OOTP X Injury Rate?

[Eaglesfan27]

I took the plunge on OOTP X today after not having played 8 hardly at all and skipping 9. In the first 2 weeks of my season, Victorino had a Career Ending Injury. Since then, I've had 5 starters go down for 2 weeks to a month in just 6 weeks of simming. Does anyone else find the injury rate to be too high? Or am I just having a streak of bad luck? Is the injury rate adjustable?

[spleen1015]

I don't know if that is too high or not.

Injury Frequency is definitely adjustable.

Once you've started a league, go to the Game menu and select Game Setup. On the very first page, Global Setup, you can change the injury rate. It is the 4th option under Suspensions, Injury, & Fatigue Options.

[gstelmack]

The theory I believe espoused earlier was that the injury RATE was fine, but the SEVERITY may be a bit high. It's like injuries with any text sim, though, where everyone thinks there are too many injuries, then you pull up real-world stats for a sport and if anything find they are too low.

The real issue is how they get dealt with. FOF injuries can be difficult because even with the loosening of depth chart requirements, they are still much stricter than the real world. OOTP you keep having to stop and juggle lineups and move guys up and down and it can really slow down a season.

[Sweed]

There are 5 levels to choose from..
Very Low
Low
Normal (OOTP Classic)
High (Realistic Modern Day)
Very High

I use the "High (Realistic Modern Day)" and enjoy it. I had 39 injuries over the course of the season..
27 of those were 2 weeks or less (a lot of the 27 were for 6 days or less)
5 were 3 weeks
3 were 6-7 weeks
4 were 2 months or more (6 months the high)

All four of the 2 month or more injuries were pitchers with arm issues as would be expected. The three 6-7 week injuries were all position players with a knee, ankle, and hip injury.

I enjoyed the more realistic injuries as it made me use players from the minors that in previous versions I would have "saved for next year". One guy I was forced to use was a former high draft pick, that looked to be a bust in the minors, to fill in for an injured OF. He ended up being my lead-off hitter for the rest of the year with a respectable .260 avg and .330 obp. Not great but with 20\20 speed steal on the 20 scale he adds a lot if he gets on base.

FWIW I play out all of my games so keeping up with injuries is not a pain in the ass. Not sure how enjoyable or how much of a pain it would be if I simmed games a week or more at a time.

One other thing that is cool with injuries in OOTP is there are now set-backs.
You may have a guy go down for 3 weeks and then get a notification that he had a set-back and will miss another 2 weeks. I've even seen guys go down for a lengthy time and then get a notification that after a set-back the injury was determined to be career ending.

So, I would say the Victorino injury is a bit of bad luck. The pitching injuries wouldn't be out of line on the "high realistic" setting. I assume you are at default "classic OOTP"? If so not sure how much going down one level affects the number of injuries but if it is high for that setting I would call it bad luck and not a bug.

Edited to throw in one more thing.

The injuries listed above were all at the Major League level. IIRC I had at most ~15 guys on the DL at one time throughout the entire organization. Not sure what the total number of injuries were for the entire organization over the course of the season, though it was quite a few with 5 levels of minors.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

The theory I believe espoused earlier was that the injury RATE was fine, but the SEVERITY may be a bit high. It's like injuries with any text sim, though, where everyone thinks there are too many injuries, then you pull up real-world stats for a sport and if anything find they are too low.

The real issue is how they get dealt with. FOF injuries can be difficult because even with the loosening of depth chart requirements, they are still much stricter than the real world. OOTP you keep having to stop and juggle lineups and move guys up and down and it can really slow down a season.

Pretty much spot on. Lots of facts and figures thrown around on the OOTP boards arguing the severity with both sides claiming their data proves they are right and the other side is wrong As I said in my previous post I am happy with the injury file, others MMV.

The solution I use for having to make a ton of moves due to injury is I went back to using ghost players in the minors. They play for guys that were never going to make it to the show anyway and I can make moves up\down or to and from the DL without having to adjust my whole organization. As an added bonus ghosts make it easier to keep an eye on my "real" prospects".

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Sweed

There are 5 levels to choose from..
Very Low
Low
Normal (OOTP Classic)
High (Realistic Modern Day)
Very High

I use the "High (Realistic Modern Day)" and enjoy it. I had 39 injuries over the course of the season..
27 of those were 2 weeks or less (a lot of the 27 were for 6 days or less)
5 were 3 weeks
3 were 6-7 weeks
4 were 2 months or more (6 months the high)

All four of the 2 month or more injuries were pitchers with arm issues as would be expected. The three 6-7 week injuries were all position players with a knee, ankle, and hip injury.

I enjoyed the more realistic injuries as it made me use players from the minors that in previous versions I would have "saved for next year". One guy I was forced to use was a former high draft pick, that looked to be a bust in the minors, to fill in for an injured OF. He ended up being my lead-off hitter for the rest of the year with a respectable .260 avg and .330 obp. Not great but with 20\20 speed steal on the 20 scale he adds a lot if he gets on base.

