Low pitcher ERAs, revealed!

[Gantry]

So I'm starting a new section on the Wikipedia RBI Baseball page, when I'm starting to write about how some pitchers have incredibly low ERAs for no reason.  So I'm hitting Baseball Reference to list a couple examples when a light flickers.  Here's how it works:

In RBI, your maximum ERA can be no higher than 3.55 (sans nightwulf hacks).  Unfortunately in real baseball, many pitchers had ERAs well above that mark.  So all RBI did was loop the ERA - if your ERA is 3.56 in real life, your ERA in RBI was 1.00 (the lowest you can have in the game).  So basically if your ERA was above 3.55, the formula is used:

Real ERA - 3.56 + 1.00 = RBI ERA

Don Sutton 1986 ERA 3.74, RBI ERA 1.18
Shane Corbet 1986 ERA 3.66, RBI ERA 1.10
Bert Blyleven 1987 ERA 4.01, RBI ERA 1.45

So simple, yet so stupid.  It couldn't have been that difficult to program full ERAs (how long did it take you nightwulf?), so why loop them?  Perhaps we'll never know, but maybe a good question for Peter Lipson to see if he remembers...

Christmas 2004 and I'm still learning new shit about this game...

[GDavis]

Absolutely absurd.  Nice work Gantry.

[fknmclane]

This is insane.  This is why I love RBI Baseball so much.  After 15+ years of playing, I learn something new about it all the time.

[Gantry]

RBI Baseball is its own xmas gift, the game just gives and gives and gives...

[fknmclane]

RBI Baseball is its own xmas gift, the game just gives and gives and gives...

Just like the clap, RBI Baseball is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

[BeefMaster]

That's hilarious - players with really low ERAs only have them because they actually have high ERAs, and you end up thinking bad players are better than they are.  I love this game.

[nightwulf]

That's just ridiculous. Good find.

It really didn't take long to incorporate "long" batting averages and ERAs. The hardest part was finding an unused area of the ROM to store the additional information and writing routines to access the correct information per player. Once that was settled, it was cake. I even reused one of their original routines to display a hex number onscreen in decimal. If I had the actual original pre-assembled source in front of me, it would've been a 2-minute job.

That said, Peter Lipson probably had little choice in the matter. I bet Tengen's role was little more than a localization team. Translate the Japanese text, throw American teams and players into the game, and call it a day. There are very few changes to the coding of the game to my knowledge.

Nightwulf

[Ryno23]

Gantry, you magnificant bastard!




yeah, I got seinfeld on the brain.

[JoeDirt]

Shane Corbet 1986 ERA 3.66, RBI ERA 1.10

Christmas 2004 and I'm still learning new shit about this game...

You have learned much; yet you have much to learn...

[Gantry]

That said, Peter Lipson probably had little choice in the matter. I bet Tengen's role was little more than a localization team. Translate the Japanese text, throw American teams and players into the game, and call it a day. There are very few changes to the coding of the game to my knowledge.

BOPs were added to the NES version...  

[Flood]

Brilliant!

[fknmclane]

Drink and play RBI Baseball at the same time?!  BRILLIANT!

[Big Apple RBI Champ]

Do ERA's matter or is it simply the stuff?  Blyleven is so good not because of his paltry ERA, but rather because his ball curves so much.  Corbet still sucks.

In any case, great discovery by Gantry.

[ultimate7]

Do ERA's matter or is it simply the stuff?  Blyleven is so good not because of his paltry ERA, but rather because his ball curves so much.  Corbet still sucks.

In any case, great discovery by Gantry.

ERAs don't matter for how well they pitch, it is a display number only.  Good job Gantry in discovering how they got them.

[Flood]

Drink and play RBI Baseball at the same time?!  BRILLIANT!

[Gantry]

Added to the database:

http://dee-nee.com/wiki/index.php/Earned_Run_Average