Is there a negative bias against teams?

Another season with good players performing woefully, too many injuries for the rating, etc. Is there a bias built in to reflect bad karma, driving Miguel Cabrera to hit .250 and Todd Frazier .176?

Well I have had too many losing seasons in a row to enjoy the game much. Have had several champions over the years so I have a clue, but not anymore I guess.

Too bad - I really enjoyed the game and the occasional comradarie.

Best regards all,
Steve Z

Is this over an entire season?

Some years, I run into the same feeling. It is like I can never get the right luck, and/or I just never figure out an optimal roster that leads to winning. I always come back though, and sometimes have better success the next year; something just seems to click and get on a bit of a wining streak again.

Hope you are back sometime in the future.

I can sympathize---I seem to have all hot teams or all cold teams--winning in bunches with four or more teams or losing in bunches--right now I can't seem to win a game for the last two or three weeks (21 games) no matter what league or what team---the thing that chaffs me the most is a team that wins 2/3 of its games for the first half, and then loses 2/3 the second half--is it a good team with bad luck, of a bad team with good luck???---it seems I've cornered the market on that type of team. I seem to win with all my teams or lose with all my teams simultaneously--which makes me wonder about your bias question.

I know nobody is serious about this, but how exactly would a "bias" program work? Whom would it decide to target, and why and how would it target them? Maybe Don DeLillo could have material for his second great baseball/paranoia novel...

I can sympathize---I seem to have all hot teams or all cold teams--winning in bunches with four or more teams or losing in bunches--right now I can't seem to win a game for the last two or three weeks (21 games) no matter what league or what team---the thing that chaffs me the most is a team that wins 2/3 of its games for the first half, and then loses 2/3 the second half--is it a good team with bad luck, of a bad team with good luck???---it seems I've cornered the market on that type of team. I seem to win with all my teams or lose with all my teams simultaneously--which makes me wonder about your bias question.

Hasn't there been discussions about player performances being normalized by the online game? That is, let's say some player is getting outrageously great stats or batting average, I thought I read the online game puts the brakes on to make the performance come out "right." If that is the case, then wouldn't that also help explain the .667 team "evening out" too?

There has been discussion about this, and I don't think it's ever been resolved. I also don't know if anyone has directly asked SOM about this, and someone probably should. I do know that many of my teams and others' have had players with stats way beyond their real-life ones. For example, here is my 2001 Skydome (1-8,1-8 hr) team with Rich Aurilia hitting 50 hrs and driving in 158, when his real stats were 37/97:
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/506978

And here is my 2012 team with Matt Dominguez hitting 39 hrs and driving in 90, when his real life stats were 5/16:
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1123962

So, if SOM is actually normalizing performances, they aren't doing a particularly good job of it. Also, if they are normalizing performances, and were doing so in a structured regulated manner, their normalization of a team's players wouldn't be "bias," since it also be equally applied to all other teams in the league. However, if they were to be fair to all types of teams, they would have to be sure to normalize pitching and running stats as well, not just standard offensive ones.

is this another public retirement? You should have seen some speeches from the old veterans
and others pleading to stop them. It is sad and pitiful to announce you are leaving an online game. And i've found half of them comeback under a different personna. I been here since 2002 with the same name and I have seen it all,
Very sad, my heart goes out to you and my body and mind is going out for a Martini!

Hasn't there been discussions about player performances being normalized by the online game? That is, let's say some player is getting outrageously great stats or batting average, I thought I read the online game puts the brakes on to make the performance come out "right." If that is the case, then wouldn't that also help explain the .667 team "evening out" too?

SOM has been water-clear with regards to normalization, this option available on the online game that has the effect to increase statistical accuracy. It is NOT operating anymore. Many years ago, SOM was using this option but it put it off when controversy started mounting when people realized normalization was on. You can further see in the super-advanced setting on the wiki page affiliated with SOM that the option is checked off.

I know from first-hand experience because I am the one who proved statistically that normalization was operating.
At that time, the officials at SOM didn't want to confirm or infirm the rumor. But when I showed the statistical proof on the old boards, a lot of players wanted to quit, and faced with this mounting controversy, Bernie of TSN-SOM went public and decided to check the option off.

I should also give credit to Dr Glen Fleisig,who is a scientist and used to play som---maybe he still is, actually!! He went through my demonstration and concurred with my conclusion. It gave a lot of credibility to our point. SOM didn't have the choice but to react and comply with our demand to stop normalization.

So, to give an answer to blue turtle about .667 teams getting a losing sequence, most of the time, it's simply regression to the mean---a well known statistical phenomena---the distribution of results get tighter to the overall mean as increased data are coming in.