From: masten@beta.lanl.gov (David A. Masten)
Subject: Re: PTP FAQ (PURSUE THE PENNANT PC BASEBALL)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 05:43:36 GMT

In article <1992Aug29.041101.1267@meteor.wisc.edu> stvjas@meteor.wisc.edu (Stephen Jascourt) writes:
>In article <1992AUG28.215546.5615@TERMINATOR.CC.UMICH.EDU> RDUNkle@aal.itd.umich.edu (R. M. Dunkle) writes:
>
About PtP Baseball:
>
>>  o  Are player's abilities accurately reflected in PtP?
>>
>PTP has a few systematic stats problems. It has a randomization problem which
>makes pitchers go on long streaks, like 10-15 batters, in which they get
>almost everyone out (like 13 of 15) and streaks when they give up runner after
>runner, and this happens to bad and good pitchers far more than should
>statistically be expected. Also, most of the fly balls are "deep fly" and
>it doesn't account for some players like Boggs having very few pop ups (at
>least, experience is that players who do certain things extremely rarely do
>them far more often in PTP). And I have one pitcher who had 2 balks in 90
>innings in real life and had 5 in a 15-inning stretch in PTP, and I average
>50-100% too many balks in most of my leagues most years. Also, the computer
>likes to give too many triples, particularly to very slow players in parks
>that are supposed to reduce triples. But overall, the OBP, SLG, H/9 IP, etc.
>come out fairly well after considering what parks I play who in and who the
>competition is (since my leagues are not strict replay leagues).
 
I agree with your comments.  There have been a lot of arguments in rsbb
about streaks/clutch etc vs random chance.  Admittedly based on purely
subjective experience, I don't see top pitchers like Clemens get shelled
in real life like they (randomly) do in PtP or any other game that is
based on stochastic models.
One problem I see with PtP (and others) is that if a pitcher is getting
shelled, its purely random chance factored in with his expected
behavior.  So no reason to take out Clemens/Rijo etc if they are getting
stomped.  You know they still have the best chance of getting the next
hitter out of all your pitchers.  In reality, a pitcher's *probably*
getting shelled because he doesn't have his good stuff.  In which case
you would remove him.  The way to correct this is with a random "stuff"
factor before or at some point, in the game.  Then you'll figure Clemens
is getting rocked cause he doesn't have his stuff and yank him.  Or
vice-versa if he has good stuff that day.  Best if they don't tell you
and you have to figure it based on hits, BB's, and deep flies.  But as
you mentioned, in PtP every flyball seems to be a deep fly.  Every
double is off the wall.  Too many "if its fair its a HR".
Can't say I've seen the balk thing, but WP's seem to come in spurts even
for good pitchers.  And as I once before said in rsbb, I don't think
these games can handle the real oddities, like Eckersley's (and this
year Tewksbury's) phenomenal BB/IP ratios. 
But as you said, on the whole, PtP does real well.

>>  o  Is pitcher fatigue handled decently?
>
>See above streakiness about pitchers. Pitchers can get shelled in early
>innings and then get 9 of the next 10 batters out after you leave the bum
>in to spare the pen. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it-- the computer
>is in either out mode or hit mode regardless of who the pitchers and hitters
>are, except the good hitters might sneak a hit in during out mode and get a
>longer period of 'hit mode', likewise with pitchers, but the flow of the
>game all to often isn't as usually is in real life. Naturally you get all
>different kinds of games, some with baserunners left on in every inning, etc.
>but the distribution of game flows seems quite unrealistic. I expect this to
>change if they can find a way around the randomization problem, which has
>something to do with the system clock cycle and not much to do with the
>random number generator-- it has been found to be a problem, for instance, in
>software that generates random numbers for lottery tickets or auto racing
>things of some kind. 
 
Interesting, I always just figured it was stochastic.  But again, I
agree with your observations.

>>  o  As a manager, can you do everything during a game you want to?
>>
>>            - Well, within the limits of baseball. Yes. :)

Well, you can't change outfielder depth or shift the OF/IF L/R.  But I
don't think you should be able to do these unless you have a pitch by
pitch game.  And even then it depends too much on the type of pitcher
and hitter and the expected pitch.  No game models these factors well.
You also don't have the run&hit, just the H&R.  Weaver always hated the
H&R so EWBBII (a sucky game) has the R&H also.
I'm still not crazy about the steal system.  You give the player the
steal directive then he may or may not get the jump.  You should still
have the option of stealing with a poor jump, but with lowered success
rate.
Also no pitchouts.  But again, that would only effectively apply to a
pitch by pitch game.

>
>PTP is lots of fun and is a better game for us statheads than most any other
>but it does have its problems and they are not insignificant if you are
>looking for a game that plays just like real baseball. So, just be forewarned
>not to expect more than what can reasonably be delivered, and ENJOY!
>

Definitely for stat heads.  I'd say far less bugs than any other game
I've played.  Pretty dry text play by play.  APBA is much better in this
one respect.

>One other note: PTP computer range (fielding) ratings are absurd and have been
>for the last 3 years. The card ratings are much better (for the board game)
>and both have five rating categories. The computer game allows you to manually
>change the ratings, so in the leagues I am in we change the computer range
>ratings to match those on the cards (so we have an objective standard with
>no favoritism; can't let league members make arbitrary decisions about their
>personnel's ratings!)

I always thought the computer and board game agreed.  I also tended to
change a lot of ratings.  Basing running ratings on 10 or 20 running
plays in a year is questionable.  I know Rickey is fast :-)
It would also be more fun if they had more variation than: poor, fair,
avg, good, excellent.  A 1-10 scale is more interesting in that you
could just give 1's to pathetic guys like Kingman, and 10's to super
studs like Rickey.
 
>Stephen Jascourt   stvjas@meteor.wisc.edu

Dave Masten
masten@beta.lanl.gov