Discussion Forum

Forum >> Discussions >> I Don't Understand   Bookmark This Forum Thread

Post ID Date & Time Game Date Function
mjreichard
Joined: 10/22/2016
Posts: 143

New Orleans Knights
III.3

Broken Bat Baseball
I have to agree...I have multiple guys that are way off of their career norms.
Dan6176
Joined: 04/30/2016
Posts: 254

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
I don't think this is unique to this season. Check out the homerun totals from this guy [url]http://http://brokenbat.org/player/90965[/url]. I think he corked his bat for one season. Can you guess which one?
shikago
Joined: 11/29/2011
Posts: 229

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
Went from being 100% safe from relegation & battling for 1st place (not to mention still alive in the cup) to being terrible and in last place. Ok, maybe that can all be explained away satisfactorily.

But what's far more jarring/disconcerting to me is the drastic difference in so many other teams' performance. Those with identical lineups to 2035 take 1. We're basically at the all-star break now. So small sample size can't be used as an excuse.

When "Team X" can be garbage in take 1 and world-beaters in take 2 (or vice versa) it makes everything seem incredibly pointless. The difference in player performance is staggering too. Players who were fairly consistent & mediocre over their entire careers suddenly turning into Babe Ruth or Cy Young. And former stars turning into complete bums.

Any past success now feels mostly unearned. I now feel like I'd previously been operating almost under a just-world fallacy type thing. Not demanding anything change or threatening to quit or anything. Just throwing this out there.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9569

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Baseball is fickle. Doesn't take much to turn a 2-1 win into a 2-3 loss. A very small amount of random occurrence will see vastly different outcomes. My team was in 1st place last go around, and now I am battling against relegation. But really those two things aren't as far apart as folks think. A lot comes down to luck. You put your best squad on the field, and with some luck you will win. The better the team, the better your odds, but nothing is guaranteed. Otherwise you would see more teams winning 162 games in the majors. Sometimes the best team just doesn't win.






Updated Sunday, April 1 2018 @ 6:44:22 pm PDT
Geech
Joined: 01/12/2014
Posts: 541

San Luis Obispo Turtles
IV.8

Broken Bat Baseball
If random number generation was really the most important factor, I would expect team rankings to be more volatile. The fact that teams can reach Legends League or over high level leagues and stay there season after season is pretty good evidence that there's plenty of signal coming through the noise. It doesn't mean randomness can't have a big influence, but I think it's pretty clear that there's plenty of room for owner skill.

I'm sorry that a few owners are still having good seasons replaced with extreme collapses. However with 756 teams spread over 63 leagues, it's not preposterous to see some unusual luck variance. (Although I note that Green Bay also just promoted this season. . .) I don't think it proves that randomness dominates the game.
shikago
Joined: 11/29/2011
Posts: 229

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
@Rock - I get what you're saying. I guess to me the impact of luck just seemed way beyond what I expected it to be (in teams that made 0 lineup changes).

@Geech - That's a fair point. Obviously there's things you can do to stack the deck in your favor.

Let's say that all teams started from scratch tomorrow. Call it "Reset 1". Would all the current top teams immediately rocket up to the top and stay there in Reset 1? Now imagine that after 15 seasons we needed to do another complete game reset for some reason. Let's call that "Reset 2". Would all the top teams from Reset 1 go on to dominate Reset 2?

(FWIW, I started with a zero prestige team & went all the way up to the legends league, finishing 2nd or higher 5 straight seasons before taking a long hiatus. Was that due to me being a particularly skillful team owner? Or more a lucky one?)
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9569

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Its a little of both. Draft picks and claims have a lot of luck involved. We can stack the deck by being smart about who you claim/release, or which scouting reports you draft, but there is still a lot of luck. Same with games. You can stack the deck by putting in a good lineup and having good management settings, but at the end of the day you need a little luck to win. If anything I think the reset highlights that. But also consider that 6 games out of the lead really means you are both in last place and still contending. Maybe your team didn't change, but others no doubt did. Some people took advantage of the reset to clean house early of guys who failed them the first time around. Really at this point in the season, I doubt many teams have taken the exact same path as last year (especially when you factor in injuries).
Cactusguy21
Joined: 07/25/2017
Posts: 815

Presque Isle Vikings
III.4

Broken Bat Baseball
Okay, let's actually sit down and go through my team, and see how much it's deviating from the career norms.

So first, the guys that are performing basically on their career norms:
LF Wyatt
3B Gonzalez (who had a breakout in the alternate reality)
SP Reagan (who had a collapse in the alternate reality)
C Schmidt

Then, these guys are performing only slightly off norms, probably just randomness at work
DH Roldan
2B Duran
CF Sheppard
RP On (On is the only short/middle reliever I'm gonna count, since he gets so many innings.)
SP Baughman

Then, the guys that are a little bit crazy:

RF Madrid (even though his stats are basically the same, his splits have reversed. He went from the best vsLHP hitter in the league to one of the worst, and went from an average vsRHP hitter to a great one)
SP Roque (big slump)
SS Toca (best year of his career by far)


Then, the twilight zone:

1B Jeong: He was the definition of average his whole career, then in the alternate season was so bad he got benched for a 77 SI rookie. Now he is an MVP candidate.

SP/RP Cordero: Absolute garbage this year.


So in reality, it's not actually too different. It just feels different.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9569

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Actually looks like you might have come out a bit ahead if I'm counting the +/- right.
Cactusguy21
Joined: 07/25/2017
Posts: 815

Presque Isle Vikings
III.4

Broken Bat Baseball
No yeah, this season has been much better for me. Just weirder.


Previous Page | Show All |