge majority of them, the last productive year was either at age 36 or 37. Looking at the current players in the league as of 2107, the same is true: a few productive 36-year-olds, but then a *huge* drop-off in ratings and performance among the 37-year olds. As it stands right now, this is *far* too predictable. When deciding what length of contract to offer a 33-year-old, there needs to be some element of the unknown there. As it stands right now, there's not. You *know* within one year how long he'll be productive. I realize that it is tricky to do this and keep the average age appropriate, but maybe by varying the peak years this could be accomplished. Maybe let 10% of players have a 24-to-31 career peak, 5% have a 23-31 career peak (A-Rod, Pujols, Andruw...), 5% have a 25-to-33 career peak, and 2% have a 25-34 career peak. (For those that don't know, as it stands now, every career peak is 25-to-31.)
  
• When did more unpredictability in the draft sneak its way into the game??? Good job! In my current league, I see a 25-year-old pitcher drafted 1(2) with a 100 peak at the time, who now is only an 81 peak, a 32-year-old catcher who was only a 78 at draft time and drafted in the third round, now rated 92 and a two-time All Star, and a CF, taken late in the fourth round and rated 72 peak at the time, who is now rated 89 overall, with contact, speed and range all over 95, and one of the game's best leadoff hitters. Also, there are a whole bunch of guys in their prime years who are 5-15 points away from their draft projection. Looks pretty good, as there also look to be enough guys who are very near their projection so that it doesn't feel completely random, either.
  
• Much better distribution of championships and winning seasons. Every team made the playoffs at least once, the Yanks only won 24 World Championships, and no team averaged more than 100 wins or more than 100 losses.
  
• There is still the stray 86-or-so rated player left in the FA pool when April 1st rolls around, but nothing nearly like in the past. For me, the main goal here has been accomplished: I didn't want to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I could wait until April 1st and sign a cheap one-year deal for a player at any position where I had need. As far as them staying in the pool, that is no longer happening much (if at all) either. By May 1st, I'm seeing just about every useful player being signed. I wish this were a bit better, but I can live with it as it is.
  
• Trade AI still seems to be a bit too stringent at Mogul level. I'd rather see financial constraints at Mogul level, but have a fair trade AI.
  
• I'm going to have to agree with the too-many-injuries crowd. I think this still needs a tweak. Too many guys are getting multiple two-week-or-more injuries per season. The guy who holds the all-time record for games played in my league never played in as many as 159, and in his 21 seasons as a FT starter, played in 145 games or less 11 times. By comparison: it only happened to Rose twice in 21 years, Yaz 3 times in 18 years, and it never happened to Aaron until he was 37, and sitting out games to rest.
  
• We'll see what happens as we get into the steroid-testing era this year, but my gut is that homers should be toned down. There were 19 60-HR seasons over the career, and 20 guys who hit 600 or more.
  
• Other than homers, I think the stats "boundaries" look pretty good. Single-season records look quite reasonable.

That's all for now. I'm going to attempt to start my first serious career now, and see if there are any other major issues.

[TroyF]

Another note on the injuries. . .

I'm starting a season out. Have a stud first basemen who looks like he's primed for a monster year. He hits a HR in the first game. We then have a day off. Next game he goes out for 148 days. Only problem is he didn't even play in the game.

Maybe he tore his knee on the dugout steps, I'm not sure. . . my question is this the way guys always get hurt (or does it happen during a game)

I do think they need to be toned down. One of Mogul's strengths is its speed. I don't mind dealing with a few injuries here or there, but I don't want to see my entire starting rotation go down either. Just bogs the game down and puts in too much micromanaging.

[Ben E Lou]

I hear ya Troy. I'm starting a dynasty thread (found HERE), and I'm using -70% on injuries, to see what that feels like.

[21C]

Has anyone else noticed that this thread has the most views of any here - except for the Stickied Reference one? What's up with that?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by 21c

Has anyone else noticed that this thread has the most views of any here - except for the Stickied Reference one? What's up with that?

