Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

So I've long suspected that SOM's game engine made it impossible to get more than about 116 wins, as I've noticed that great teams on pace to get more than 116 wins all seem to get derailed by losing streaks and/or injuries.

This theory has been tested by several managers over the years, who bought entire leagues, filled them with 1 great team and 11 bad teams, and let them play. Predictably, the results were teams finishing 162-0 or 161-1.

Until recently, the most wins I've seen in real leagues was 116. That team is below:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/807647

Here's 114 wins:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/sim/1380814

Here's 113 wins:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1447702

Here's 112 wins:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/sim/335580

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/1380087

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/1385760

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/sim/1405556

111 wins:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1415416

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1456942

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1460390

Lastly, here's 122 wins:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1440530

Although the league had a $200 mil cap, no team came close to filling the cap. However, the 122 win team easily had the 2nd highest roster value in the league, approx. $156.4 mil, just $700,000 less than the highest roster value, approx. $157.1 mil, with the team with the highest roster value winning a not too shabby 105 games and getting a ring. Note that the third highest roster value was just $137 mil, while the lowest roster value was about $98 mil. In other words, two teams with rosters values ranging from $20 mil to $59 mil higher than the rest of the league dominated play.

While 122 wins is a great accomplishment, it certainly wasn't a level playing field in terms of roster value, and my guess is that many managers receiving the benefit of such a large roster value differential would approach or exceed 122 wins.

So, it appears that the most wins by a team on a level playing field was jet40's 116 win team, which (not so?) coincidentally, is also the MLB record for wins in a season. Note that after game 152, the team was an astounding 113-39, but lost 6 games in a row, before rebounding to win 3 of the last 5 games (a .600 winning percentage, well below the .716 season long winning percentage) to get to 116 wins. Perhaps SOM does cap wins in such leagues at 116 after all.

Is anybody aware of a team in a league with a level playing field with 116 or more wins?

Here are some of my best (over 110 wins):

113 wins. ATG limited to players from 65-75.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1443352

122 wins. ATG limited to 1920 and before players ($200M).

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1440530

112 wins. 80s mystery card.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1421683

114 wins. 90s mystery card.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/340839

113 wins. 70s mystery card.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/340839

111 wins. 80s mystery card.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/714380

121 wins. 80s mystery card.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/798224

117 wins. 80s mystery card.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/718860

112 wins. 70s mystery card (24 team league).

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1104658


Not too bad out of my 150 team sample. Also have dozens of 100+ win teams. Of course, both my 121 and 122 win teams didn't win the championship.

So I've long suspected that SOM's game engine made it impossible to get more than about 116 wins, as I've noticed that great teams on pace to get more than 116 wins all seem to get derailed by losing streaks and/or injuries.

This theory has been tested by several managers over the years, who bought entire leagues, filled them with 1 great team and 11 bad teams, and let them play. Predictably, the results were teams finishing 162-0 or 161-1.

I wasn't aware that some folks held that theory, but I don't buy it. Why would SOM implement that anyway? I can see why a company would want to limit the performance of a player (make sure they don't create outliers compared to individual performance, not to give the image of a company not realistic enough), but why would a company limit the performance of a team that never existed and against which no comparaison could be made?

For what is worth, I had a 118-44 season in a 80M league many years ago

BTW, Hallerose, some great seasons over there!! Some folks were looking for you and panzerace...were wondering who where these guys who held over .570 career avg

My recent 111 win team, which Bernie appended to this thread, was on pace to win 120+ for much of the season. I didn't expect that to happen, not because of any black box limitations on the number of wins imposed by HAL, but simply because of regression to the mean.

Here is another team, currently active, (http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/434356) that is on track to win 123.4 games. Again because of regression to the mean, I don't expect it to continue to perform at this level but it does at least have a shot to break 110. I decided to post it here so people could monitor it as the season evolves and draw their own conclusions about why it ends up with whatever record it ends up with.

Another factor inherent to the game that may impact final winning pct. is the way the schedule is set up. The last 33 games of the season (in leagues with 12 teams) are all games against teams in your division. In theory, it should be more difficult to navigate this hurdle as good management suggests that one tailor one's team to be as successful as possible against your division opponents since one plays 24 games each against them vs at most 12 games against teams in other divisions. This can be particularly problematic if you are a high profile manager. I certainly take into consideration the rosters of top opponents whether they are in my division or not, in anticipation of good matchups against probable playoff opponents and I know that better managers do the same against my teams.

