MLB Off-Topic

[Sportsforever]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Going old school in the W/L column, Old Hoss Radbourn won 59 of his teams 84 games lol.



Another impressive one I saw is Denny McLain in 1968:
31-6, 1.96ERA, .905WHIP, 336IP, 280K


Unanimous Cy Young AND MVP winner. That 68 season was special. Cy Young winners winning MVP in both leagues.

There is a reason that season is called "year of the pitcher"!

Some other seasons to consider:

- Mantle in 1956, 1957, and 1961.

- Honus Wagner in 1908

- Cobb in 1910, 1911, 1912

- Walter Johnson in 1913.

Oddly enough, as great as Willie Mays was and the seasons he put up, he never walked enough to boost his OPS+ over 200.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I want to say '68 Bob Gibson (after all he was so dominant they had to lower the mound) but there's something remarkable about Steve Carlton winning 27 of his team's 59 wins in '72. I know everyone poo poos the "win" stat for pitchers these days but that's pretty damn remarkable.

So going with '72 Lefty Carlton here.

I like how the resident Canadians come up with the same guys, lol. Sadly not a Canadian player though.

If you like wins, what about Denny McLain's 1968?

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

There is a reason that season is called "year of the pitcher"!

Some other seasons to consider:

- Mantle in 1956, 1957, and 1961.

- Honus Wagner in 1908

- Cobb in 1910, 1911, 1912

- Walter Johnson in 1913.

Oddly enough, as great as Willie Mays was and the seasons he put up, he never walked enough to boost his OPS+ over 200.

One of my favorite parts about Bob Gibson's stats and The 1968 Year of the Pitcher is that there was arguably no drop off in his performance in '69 and '70 after the mound was brought to modern standards.

[tonybologna]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23554271/washington-nationals-promote-19-year-old-juan-soto

[tonybologna]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/23473957/chicago-white-sox-grounds-crew-member-nevest-coleman-journey-freedom

Awesome story. It's still a shame though the way the criminal justice part of this country is run. Almost 1/4 of a century of this man's life was wasted.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

People are free to PM me with old MVP questions. Either that or create an AMA thread and I'll answer to the best of my recollection.

Forgive me for not PM'ing or doing the AMA route--hopefully you can discuss this here--but I was just wondering how involved you were with the comeback code in those games? You know, because every game has it, right?

[Sportsforever]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Well, done M's, well done. This is the best thing you've done since 2001:

Spoiler

[TripleCrown9]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Well, done M's, well done. This is the best thing you've done since 2001:

Spoiler

Nah, this is.

Spoiler

[SPTO]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

So Rafael Palmeiro hit a HR last night at the age of 53 for the independent American Association Cleburne Railroaders. He was batting 6th in the lineup behind his son Patrick.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

So Rafael Palmeiro hit a HR last night at the age of 53 for the independent American Association Cleburne Railroaders. He was batting 6th in the lineup behind his son Patrick.

Sort of gives a new meaning to "protecting your kids." What a good dad.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Willy Adames (TB) the next big prospect to debut. Maybe the Rays use him as a starting pitcher, then double switch him to SS before bringing in Sergio Romo?

Also, it looks like Jon Singleton's career might be over because he'd rather smoke a lot of weed than make a lot of money playing baseball. He was released by Houston.

[DrJones]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Forgive me for not PM'ing or doing the AMA route--hopefully you can discuss this here--but I was just wondering how involved you were with the comeback code in those games? You know, because every game has it, right?

LOL. My background is English major; I'm about as far as a coder as you can get while still being part of a dev team. I was a producer, mostly responsible for the player db, plus uni/logo accuracy, some pxp scripting & recording supervisor (you can imagine how many takes we'd need with Buck Martinez or Harold Reynolds, LOL), user manuals (back when they still existed), and random "baseball detail" stuff. I'd write docs like "Here's what I want the interleague matchups and ASG hosts to be for the 1st 20 generated seasons of Dynasty Mode," "Here are all the various playoff formats for the AA leagues" or "Here's a prioritized list of 250 star player heads", that kind of stuff. Also, since it was very difficult to find people who were both good testers AND knew anything about baseball, most producers were de facto QA as well.

AFAIK there was no "official" rubber band logic in the Triple Play or MVP games I worked on, but I was rarely involved in core gameplay stuff, so who knows? It definitely never came up in conversation. However, the CPU AI recognized patterns (in MVP 05, anyway), so if you kept using the same pitch type or throwing to the same spots, CPU batters would eventually start to crush you (in theory).

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

LOL. My background is English major; I'm about as far as a coder as you can get while still being part of a dev team. I was a producer, mostly responsible for the player db, plus uni/logo accuracy, some pxp scripting & recording supervisor (you can imagine how many takes we'd need with Buck Martinez or Harold Reynolds, LOL), user manuals (back when they still existed), and random "baseball detail" stuff. I'd write docs like "Here's what I want the interleague matchups and ASG hosts to be for the 1st 20 generated seasons of Dynasty Mode," "Here are all the various playoff formats for the AA leagues" or "Here's a prioritized list of 250 star player heads", that kind of stuff. Also, since it was very difficult to find people who were both good testers AND knew anything about baseball, most producers were de facto QA as well.