You missed my veiled reference a couple of weeks ago, huh?

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...&postcount=647

[Galaril]

It probably has to do with the time of year and not many baseball game sim choices with OOTP 7 out end of yera and Puresim sounding mostly complete for a while.

[mgadfly]

I have the #1 medical staff in the league and I had 13 pitchers injured during spring training.

I think I'm going to sim a few seasons adding up how many injuries occur to my team.

[st.cronin]

Dumb question alert:

I downloaded the demo and can't figure out how to send players to AAA from my major league roster. Am I allowed to do this in demo mode?

[jbmagic]

Skydog great report.

i so happy he fix the age thing.

if they fix the predictable like you said when they reach a certain age that will be great.

If they fix the injuries and adjust it a little more and tone down homeruns.

i might get this game afterall.

it seems like from every patch he puts out, the game is getting better and better.

a few more tweaks, this game should be solid.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Dumb question alert:

I downloaded the demo and can't figure out how to send players to AAA from my major league roster. Am I allowed to do this in demo mode?

You can either push them down with the up/down buttons on the side or swap them out with a player already at AAA. You can assign levels or DL to players not on the 25-man roster. It is kind of clunky at first, but isn't too bad once you play the game for a bit and get used to it.

[mgadfly]

The injuries were bothering me when I had the #1 medical staff in the league so I decided to run a little experiment to see how many injuries I'd have if I had an "average" staff (I adjusted down until I was #14 in MLB).

I averaged 16 injuries per month (96 total) + 11 more in spring training. I had one player fracture a hip, then break his neck, and then break his neck again. I'm not sure if he had totally healed from his fracture when he first broke his neck, but he never came off the DL that entire time.

I'm not sure what a realistic amount of injuries is, but I know that 96 injuries is too much to keep it fun. Plus, as I've said before the injury % setting barely seems to work, so hopefully we will see something adjusted here.

[mgadfly]

The next season I went through with the #1 medical staff (by at least $3M) and had 84 injuries during the season.

Now I'm going to try a couple seasons, 1 at +100% injuries, and 1 at -100% injuries. Then I'll go back and do more seasons at default to see if I just had an unlucky team.

[mgadfly]

-100% injuries, #1 medical staff = 73 injuries

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

-100% injuries, #1 medical staff = 73 injuries

Are you tracking how long the injuries are, though? That's what I'd really like to know. If 50-60 of those are of the 2-7 day variety, that's probably pretty low for an entire organization's worth of players. If you have, say, 80 players, that would mean that several guys go through an entire season with *no* injuries--never missing two games due to a sprained ankle or anything. By no means is this a full test, but I played through over a half of a season in my first dynasty attempt, with Inj. Contingency set on one day, and several times I'd go through an entire week with no one in the organization getting an injury at all.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Arles

Skydog, I guess we are on the same page here

Yup.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

-100% injuries, #1 medical staff = 73 injuries

I'd like to know the # of injuries over 14 days. I mean, if 55 of the 73 injuries are 2-14 days on this setting, but only 20 of 80 injuries are 2-14 days with the #25 medical staff, that's a huge difference even though the total injury count only varies by 7.

[Arles]

Skydog, I guess we are on the same page here

[Ben E Lou]

Oh....the other comment that I should have made is that I got thorugh 102 games with only three major (more than two weeks) injuries in the entire organization.

[mgadfly]

Through the first two months I've had four serious injuries (24 days, 277 days, 350 days, 320 days). I've had 18 lesser injuries with most in the 1 to 6 day range.

I have the #1 medical staff and -100% injuries. I'd hope that if you were at -100% you'd see less injuries than this. I like to go through seasons rapidly, and even if an injury is only 4 or 5 days it will mess up the rotation. With pitchers I'm always going in and switching them out all the time. I've had as many as eleven pitchers injured at once (not in this sim), which, even though they are less than 14 days, is a major disruption to the flow of the game.

