Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I'm starting a new thread so that the thread on enchancement suggestions can remain that. Those interested in a debate on clutch hitting in TSN/SOM can post here.

I'll repost from that thread:
[quote:f57aba662a]Just to note, this is directly from the CDROM help file

"BALLPARK EFFECTS AND CLUTCH HITTING (Located in the Options/Rules dialog)

These rules add more realism to the game. If you wish to use them (we highly recommend that you do), then we suggest that you check all boxes on.

NOTE: If you wish to use Weather Effects the Ballpark Effects must be checked on.

Ballpark rules add ballparks' effects so that, just as in real life, it is easier to hit a home run in Colorado than it is in Houston. Home runs and batting average are both taken into account, and Strat-O-Matic also factors in every player's home ballpark so that accuracy and realism are maintained.

Clutch hitting measures each player's ability to deliver the clutch hit. Strat-O-Matic's exclusive clutch hitting formula accurately measures every player's ability in these key situations. Traditional clutch hitting stats do not comprise enough situations to make them statistically significant. For instance a batter with 500 at-bats might only hit 110 times with runners in scoring position and perhaps 80 times in "close and late" situations. This total number of at-bats is not enough to truly gauge his clutch hitting ability, because in 190 at-bats a .250 hitter can be expected to swing anywhere between .187 and .313 just as a result of random statistical distribution. Strat-O-Matic's exclusive clutch hitting formula measures the outcome of every baserunner that the batter affected during the year. This detailed approach provides a true measurement of the batter's clutch hitting ability. Our system is implemented with 2 outs and runners in scoring position because in real-life that is traditionally the most difficult time to "come through" with a base hit. If the batter fails, there are no more chances to drive in those runners. Most batters will see their average go down in the clutch -- both in real-life and with our system.

Some leagues wish to play with just the ballpark option and not the clutch hitting system. Originally these options were developed to work together, and in previous versions of the game you could not toggle them individually. The option to toggle them independently is now available, however when doing this the statistical accuracy of the game will suffer slightly, perhaps a point or two on the batting average at most.

Strat-O-Matic recommends that you use both ballpark and clutch hitting features together for maximum realism and statistical accuracy."

--

So I stand by what I say about how clutch hitting is as much a part of the game as the ballpark effects.

Also, I don't see SOM say anywhere there that clutch hitting is an RBI adjuster. I don't believe that to be true and I'd like to see where it says that in the help file or instruction booklet, or where an employee of SOM has said that.
Clutch hitting is an integral part of the super advanced game.
I have an idea, why don't we just scrap all the rules and play the basic game?
I'm sure there are other site that don't use clutch hitting. [/quote:f57aba662a]

and I replied...

[quote:f57aba662a]LOL Voovits, you're making my point. SOM had so much demand to cut out the Clutch factor that they did just that - their serious players demanded it because they know it's a sham. Clutch is a sophisticated fudge factor for RBIs.

Again, this has been proven over & over again via advanced stats - there is NO real life "clutch factor". Over time, given enough PAs, a hitter's performance in 2-out, man-in-scoring-position scenarios generally mirrors their non-clutch performance.

When confronted with this evidence (sorry I don't have a link, it was years ago this was disclosed), SOM basically confessed in a forum *on their site* that the main purpose of this stat was so that RBI would not be out of whack with actual performance. All other stats (BA, OB, SLG, splits) could be simmed just fine, but RBI fluctuated wildly because of what MW said above - so many variables (batting order, etc.) come into play that RBI, even more than runs scored, is the most difficult output to control for in the SOM environment.

MW, I think you're missing my point - we here don't NEED to perfectly replicate RBI performance. SOM does because they are claiming to be able to sim all pieces of the MLB season accurately. Their credibility demands some fudge factor for RBI.

Our games in TSN (or any other SOM league) don't have the same requirement. We need to be sure that the parts of the performance *under hitter control* are replicated correctly, not that Adrian Gonzalez' 99 RBI are replicated when he has 3 .400 OBP guys in front of him in a TSN league. To get that 99 RBI, in a TSN environment we are sacrificing 10 or 12 singles that Gonzalez would have had in real life, and so nearly every time in a 12-team TSN league, Gonzalez or similar high OPS/low RBI guys will underperform their cards, usually severely unless they are in a hitter environment. What this gives us, and I see this trend all the time with these players, are HR & 2B totals that match real life, but BA totals that are exceptionally low.

So Voovits in this environment just the opposite is true - clutch hitting impairs real-life performance by some of the best hitters in the game by penalizing them for the guys playing around them.[/quote:f57aba662a]

Article of interest:
[url]http://bleacherreport.com/articles/374519-the-clutch-myth-and-why-we-buy-into-it[/url]

Also, to clarify, I'm not saying SOM is basing clutch hitting on nothing - just that because they look at single-season stats, and because RBI totals are important to them [i:28b504dcd3]as an outcome of the replay season[/i:28b504dcd3], they have to put clutch in the game principally to adjust RBI totals.

From a 1999 Hal Richman interview:

[quote:94f4cf0f9b]Can you explain what is the Clutch Formula?

HR - Well, I can't get into the exact formula, but I can tell you its more than the Runners In Scoring Position Average is. If there was enough ABs produced with 2 outs and runners in scoring position (RISP), batters hit between 12 and 20 points below their regular average. There is pressure on the batter to produce in those situations. But enough ABs can't be generated. We look at average and RBIs. They are weighted differently, but anything under 100 ABs we consider to be very little. Its more than a RBI adjustment. I really think that the clutch is an excellent formula.[/quote:94f4cf0f9b]


And [url=http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=67206&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=ibanez&start=0#comments]a discussion from yesteryear.[/url]

Thanks Palmtana, I knew the history was there.

Glen Guzzo, who is cited on the old thread, is in fact part of SOM. So he's saying it's RBI per AB, which again makes this adjustment totally dependent on the lineups around the player in real life, etc, not how many RBI they *should* hit in a star-studded lineup in a 12-team TSN league

This is VERY similar to the whole game code scandal, which Bernie had to turn off, called "correct board game excesses" or something similar, which would artificially limit a player's ability to hit more than X HRs in a season, etc. Any artificial limiters should not be a part of the TSN game IMHO. I'm not saying we have to make it the default, but we should give leagues the choice of being clutch or non-clutch. It's a pretty easy call I think.