Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

[JTommy67]

I've long examined how the ratings function in this game and a recent occurrence made me wonder whether at least some of the observations we see every year (this or that stat is too low/high, etc..) stem from the save files being carried over to a new engine from year to year. Examining how the ratings might work could provide some insight into this.

It's clear they're using batting averages to get contact and H/9 ratings, so let's use that as an example.

The outcomes of at-bats are a zero-sum result between the hitter and pitcher. This means that every hit in a game (or season) is totaled in two columns, one for the hitter and one against the pitcher.

Consequently, the same statistic would be used to calculate probabilities...but the raw numbers don't tell the whole story. If you have a .300 hitter facing a .200 pitcher (BA against), that doesn't necessarily mean a .250 outcome, though it might seem counter-intuitive. What if the league-wide BA is actually .300 and you have an average hitter facing an incredible pitcher? Or if the league average is only .200 and the situation is reversed?

The way to take this into effect is to consider that league average when producing outcomes. The real statistic that counts is each player's distance from the mean. We can expect a result of .250 between these players if and only if the league average is, in fact, .250. (That would be +.050 for the hitter and .050 for the pitcher, added to a mean of .250 would give the result.)

This is how I think the Show's ratings systems work - they are dependent upon league-wide averages. So, players can be rated according to the same scale every year, but league averages (or expected averages) must be hard-coded into the game. It's the simplest, most efficient way to do it. But what if you carry over players rated under a different league average? Then, you'll see statistics fluctuate away from where you might expect. I suspect this is happening to people who are carrying over saves from previous years. My own carry over file, which yielding a league BA of about .260 in the 2018 version, now produces .266 in the 2019 game. What's the difference? The league BA last year dropped from .255 to .247, and crunching the numbers would seem to indicate, if my theory is correct, that this is what happened - all my pitchers became worse and all my hitters better.

If you're using carry over saves, consider this as a possibility as to what is happening if you're in the same boat.

Now, I could be wrong, but devs don't normally step in to correct people on stuff like this, but it would be nice to get some feedback. I spend lots of hours on my utility and it would save quite a bit of work if I knew for sure what numbers are being used to anchor the ratings each year.

Anyway, thought I'd share. Hope this helps.

JT

[Caulfield]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Colonel Sanders will never tell his recipe lol neither will Sony . probably .

[JTommy67]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Not asking for trade secrets...this is pretty basic math. Would just like to know if they're anchoring to the 2018 season, a three-year average from 2016-2018 as they rate the players, or a new figure based on their own projections of how they think the MLB is trending.


Just knowing that would solve the problem, at least for what I'm doing.

[NolanRyansSnowmonkey]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Colonel Sanders will never tell his recipe lol neither will Sony . probably .

You'd be shocked what the Colonel will do when you get a few drinks in him...

[Caulfield]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Not asking for trade secrets...this is pretty basic math. Would just like to know if they're anchoring to the 2018 season, a three-year average from 2016-2018 as they rate the players, or a new figure based on their own projections of how they think the MLB is trending.



Just knowing that would solve the problem, at least for what I'm doing.

I've often wondered if they are using batting average for contact or babip . or a combination of both

You'd be shocked what the Colonel will do when you get a few drinks in him...

I've heard he likes to get hammered & go eat at Chick-fil-A

[JTommy67]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

I've often wondered if they are using batting average for contact or babip . or a combination of both

Their contact ratings correlate to batting averages with a coefficient of about .960 to .980 every year I've measured it (r-value where 1 is a perfect correlation)...and that's without removing obvious outliers (older players who they seem to reduce with the expectation of diminished performance, for example). Everything lines up nearly perfectly.

Correlations with babip are way lower, so that's why I say it's pretty clear they're using batting averages.

Though, if it were me, I'd use babip and adjust the sim and game engines accordingly. Some players have higher batting averages despite a lower babip because they put more balls in play, and contact ratings based off BA don't capture these distinctions.

[tessl]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Their contact ratings correlate to batting averages with a coefficient of about .960 to .980 every year I've measured it (r-value where 1 is a perfect correlation)...and that's without removing obvious outliers (older players who they seem to reduce with the expectation of diminished performance, for example). Everything lines up nearly perfectly.

