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Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9568

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Form is just tells you the players average BA or ERA over the most recent games. So low form means a low BA or high ERA. They could have a great OPS or WHIP, and still be labeled as poor form. So I would look more closely at the recent numbers rather than just the form label.

The only thing you can do to change it is play games. Since form is just showing you recent performance, it won't change unless they have more recent performances to measure.

Form may give us some clue about the existence of streaks or good/bad months, but I wouldn't get too wrapped up in it. I tend to give guys a couple games off if they have very bad performances, but I really have no idea if that impacts anything.

Bad players, will always have bad form, because they will consistently have low BAs / high ERAs. Its really not telling you about the player's personal form, just recent performance. Someone with a .100 BA is just always going to be in "bad form", and probably shouldn't be on your team.
hurstdm
Joined: 01/18/2017
Posts: 576

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
Can anyone lay out the basics of Form in this game?

Steve's been cagey about it.

Is there anything I can do as manager to affect my players form, positively or negatively?

Great question. Is it time or ABs/IPs? Big difference. Do I sit the "Very Cold" or is playing time the only thing that de-freezes him? I have a hunch they get colder before an injury and the injury resets a player's Form, but no official evidence of this.

How quickly does it change; can a players form change during a game - start off cold or average and finish the game hot, or the opposite?

I think it takes a while, but I'm not sure.

I find myself wanting to shuffle my cold SP's into LR's, or the reverse, does anyone else do anything like that?

I didn't used to shuffle out players in bad form, but now I tend to. If they hit "Very Cold" they're sitting if there's a decent replacement. I literally have no idea if this matters, but it makes me feel better. My intuition is that Form in Broken Bat is future-oriented and not just past-oriented. I wish Steve would tell us.

What comes first, player plays like crap and form drops, or, form drops and player then plays like crap?

I don't know. Is it future-oriented or past-oriented? Anybody that actually knows isn't talking. I've given it a lot of thought. Here's a question back to you: How would you design an experiment to test whether it's future-oriented or past-oriented? I think I'd take my "Very Hot" guys and "Very Cold" guys and check their records every day. After a bunch of games, you ought to see whether their Form matters by how they play in the future. It's just kind of a taxing experiment to run. Have you got anything better?

Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9568

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Steve has not been cagey. He has been very explicit. Form is based solely on recent performance. More specifically recent batting average and recent ERA. View your Latest Statistics, and you can very easily confirm this by sorting on ERA or AVE.
hurstdm
Joined: 01/18/2017
Posts: 576

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
Source? Here's mine.

Halflings: You have a point. I think this one gets tricky because Steve has never confirmed nor denied (I hope he never does) if players perform better at different times of the year and if streaks are part of the code.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9568

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
You are taking that quote out of context. Whether or not players go on streaks is completely independent of what Form is showing, and how Form is calculated. Form will absolutely never change if you don't have new stats. Try benching a player for 3 weeks and see if his form changes.

You can feel free to search the forums. It was clearly stated by Steve (and easily confirmed by looking at Latest Statistics for multiple teams) that Form is just showing recent performance.

If you require further evidence you can do the research yourself. I don't have time to comb through old forum posts to source every time I provide someone with help based on my knowledge.






Updated Tuesday, February 25 2020 @ 6:09:42 am PST
MukilteoMike
Joined: 08/09/2014
Posts: 3294

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
Displayed form is absolutely, positively, 100% guaranteed, based on very recent past performance.

Almost everyone understands the heart of the question, though--does form affect upcoming performance at all? We don't know the answer to that question.
Seca
Joined: 05/05/2014
Posts: 5193

Waterloo Dinosaurs
Legends

Broken Bat Baseball
Agreed. In what follows I am not talking about "displayed form" but the possibility of a hidden variable attached to each player which has an influence on how they play.

There is always the risk being accused of apophenia in this discussion. It seems Occam to attribute variations in performance to random.

I believe BrokenBat took some inspiration from Hattrick. In Hattrick (current) form is a variable that has a significant impact on performance. There is a second variable for each player called "background form" which basically functions as an up/down arrow for which way current form will go. Current form is visible, background form is not. Each week with the training update current form moves towards background form, and background form is adjusted.

It seems very reasonable to me that the idea was incorporated here. And if so, I think it was brilliant to hide the form. Takes far more "skill" to deduce form from recent play than to read it off a player card.

BrokenBat is a confirmation bias paradise. You can find evidence for pretty much anything if you look for it. I won't bother listing my "evidence".

So if you do view performance through the lens of a form variable, how do you manage? The hierarchy of I do:
- move guys playing poorly to lower leverage roles (down the batting order or P depth chart)
- sit guys playing poorly
- send guys who play poorly for a long time back to the minors for a spell
- hope guys playing well don't get injured; hope guys playing poorly do get injured
- keep young guys playing poorly hoping their form changes; cut old guys playing poorly rather than wait for their form to change
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9568

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
There is always the risk being accused of apophenia in this discussion.

This is the main thing, and the reason I hope Steve never tells us the secret sauce. As long as we don't know for sure, most of us will assume streaks exists, or players play different at different times of the year. That's part of the fun, and what makes the feel more real. Its the whole reason people have fought religious wars on these forums about whether or not (real life) players' performance is impacted by emotional state. Its a lot easier for humans to see patterns than prove cause and effect.

Form in the game is just recent performance. How you choose to utilize recent performance data is completely dependent to each player. I suspect many of us fiddle with our lineups. It might be effective, or we might just be rubbing rabbits' feet.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9568

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
can a players form change during a game

One thing to note on this topic. Steve has established that pitchers' performance decrease as they build fatigue throughout a game. Different than hot/cold streaks, but their performance does change. So a good way to leverage weaker pitchers is to give them a lower pitch count.
michaeltodd2
Joined: 02/20/2018
Posts: 325

Paradise Valley Cubs
III.3

Broken Bat Baseball
Apophenia...I had to look that one up. Good word! It particularly resonates in today's political context. Anyway, a lot of interesting stuff here. I've played Hattrick for some time now and I've wondered if it was similar.


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