ATG III Teaser #3

[gamiam]

I love the new team! Normalization of fielding is another matter though. That was a condition of the game then. Are we going to normalize (add)home runs too, for dead ball players? Normalize ballparks so they are all even? We'll need to take away some offense from the hitters of the late 20s and 30s to make them conform to the rest of the pool? And don't forget the pitchers of the 60's with those built up mounds. We need to add some hits and take away some strikeouts to be fair. The diversity of the eras is one of the things I love about ATG. When you start messing with that, all you are doing is substituting your best guess at how the game MIGHT have been for what it actually was. I'm sure the decision has already been made, but IMHO, it doesn't benefit the game.

[Free Radicals]

I'm not sure what this Normalization means . Can someone explain it in laymens terms please?

[gamiam]

A real simplistic explanaion. Basically, they are saying Wagner (for example) was a great fielding ss. Great fielding ss's shouldn't make 58 errors, and if Wagner played in a different era, he would not have made 58 errors. They are saying these errors are a condition of the time, not a result of the player's ability. So they decided to "normalize" errors from deal ball players. They looked at some pool of ss's over time (example...post 1950 ss's), and decided that an average fielding ss from this pool would make for example 25 errors in a season, and a great defensive ss, would make only 18. So then they take Wagner, and make him an e18 (or e20 or 22 depending on how MUCH they want to normalize him). The card may still say e58, but the actual probability of an error will be in line with e18.

[The Last Druid]

Generally it works like this. You take a given statistic. You then find the league average for the year on that stat. The average is then arbitrarily deemed to be a 100. (Technically the standard score for the normal curve is 0 with 68% of the data falling between -1 and +1 where those numbers represent normalized standard deviations). A score of 115 then represents 1 standard deviation and is by definition the 84th percentile for the stat in question. Statistics will also be adjusted for context, i.e. in this case the league average for errors for 1906 vs the league average for whatever index year Bernie is using or possibly an aggregate index. In 1906 Lajoies normalized range was 108 but his normalized throwing was 188. Read these numbers like IQ's. 108 is better than the average of 100 but 188 is off the charts. (The numbers cited for Lajoie are from the 2005 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia). Bernie will need to clarify what the normalized Lajoie errors for 1906 will be referenced against.

[The Last Druid]

Gamian's logic re normalization is solid and internally consistent. However, the number of errors back in the deadball era really are way out of whack, especially for the middle infielders. I think for [b:aa80bae9c7]playability [/b:aa80bae9c7]purposes it is better to normalize them. I wouldn't normalize any of the other stats though. But your points are well taken.

[Hack Wilson]

Great pick!

I'd rather have this type of year from Lajoie (.355) than his .400-plus year with offensive fireworks. With the latter, he'd be unaffordable. Remember, I think the year he hit .424 foul balls were not counted as strikes (if I recall correctly), and so this could really skew the game when a player had such a radically different environment and rules.

I hope some of the really high-priced guys in the 14-mil range come down in salary so we use them more often.

[Hack Wilson]

Normalization on fielding errors is good, Bernie. Thanks for making this a part of ATGIII.

[traderj]

Nice Bernie, like the pitching, couple of good hitters and normalization will be a good thing for fielding. Keep 'em coming. :D

[nevdully's]

I agree with gamiam on normalization.

I'm also concerned with the pool of players being so deep the game will become even more about luck than ever before. :(

In ATG if you didn't get a good core of players from your draft card (lotsa strategy needed) and the hopefully grab a couple in the Frenzy, you really had to use some "outside the box" thinking to be competitive and possibly win a Title. This is how the Buck Weavers of the game were found. In ATGII the game became easier in the sense that with so much pitching, you could really focus your draft card on hitters and fill into pitchers later.

%*^(&*..... I got lots to say but I'm tired as h*ll.....bottom line is with a billion players to choose from, everyone can tailor their team to get [b:0adfd34fe6]exactly the "type" [/b:0adfd34fe6]of [b:0adfd34fe6]players they want [/b:0adfd34fe6]and put them in[b:0adfd34fe6] the perfect park[/b:0adfd34fe6] too........Determining factor on who wins????? [b:0adfd34fe6]LUCK![/b:0adfd34fe6] more than ever before! just luck, plain dumb luck.

the best solution I see? [b:0adfd34fe6]expansion[/b:0adfd34fe6] 24 team leagues!!!!! It's a must...Winning a Title would be earned!....I could paint a much better picture of this but it's sleepytime. 8)

[Roosky]

ATG I was more about luck than ATG II. Who ever got lucky in the draft and frenzy was who won. Everyone knew who the good playrs were so everyone just tried to draft them. With more players the better the manager can build the better team.