[mgadfly]

And I wanted to add that you can't just count on the injury notice telling you who has been injured. If you set the injury notice and a player gets hurt a message will pop up, but unless you go in and look through your lineup you may miss any additional players that were injured.

For example, if you get a message saying John Doe is injured for 4 days, you still have to go through your lineups to make sure that Jack, Bobby, etc. aren't injured for 350 days. So EVERY time there is an injury, you have to go through your lineups, and right now I'm having an injury on more days than I am not.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

I've had as many as eleven pitchers injured at once (not in this sim), which, even though they are less than 14 days, is a major disruption to the flow of the game.

Um, I'd like to know what realistic is, not that injuries are an inconvenience to you. The Braves have already had two in-season injuries that have caused players to miss starts, so they're on pace for 81. Even at this early point in the season, there are 108 currently-injured players being reported at cbs.sportsline.com: over three per team, and that's only at the top level of the organization. Of course, most of those happened in the Spring (or even rehabs from offseason), but still, the point is that on average, 3-4 players major league players per team are injured. Assuming that the rates are similiar at the four other levels, I'm starting to think more and more that having 11 injuries per month in the entire organization is going to be a very low number compared to real life. As I said, the Braves have already had two injuries at MLB in just four games.

[mgadfly]

Half way point of the season:

# of days injured followed by # of injuries
1 - 4
2 - 4
3 - 4
4 - 11
5 - 1
6 - 4
7 - 1
9 - 1
11 - 1
12 - 1
13 - 2
18 - 2
24 - 1
102 - 1
103 - 1
277 - 1
320 - 1
350 - 1

42 injuries in half a season. Although most are "minor" every injury forces the manager to go through their lineup to check for additional injuries. That means I basically HAVE to sim one day at a time to check on injuries.

[mgadfly]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Um, I'd like to know what realistic is, not that injuries are an inconvenience to you. The Braves have already had two in-season injuries that have caused players to miss starts, so they're on pace for 81. Even at this early point in the season, there are 108 currently-injured players being reported at cbs.sportsline.com: over three per team, and that's only at the top level of the organization. Of course, most of those happened in the Spring (or even rehabs from offseason), but still, the point is that on average, 3-4 players major league players per team are injured. Assuming that the rates are similiar at the four other levels, I'm starting to think more and more that having 11 injuries per month in the entire organization is going to be a very low number compared to real life. As I said, the Braves have already had two injuries at MLB in just four games.

That is why you should be able to turn the injury setting to default and have an average medical staff and have the "fun" of spending about 90% of your time playing the game managing injuries.

When creating a game you have to balance playability with realism. If they aren't fun, usually the game maker either makes it optional or leaves it out. I have yet to see a game where you are forced to watch your teams pregame exercise routine and then comment on how they can be more effective with their stretches. Or to get a couple hundred messages from players, friends, fans, and the media about what you are doing wrong (or right). That be realistic, but it hasn't made it into any game yet (not at the realistic level anyway).

If there is a slider setting it should be able to be used for two purposes: (1) so skydog can have complete realism in regards to injuries (though I still don't believe the game is modeling this correctly) and (2) so that mgadfly can actually enjoy the game. Both are reasonable expectations of what a slider should be used for.

[mgadfly]

That's 3.5 injuries per team coming out of spring training. I've had 11 pitchers injured coming out of spring training. Usually I'm seeing at least three times as many injuries on opening day as we have 1 week into the season in real life.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

That's 3.5 injuries per team coming out of spring training. I've had 11 pitchers injured coming out of spring training. Usually I'm seeing at least three times as many injuries on opening day as we have 1 week into the season in real life.

