Roll Differential

Crunching some numbers this morning, I began to look at the Roll Differentials for my teams (ATG and 2017 teams)

12 Active Teams:
A. 6 Teams have - RD (Roll Differential) with BOTH my pitchers and catchers.
B. 1 Team has a + RD with BOTH pitchers and catchers.
C. 4 Teams have a - RD with my pitchers, + with my hitters.
D. 1 Team is equal with my pitchers, + with my hitters.

In A, 4 of the 6 teams are under .500, 2 over .500
In B, that team in under .500.
In C, ALL for teams are under .500.
In D, that team is under .500

What this means, honestly IDK. I may not be that good of a manager
Yet, 4 of my last 5 teams have won championships. So go figure...

Logic says, it's an uphill battle to win with a - RD. It can happen, but then you have to hope the rolls don't land on your opponents chances.

I haven't gone back yet to look at those 4 teams that have won. I'm curious as to what the RD's were.

All in all, I'd rather have the rolls in my favor with BOTH my pitching and hitting.

I'm curious to see how others have fared with their winning teams and RD's.

Thanks
Darin (visick)

On top of the luck factor, I have noticed (over many teams) that with pitchers your roll differential will tend to be negative if you set f ratings.

The lower the settings, and the more pitchers you set that way, the more negative it tends to be, though it can help more than it hurts with stud pitchers. I have noticed with one stud starter and one stud reliever set to f4 (all others no setting) I usually have about 100 to 125 in favor of the hitters (negative for me) in the pitching stats.

With hitting, it depend on how opponents are setting their f settings I would guess

This is interesting.

I have (and have seen) several teams using four SP* starters who accumulate very close to 1200 of around 1400 total innings pitched. However, a check of my own settings revealed various combinations of F settings and slow hook boxes checked, and to also include no settings made whatsoever. I was not able to identify if any certain settings indicated you would get more rolls off the hitters card, although, just intuitively, that seems to make good sense. There appeared to be an equal number of pitchers getting more rolls and hitters getting more rolls despite any settings boxes I may have checked.

From the rules:

Pitch-Count Fatigue -- The pitcher's condition is listed on the right of the play-by-play as a number from F9 through F0. F9 means that he is operating on all cylinders whereas F0 indicates that he has nothing left in the tank. Normally pitchers start their appearance as a 9 and maintain that level until they start to approach their pitch count. The lower the number goes the worse the pitcher will perform. When a pitcher's condition drops below F9 he starts to give up more singles, doubles, triples, home runs and walks. If a pitcher's condition drops to level F0 he will continue to fatigue the longer he stays in the game. His condition rating will remain displayed as F0, but he will start to give up more and more hits and walks if you leave him in the game.

Does anyone know definitively if "more hits and walks" are credited to the hitters card?

If nothing else, in the future I will be aware of using super low F ratings. I know there was a time when I would go F0 on a bunch of starters. The "maximum game rules" may have factored this advantage out.

I have one ring team.

Pitchers suffered 130 more rolls off the hitters card. My hitters saw equal rolls.

Kluber was set to slow hook and had more rolls off his card (not a whole lot more though).
Miller was set to slow hook and had 35 more rolls off the hitters cards.

All in all, an eyeball test didn't reveal very much as far as I could tell.

"All in all, an eyeball test didn't reveal very much as far as I could tell."

Yeah, been trying to figure this out for awhile. I don't have the CD game, and using credits or buying more teams to experiment with the settings doesn't seem like a practical way of working it out.

"Does anyone know definitively if "more hits and walks" are credited to the hitters card?"

I'd love to know this as well...

Great insight. I’ve always wondered why my pitchers consistently had a negative roll differential. Thought maybe I was just unlucky but the F setting theory makes complete sense. When I get some time I will go back through some seasons and see what the hitter/pitcher ratios were before and after they fatigued.

I will admit my theory on roll differential is a guess--but at least an educated guess.

I had on old version of the CD rom game (actually 3.5 floppy days) -- version 6.2 I think--around 1995 because I wanted the World Champ Braves. I played that version a lot, and it is quite similar to todays version--minus the f settings and over the years upgrades. The point of weakness bullets on pitchers cards were used then.

Anyone who played the board game a lot will probably remember most people rolled the single die seperatly (for the column) then did a little survey before rolling the other two dice to determine the 2-12 result--a little more intrigue that way.

Strat incorporated a way into the CD game to roll the single die first, and pause before rolling the other two.

If the batter hit the best columns for possible hits the CD rom game would flash on the screen "THE BATTER GETS HIS PITCH", then the other two die would roll. It could be a pitchers card roll if a weak batter was up with a lesser pitcher in the game.

The point is---the AI knows when a batter hits his best columns for a possible hits.

Unless they dumped the little bit of progamming, I'm guessing when the new F settings were started they used that little gem of programming to alter rolls to the good columns for the hitter--F9--no alterations, F8 maybe a 5% chance the roll will be altered to best column (like a split chance)--and so on. By the way the pitcher can drop below f0 odds wise for the roll to be altered--I think f0 is just half way, so use f0 knowing it gets worse.

Weak hitters rolls can go to bad pitchers cards also, but we really only use f settings with stud pitchers, so if the AI makes a point of weakness roll alteration--it normally will go to the hitters card--hence the excess of hitter card rolls.

this roll alteration is hidden from us--we only see the resultant roll.

Even with no f settings used the AI can keep guys in the game a little while after weakness starts--the only way I think to keep the odds at 50-50 is set everyone to F8 quick hook--but that would result in overused bullpens way too often.

Like I said up top--a theory of mine, and normal odds variations blur the picture further--but I feel I'm in the ballpark anyway.