formula for game editing

[demystifier]

Does anyone have any formulas or ideas for doing power and contact when editing an RBI Rom?  I'm playing around with 1993 stats (I made a Rom with 10 AL teams) but am unsatisfied and want to rework the stats.

Ideas for pitching would be nice too...I've read the FAQ and understand the general concepts, I was wondering if any of you that edit roms have good formulas, or atleast a good range for hitters to work with.  Is 700 to 1000 a good range for power?  What is a good range for contact?  Is there a way to reward good hitters who aren't great power hitters without inflating their HRs too much?  Or should I just not worry about it quite so much and except non-realism as a fundamental aspect of RBI?

Also, have any of you out there ever played Earl Weaver Baseball?  Just wondering, as that is a fave of my as well.

[Dryden]

Try http://forums.dee-nee.com/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=3379

[demystifier]

thanks...

[demystifier]

that forum helped, but I still have a few idea/questions:

I have an idea of increasing contact range from what it normally is (say, ranging from 5-80) to reward good hitters who will have mediocre power ratings.  Take a guy like Mark Grace from 1993 (the year I'm making first...I'll probably try to do the 1990s eventually, save for what is already done and posted).  Mark Grace is a good hitter with a bad HR/AB ratio (I'm using HR/AB and SLG as my main two PWR stats, with other hitting stats having minor influences).  If I don't use contact to moderate players in any substancial fashion, I'll end up with the Pete Incaviglia's of the world being great hitters, with the Mark Grace's of the world being only semi-usable.  On the other hand I don't want to put too many non-power stats into the Power equation (like OBA or BA).  Doing that will mean that players like John Olerud (BA was .363 that year) will get rewarded for hitting alot of singles/drawing walks in real life with mondo RBI homeruns (in my first version of the AL, I used BA as a stat that effected power...Olerud is by far the best HR hitter on the Blue Jays on my ROM, showing just how much I need to tweek it).

My dilemna:  While I'm not seeking for dramatic realism, I want to find a way to reward good real life hitters like Olerud without making them hit homers like Barry Bonds.  Can a high contact range be used to make this possible?

The pitching formulas seem interesting as well.  Is there a good way to use things like WHIP, ERA, and K's/IP to figure the stats without looking every player up?  Even though it is only 4 players per team, I am too lazy to look up how every pitcher is in real life for those years.  I guess I'm less picky about the pitching; as long as it is decent, I'm happy.

Also, how do people feel about making line-ups irrespective of positions?  I mean, since there aren't any fielders in RBI, does it matter if I have 4 outfielders in the line up?  What about putting 3 or 4 starting pitchers on a roster that has a crappy bullpen (which I plan to do)?  Would this make my ROMs suck for other players to use (my ultimate goal is to do the seasons for the 90s, back when I was an avid baseball junkie...I want to make sure they are atleast good enough for others too enjoy them too)?

Any thoughts by ROM makers would be appreciated.

[nightwulf]

As far as pitcher data is concerned, see this thread, particularly Dryden's table with the min and max pitch speeds.

Contact could probably be used to separate batters in the manner you're describing. Mark Grace sounds like a good example of a low power / low contact batter.

Nightwulf

[demystifier]

After tweeking, my power system:

(HR/AB*850)+(RBI/AB*300)+(SLG*350)+(OBA*200)+515

This constistantly gives most players between 700 and 1000, with a few dipping below and above those parameters.  This makes HR/AB worth about half of the non-constant part of the equation, but still allows OBA to have some influence (albeit a minor one).  This isn't a flawless formula, but does work fairly well (especially if I find a good contact equation to moderate it).


The biggest problem is that some players with good numbers for low at bats can get a high score because it relies on per AB ratios.  I solve for this by manually reducing the score for players with low at bats, and raising their contact ratings (otherwise Glenallen Hill will be better than, say, Sammy Sosa, merely because he had one good month for the Cubs).  

Still trying to has out that contact statistic...

[Dryden]

For players with few at-bats (especially pitchers), one particularly good idea suggested  by fightonusc (I think) was to combine multiple seasons, divide by some factor to return an average number of plate appearances (700 or so) and treat that as a season.  In this way, the fact that Mike Hampton hit 7 homers in 79 at-bats doesn't make him the best hitter in the game, but instead he has 14 in 639 at-bats.  Still excellent for a pitcher, but not in the Dawson-McGwire league, either.

[ultimate7]

It should be noted again that lower contact is better, in case you didn't catch that.

[demystifier]

Though it cuts into realism, I think that I'm going to just leave all pitchers at the default (for hitting, not pitching), or at least make them all the same, even if I up their basic stats, just for simplicity.

The idea of basing it on 700 ABs is probably a good one, but I'm not going to do for three reasons:

1) I'm fairly busy and kinda lazy
2) I have a goal of making alot of roms, so I want to reduce work for each (I know I could just use the same PWR for a player for several years, but I want to allow for the type of variation that occurs in real life)
3) I do want to make stats year specific, including ratings.  If a player really had an off-year in 1993 that was cut short by injury, then I want him to not be really good in RBI just because he was great the year before or year after.

And I do realize that low contact is good, which is part of what makes it a little harder to calculate....

[demystifier]

The pitching forum really helped to give me a start on how to do pitchers so that they don't turn out to be complete ass.  Thanks.

Sorry if this is redundant, but is there a place online where one can find how fast real pitchers pitch?

Or is there a way to convert K/IP (and maybe other stats) into the speed catagories?

[Dryden]

The best place for what pitchers throw/threw is probably the Neyer/James guide to pitchers, from your local bookstore.  Other than that, your best bet is probably to use Google and do the best you can - random biographies online often mention what someone threw.  But it's really a needle in a haystack scenario for a lot of pitchers.

[demystifier]

most contact formula, giving a range of 1-80 (anything under 1 I call one, and anything over 80 I make 80).

(((1-(BA+OBA)-(.25K/AB))*100)-30)*(75/20)

To make that more in English:

1) Take 1 and subtract BA+OBA

2) Subtract (K/AB)/4

3) Multiply by 100

4) Subtract 30

5) Multiply by (75/20)**


**was originally four, but that gave numbers a little bigger than the range I wanted.

I have a higher contact rating than most roms probably do, but I have a somewhat generous PWR rating overall (but not ridiculous) and I wanted to give something to make it matter if someone is a good contact hitter.  I'm concerned it still might be too high, but I'm going to play around with the rom for a bit before deciding.

My stats do have some individual variations from the formulas I've made (for instance, players like George Brett and Cal Ripken get a break because they were such great career players and I like them).  I've got the ROM done now, but will probably edit it once more after I've played with it for a bit to see if there is anything I don't like.

But, if any of you want to play around with them and see if they suck or not, I'd appreciate it....

Thanks,
Paul