The problem is most injuries under a week aren't reported. The DBacks had 7 players miss time after spring with assorted minor injuries. Some missed a start in the field, other's weren't available on the bench or in the pen. But I can only think of stories on 3 of them. For instance, Tony Clark had a sore knee and missed a couple days. Since he was only a pimch hitter, no one cared and it wasn't even reported in the local papers.

[jbmagic]

can injuries be due to the roster? depending on the injury rating of the players too.

[henry296]

For example, Jack Wilson was a very late scratch Thursday night because of a sore wrist. He missed 1 game and probably never made an injury list.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

When creating a game you have to balance playability with realism. If they aren't fun, usually the game maker either makes it optional or leaves it out.

See my "weenie" comment in another thread.

I have yet to see a game where you are forced to watch your teams pregame exercise routine and then comment on how they can be more effective with their stretches. Or to get a couple hundred messages from players, friends, fans, and the media about what you are doing wrong (or right). That be realistic, but it hasn't made it into any game yet (not at the realistic level anyway).

OK, you're really stretching it there. Injuries are an important part of the game. The other things you mentioned just aren't.

If there is a slider setting it should be able to be used for two purposes: (1) so skydog can have complete realism in regards to injuries (though I still don't believe the game is modeling this correctly) and (2) so that mgadfly can actually enjoy the game. Both are reasonable expectations of what a slider should be used for.

I'm not sure it is completely modeling it correctly, but I have a feeling that it is much more in the ballpark than you're suggesting.

I think the problem you're having is this: you want to micromanage lineups every time there's a two-day injury, yet still fly through seasons. I just let the AI handle my lineup when a guy is down for less than a week, without juggling the lineup, because that's actually realistic. Quite often, if a guy is only gone a few days, the manager doesn't want to "mess up" the rest of his lineup, so he bats the replacement right where the injured player was batting. From looking at the numbers you posted from half a season, I'm convinced more than ever that they are *VERY* low compared to real life injuries in an entire organization, so the slider *does* seems to be working. If Clay wants to add a setting to completely eliminate injuries, that's one thing, but when the slider takes things to an extreme, like it appears to be doing now, it is doing what it was intended to do, I'd say.

[mgadfly]

Originally Posted by Arles

The problem is most injuries under a week aren't reported. The DBacks had 7 players miss time after spring with assorted minor injuries. Some missed a start in the field, other's weren't available on the bench or in the pen. But I can only think of stories on 3 of them. For instance, Tony Clark had a sore knee and missed a couple days. Since he was only a pimch hitter, no one cared and it wasn't even reported in the local papers.

Most injuries of starting pitchers greater than 4 days are reported because it means they miss their start. But still, all I have is a general idea of what I perceive to be "realistic." I fully recognize that this may be realistic (though I've never heard of a team starting their #2 AA pitcher in the opener because every starter in the organization above that was injured during spring training, but...).

However, realism aside, it is the most annoying and fun-sucking part of the game, so the slider option should have been put in place to relieve some of the fun-sucking for those of us willing to sacrifice a bit of realism in order to enjoy the game.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mgadfly

That's 3.5 injuries per team coming out of spring training...

...on the major league roster. That doesn't include AAA, AA, A and Rookie Ball, which Mogul does include. Part of the issue here (and I've posted this at SportsMogul) is that virtually no one wants to get an injury contingency notifiction about their minor leaguers, but Mogul is giving that.

I've had 11 pitchers injured coming out of spring training. Usually I'm seeing at least three times as many injuries on opening day as we have 1 week into the season in real life...

...with four times as many teams, and, as has been noted, that's not even counting the guys who miss one or two games due to injuries but aren't reported. Marcus Giles isn't among the guys I mentioned, but he's likely to miss today's game due to inflammation (he played hurt last night), so I read this morning.

[jbmagic]

mgadfly

doesnt the computer set the lineup for you for minor injuries?

the game wont play the guys with minor injury and will replace someone that good in his place in the lineup?

then when player is healthy , he is back in the lineup.

yoi don't have to do anything.