FWIW I play out all of my games so keeping up with injuries is not a pain in the ass. Not sure how enjoyable or how much of a pain it would be if I simmed games a week or more at a time.

One other thing that is cool with injuries in OOTP is there are now set-backs.
You may have a guy go down for 3 weeks and then get a notification that he had a set-back and will miss another 2 weeks. I've even seen guys go down for a lengthy time and then get a notification that after a set-back the injury was determined to be career ending.

So, I would say the Victorino injury is a bit of bad luck. The pitching injuries wouldn't be out of line on the "high realistic" setting. I assume you are at default "classic OOTP"? If so not sure how much going down one level affects the number of injuries but if it is high for that setting I would call it bad luck and not a bug.

Edited to throw in one more thing.

The injuries listed above were all at the Major League level. IIRC I had at most ~15 guys on the DL at one time throughout the entire organization. Not sure what the total number of injuries were for the entire organization over the course of the season, though it was quite a few with 5 levels of minors.

Thanks for all of the replies. I am at the classic OOTP level. I guess I'll just deal with it and hope for better luck the rest of the year. I was 15-2 before all of the injuries hit, now I'm 20-14 (and fading)

[Eaglesfan27]

SOB! I got desperate enough to make Chan Ho Park my 4th starter and he just went down with a career ending injury.

On another note, it's cool that the game has some players from the real draft class. I just realized that. Too bad I'm stuck with the 26th pick.

[stevew]

Very Low was almost no injuries. But Low seems to be far more substantial.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by stevew

Very Low was almost no injuries. But Low seems to be far more substantial.

I think I'm dropping down to low after I'm done this season. I now have 4 of my 5 starting pitchers out for the year after Hamels just dropped right before the All-Star break. I'm not leaving them in very long each game, or anything else that should make guys drop like this.

Besides my pitchers, I've had Utley go down twice for about 4-6 weeks each time. I've had 2 CEI injuries and I've had a bunch of shorter injuries.

[Young Drachma]

When I'm not playing fast-sim (no injuries) I play with Low injuries. Anything else just generates too many injuries for my taste in any of the last two versions of the game.

[Alan T]

I have found most people (especially in online leagues) do not enjoy playing with "realistic" settings for injuries. The idea of playing with added realism is nice and all until you lose your favorite player, or the heart of your team for the entire season. Then it just pisses you off.

I would wager a guess that most people would be happier with less realistic play on the "low" setting.

[Eaglesfan27]

I ended up re-starting tonight with low injury rate, and I'm still seeing a good amount of injuries around the league including 2 career enders in the first 2 weeks. One other thing that annoys me and perhaps someone knows a way to deal with this: Romero starts out the year suspended for 50 games, but he is refusing demotion. Doesn't seem very realistic to me, but maybe I'm wrong on this? I ended up having him clear waivers and designating him for assignment, but he is still refusing to go anywhere except on the MLB roster. Any way to convince him or work around this or does he just have to eat a roster spot if I don't want to release him?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I ended up re-starting tonight with low injury rate, and I'm still seeing a good amount of injuries around the league including 2 career enders in the first 2 weeks. One other thing that annoys me and perhaps someone knows a way to deal with this: Romero starts out the year suspended for 50 games, but he is refusing demotion. Doesn't seem very realistic to me, but maybe I'm wrong on this? I ended up having him clear waivers and designating him for assignment, but he is still refusing to go anywhere except on the MLB roster. Any way to convince him or work around this or does he just have to eat a roster spot if I don't want to release him?

Just check the button in the settings that prevent guys from rejecting a minor league assignment.

[Sgran]

I turned the injury rating to "low" and I'm pleased with the number of injuries. I sim through the regular season, and there are just too many stopages on the regular setting. I want to focus on team-building and moving players up through the minors. On "low" you still have injuries, some severe, but it's not constant.

Btw, I also play with trading on "hard" and "AI favor prospects", which i think makes it much harder to build a championship team.

[jbergey22]

I think normal setting is the best. What OOTP says is realistic may be spot on with the amount of injuries but it doesnt do a very good job IMO in the length of times for injuries. I am playing a fictional league on normal settings and Ive had 2 season ending injuries and 5 players that started the season in the majors having 4-8 week injuries which seems pretty realistic to me.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I have found most people (especially in online leagues) do not enjoy playing with "realistic" settings for injuries. The idea of playing with added realism is nice and all until you lose your favorite player, or the heart of your team for the entire season. Then it just pisses you off.

I would wager a guess that most people would be happier with less realistic play on the "low" setting.

Well, with the way that most leagues sim 10-15 games at a time, it's also pretty hard if you lose multiple players in one sim. Even if you have a reasonably solid bench with guys that play multiple positions. I guess there is the option for the AI to handle DL, but I wouldn't want to have them tinker for me. I guess it would be nice if you could designate who they would call up for various situations.