Correlations with babip are way lower, so that's why I say it's pretty clear they're using batting averages.

Though, if it were me, I'd use babip and adjust the sim and game engines accordingly. Some players have higher batting averages despite a lower babip because they put more balls in play, and contact ratings based off BA don't capture these distinctions.

What contact rating equates to a .300 average? Does vision also play a role in batting average?

[Caulfield]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

What contact rating equates to a .300 average? Does vision also play a role in batting average?

If vision increases the timing window on direction hitting it does affect contact. And I've always assumed it does

[tessl]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

If vision increases the timing window on direction hitting it does affect contact. And I've always assumed it does

Cool - I'm guessing 80 or so contact equates to .300 avg?

[Caulfield]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Cool - I'm guessing 80 or so contact equates to .300 avg?

I guess it depends what 99 is. I'm assuming 65 is league average, .248 in 2018 or .255 in 2017

[JTommy67]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

What contact rating equates to a .300 average? Does vision also play a role in batting average?

Well, first you have to differentiate between results in gameplay/sim engine vs. how they rate the players every year.

If you're just asking what rating they would assign someone who bats .300 vs. righties or lefties, that works out to a contact rating of 79 or 80 as someone previously stated. (The scale goes from 0=.130 to 99=.330)

But if your talking about what rating you need to produce a .300 hitter in the game and sim engine then other factors - vision, contact, etc..come in to play to a more or lesser degree depending on whether you're simming or playing. The more important aspect, often overlooked, is the overall strength of the pitchers in the roster. An 80 contact hitter can bat consistently bat .350 against pitchers whose H/9 ratings are significantly lowered, or could bat only .270 against much higher rated ones.

This pertains to my original question...and explains why it's critical to identify the anchor point. Increasing every pitcher's H/9 ratings by two is about a five-point swing in league average, which can be observed from multiple simmed seasons.

[nickoppel]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Well, first you have to differentiate between results in gameplay/sim engine vs. how they rate the players every year.

If you're just asking what rating they would assign someone who bats .300 vs. righties or lefties, that works out to a contact rating of 79 or 80 as someone previously stated. (The scale goes from 0=.130 to 99=.330)

But if your talking about what rating you need to produce a .300 hitter in the game and sim engine then other factors - vision, contact, etc..come in to play to a more or lesser degree depending on whether you're simming or playing. The more important aspect, often overlooked, is the overall strength of the pitchers in the roster. An 80 contact hitter can bat consistently bat .350 against pitchers whose H/9 ratings are significantly lowered, or could bat only .270 against much higher rated ones.

This pertains to my original question...and explains why it's critical to identify the anchor point. Increasing every pitcher's H/9 ratings by two is about a five-point swing in league average, which can be observed from multiple simmed seasons.

How would you calculate the power rating?


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[tessl]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

Well, first you have to differentiate between results in gameplay/sim engine vs. how they rate the players every year.

If you're just asking what rating they would assign someone who bats .300 vs. righties or lefties, that works out to a contact rating of 79 or 80 as someone previously stated. (The scale goes from 0=.130 to 99=.330)

But if your talking about what rating you need to produce a .300 hitter in the game and sim engine then other factors - vision, contact, etc..come in to play to a more or lesser degree depending on whether you're simming or playing. The more important aspect, often overlooked, is the overall strength of the pitchers in the roster. An 80 contact hitter can bat consistently bat .350 against pitchers whose H/9 ratings are significantly lowered, or could bat only .270 against much higher rated ones.

This pertains to my original question...and explains why it's critical to identify the anchor point. Increasing every pitcher's H/9 ratings by two is about a five-point swing in league average, which can be observed from multiple simmed seasons.

Interesting. I use manage mode exclusively but I'm always interesting to learn what's under the hood in the game.

[Caulfield]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

So, I wonder if all the attribute ratings are derived by what stats are tracked in game, except speed. The reason being, I'd like to know how fielding is calculated. And blocking too, since passed balls arent tracked

[Vercingetirex]

Re: Carryover files, ratings, and game engine changes

How would you calculate the power rating?

Ideally, average exit velocity on balls put into play. With outliers being excluded, ie bunts.