FOOL-X: Declining ERA?

[Afino]

I noticed that we (Ann Arbor) were 2nd in the RL in scoring this year. Hey, awesome!

But with only 681 runs.

That seemed odd, so I checked the history page which gives the league ERA. Look what's happened in the RL:

2065: 4.52
2066: 4.19
2067: 4.09
2068: 4.26
2069: 3.88
2070: 3.71
2071: 3.45!!! Also with a league BA of .248.

These are the lowest numbers in the HISTORY OF FOOL-X!

The CL isn't as stark, but there hasn't been an ERA above 4.18 since 2062, except for last year with St. Cloud's staff skewing the data. The CL ERA this year was 3.85.

So, did we go too far with the pitching dev modifier change? I think we did. This may have been an unintended consequence and we're heading into the Deadball Era. Do you think we need to do this with batters too?

[Alan T]

We have seen in FOOL over the course of almost 200 seasons that the game seems to go into an ebb and flow as far as a hitter's league vs a pitcher's league on its own. It is not unusual to see it cycle one way for 20-30 years and then 50 years later go the other direction.

The pitching changes could easily have pushed it further in the pitching favor though to the point that it is more of a difference than we normally should see in the ebb and flow of things though.

What we noticed in the past though, is trying to over-correct things ends up only 20 years later to have the opposite problem. Also we don't want to mess with the ratings to fix a statistical issue either. I do think though that you have a valid concern that we should look into.

Normally with issues like this, what I prefer to do is take a copy of the league and then run out 50-80 years multiple times just to see if this is a trend that continues or if it is just another valley that will right itself on its own. If it does appear to be a permanent trend, I then can easily change the league stat modifiers to make it a slightly more hitter's league and then re-run the tests a bunch again to see if it fixes anything.

Unless anyone has an objection, I'll start working on that as soon as I finish this OOTP12 nightmare that I've been testing. We don't like to slingshot fix anything, so any fix (if one is needed) would be a gradual one most likely though.

Just wanted to say that this is not a huge issue, we've seen similar problems before (usually when changing to newer OOTP versions), so something we should be able to fix easily enough.

One other last comment, in case anyone is curious and wasn't around the last time we had these discussions.. the goal usually is for the CL to have stats similar to the real National League and the RL to have stats similar to the real American league for the most part if everything is perfect.

[Afino]

Yeah - I'm not suggesting drastic changes here. As you said, the way FOOL works, it's natural to see that ebb and flow. I just want to get back to the normal ebb and flow because it seems like we've fallen outside of that with the pitching dev changes

[hyde4us11]

I like having pitching better then bats. Its matter of opinion one way or the other though.

[EddieK]

What are the team ERA's....I don't have the game in front of me but I assume my team skewed those results to a lower ERA.

[hyde4us11]

I'd be interested in seeing how much hitting stats wise has been lost.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by EddieK

What are the team ERA's....I don't have the game in front of me but I assume my team skewed those results to a lower ERA.

It is not just your team. The entire league is roughly 1 run per game lower than previous across the board.

This is definitely a pitching era right now, so the question is if this is just a natural dip that will right itself or if it will need some assistance. Keep in mind there have been other factors besides the pitching development changes in the last 50 years, one of the big ones that can not be overlooked is some of the bigger hitter ballparks have been replaced with more pitching friendly ballparks as well.

[hyde4us11]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Keep in mind there have been other factors besides the pitching development changes in the last 50 years, one of the big ones that can not be overlooked is some of the bigger hitter ballparks have been replaced with more pitching friendly ballparks as well.

Thats another fair and great piece of information that needs factored. Is there a middle point we can go to from the old development numbers to where we are today?