Why do all the team URL's start with "http//365" but the 122 win team is the only one with "bernie"

These run differentials and win totals are very impressive. But mostly, these teams are only good because the other 11 teams in the league were so lousy. Six months ago I pulled every single ATG 7/8 league ever played, and took the teams with the highest expected wins (RS^1.82/(RS^1.82 + RA^1.82)) and loaded them into the 2015 barnstormers finals (100M Salary cap / DH). We are talking teams with +300 to +400 run differentials. Then, for the top few teams I simulated 100,000 2015 barnstormers finals leagues per team, and not one of those teams averaged a run diff over +100 and not one finished top 1 or 2 in average wins. So if anyone is ever wondering why someone has a .570+ win percentage, the most plausible reason is lousy competition. Not that I've ever won 122 games, or even 116 games, so kudos to that.

I guess all mystery tournament owners must be lousy competition.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/27

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/24

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/tournament/21

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/tournament/18

No doubt playing against finals teams and playing against a league are two different animals.

Some of the high end winning percentages are worthy of nothing but praise, no matter how you slice it. It is very impressive, regardless of what format it is achieved in. I am sure that it took a lot of study and patience in designing teams and managing them to produce such amazing success.

That said, if you are looking for comparisons, comparisons are most apt within formats not between. Going along with that, since I play primarily atg8, I consider Marc P. to be top within that category, as measured by winning percentage.

On the original thread, I have not come close to those types of win totals. I've maxed out around 105.

Very high winning percentages in ATG are indeed impressive, yet I am far more impressed with managers like Nevdully's who used to run 40-50 teams simultaneously at all kinds of caps and consistently delivered results and garnered rings.

And as for myself, I never found the Barnstormers to be that difficult a challenge. The first time I entered was 2005 and I went all the way to the championship series, losing to Odyssey Tigger in game 7. Two years later I won the Barnstormers as Petrosian. The year Don Ferry won it, I finished first in the regular season standings, made the finals playoffs with the best run differential but lost to Don in the playoffs. So it goes. That experience was a bit disheartening and I competed desultorily in the Barnstormers for a few years, and didn't play at all for at least a couple of years. My last appearance, prior to the current tournament, I had the most overall wins of any manager in the competition but did nothing in the playoffs and then decided to not play the tournament any more because of what I deemed the excessive weighting given to playoff advancement. This year Moose et al. addressed my concerns and so I have participated. In the past I would spend maybe 20 minutes throwing a team together. Not this time. Each team this time received hours of thorough analytic work. Last I checked I was first in the standings despite having the team to be dropped in round 4. In Round 5, my team has the best record of anyone participating in the tour.

My point is guys who play one or two teams at a time, or guys who play in the Barnstormers and spend a lot of time and effort crafting the best teams they can, if they are reasonably bright and understand the game, can do quite well. And no disrespect intended to anyone in recent Barnstormer's Finals, but I have played in many leagues with Nev and other highly skilled managers that I have found much more challenging than the competition afforded by the Barnstormers.

Then there is the inevitable copying of high profile managers' strategies. When the manager ratings were restored (sort of) a year or two ago, I noticed that nomadbrad was kicking total ass in ATG 8. In a private message two weeks ago regarding copycats, he lamented that in 2016 he won 67 championships in ATG 8 with a .583 winning pct and in 2017 has only been winning at a .522 clip He noted correctly that when you are very successful people target your team and also tend to copy past teams of yours. Now the run that Brad had in 2016 is the most impressive any manager ever has achieved in an ATG iteration. This got my competitive juices flowing. So I started joining every league I saw him enter. At first we pretty much broke even, gathering lots of rings between us. But as I studied his teams carefully, I noted several things he was consistently doing that I wasn't. So I made some changes in how I approach caps 100M and over and I think that I have contributed in no small part to his precipitous drop in winning pct. and rings won over the past year. Although perhaps not as great a contribution as his merely becoming high profile due to his success and being copied and targeted by many managers. Guys that have played 50 or 60 teams in their entire SOM career would likely fare even worse than Brad if they competed regularly against the top players and were copied and targeted as all the most successful managers inherently are.

Just my two cents.