AFAIK there was no "official" rubber band logic in the Triple Play or MVP games I worked on, but I was rarely involved in core gameplay stuff, so who knows? It definitely never came up in conversation. However, the CPU AI recognized patterns (in MVP 05, anyway), so if you kept using the same pitch type or throwing to the same spots, CPU batters would eventually start to crush you (in theory).

I knew comeback code was real.

Joking aside, thanks for this post. Very informative.

To this day, MVP 04 (the one with Pujols on the cover, right?) is probably my all-time favorite baseball video game. All due deference to The Show, of which there have been some really good ones. I still remember that Oliver Perez (before he became a relief pitcher) was my staff ace on the Detroit Tigers and I pitched a no hitter with him. The only one in any game I've ever played. I also have a soft spot for World Series Baseball which is a decade or so older than MVP 04, but the first title I played to have a fantasy draft/franchise type mode. My best friend and I wore that game out.

[Blzer]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

So Rafael Palmeiro hit a HR last night at the age of 53 for the independent American Association Cleburne Railroaders. He was batting 6th in the lineup behind his son Patrick.

Very cool. I wish Bonds was trying to do the same thing hah.

I had to clock Palmeiro's trot around the bases (really just fast-forward from contact of ball to contact of plate). 26 seconds. I don't even know if that's slow or not lol.

[DrJones]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

So Rafael Palmeiro hit a HR last night at the age of 53 for the independent American Association Cleburne Railroaders. He was batting 6th in the lineup behind his son Patrick.

Mention of Raffy brings back another old EA memory. I met Palmeiro briefly in Spring 2001. Some oldsters here might recall that a couple of the Triple Play games featured the MLBPA's knockoff HR Derby, the "Big League Challenge". Used to be held in February at Cashman Field in Las Vegas. (If you were an insomniac in the early 2000s, you probably saw this in the middle of the night on ESPN2 a few times.) EA was insane with throwing cash around in those days, so the entire Triple Play team (which was relatively small in 2000-2002 as Treyarch in LA did a lot of 3rd party programming for it) got a free weekend in Vegas out of it for... reasons. The MLBPA picked up the hotel bill (Paris-LV in 2000, Mandalay Bay in 2001).

2000 Highlights:

- The lineup was insane: McGwire, Bonds, Manny, ARod, Chipper, Nomar, Canseco, Raffy, Piazza, Giambi
- Sosa and Griffey were also supposed to be there: Griffey bailed, don't remember why; Sosa was in Vegas but, uh, came down with the flu (Shawn Green and Andruw took their place)
- We just went out to Cashman Field every day, hung over, and watched from the "VIP" Section above home plate along with a few MLBPA "luminaries" and...

- Ernie Banks! I had a 15-minute conversation with Mr. Cub
- Charlie Sheen! And his bodyguard, who may or may not have been Huell from Breaking Bad
- Eddie Money! I thought I was feeling rough; Eddie pretty much slumped over a urinal in the can for most of the afternoon; if he had two tickets to Paradise, he sure wasn't using them; pretty sure Eddie needed someone to take him home that night (okay, I'll stop now)
- Player WAGS! (One of whom was wearing head-to-toe snakeskin) And... Ozzie Canseco was also there, because why not?

- I kind of split my time watching the derby matchups, watching Charlie hit on the WAGS, and trying to avoid Eddie Money in the can
- Don't think I had any other player encounters; I went down to the field for awhile, and supposedly Piazza went up to the VIP area for a meet & greet, but I missed him
- Random aside: One night in a casino (can't remember which one), I saw Danny Bonaduce run by in only his underwear, screaming like a maniac, with several security people in hot pursuit
- A few of us were went to LA instead of Vancouver for Treyarch stuff; it was an early morning flight, and we missed it, for... reasons. Apparently so did Manny Ramirez; our group kept running into Manny at taxi stands and around McCarron Airport. It was awkward

2001 Highlights:

- Much more low-key affair (I think the PA thought they were going to make a killing with this event; since it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, I don't think it turned out that way)
- Lineup: Raffy, Canseco, Bagwell, Big Hurt, Sheffield, and uh... I'm kind of drawing a blank. Glaus, I think? Steve Finley? It was a long time ago, man
- There was some kind of private club at the very top of Mandalay Bay that the MLBPA was hosting a shindig in. Up close, Raffy seemed about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Frank Thomas is gigantic. I distinctly recall Sheff cutting in front of me at the bar
- I chatted briefly with Don Fehr on the balcony (remember, this was the very top of Mandalay Bay). He's standing by the railing, and a tiny part of me is thinking, "Should I do it? One good shove, and I spend the rest of my life in jail, and be a hero to millions of baseball fans!"
- Eh, I decided against it

Anyway, to prove that this post isn't 100% BS...