This Has My Attention: New Questions

I agree and only wish more managers would join in.

I looked at the run differential and pythagorean for all of my ATG9 teams. With 14 teams played, I'm minus 21 in pythagorean wins vs actual wins. But I saw a very interesting pattern in this small data set. I have 8 teams with a positive 100 run differential and with these teams I'm -32 in actual wins. None of these 8 teams outperformed the pythagorean prediction. For the 6 teams with a <100 net run differential, I'm +11 in wins versus the pythagorean.

I've been playing a lot of the single seasons sets and I saw a very similar pattern with 1977 and 1964 teams. I had 12 teams with a run differential >100 with a net -45 actuals vs the prediction and 5 teams with a run differential of <100 with a net -3 vs predicted wins.

So my supposition based on limited data is the pythagorean doesn't work for high run differential teams. And really why should it? This a formula based on empirical data from actual baseball results. It goes without saying that our online game is not actual baseball. Until/unless someone runs the numbers and demonstrates a correlation for the online game, we shouldn't expect it to provide an across the board accurate relationship between run differential and wins.

On the conspiracy theory front, in reviewing my teams I noticed I won a ring with my first ATG9 team. Since then 13 teams, 10 playoffs, and no rings. What's up with that?

Great discussion here. I'm not a believer in a SOM conspiracy for reasons stated above. Though interesting points are well made by those who think so. Always enjoy a high level discussion, but I'm not well-versed enough in the math and coding to explain much of that. So ... What exactly is a "conspiracy," philosophically? Is it an intentional decision to make an "in" group and an "out" group, and if so, for what reasons would that further SOM's rationale for existence? Or is a conspiracy a collection of unintentional errors or not-perfect programming that may result in odd results? In the case of SOM, I don't think they have the motive or resources to advance the first scenario. I do think, like any software, the game programming is not perfect, and changes for the better are always advised, of course. But overall it's really good for a simulation game, and "I'm A Believer," like the Monkees once sang, in the product and outcome. The genius of SOM is the chance to eyeball player cards, and this is more appealing to me than anything I've seen.

Basically every conspiracy/black box question is addressed by this section of the help page:

The Baseball 365 game engine will randomly determine whether each individual "at bat" falls on the hitter's card or the pitcher's card. There is a 50% chance of each.

After determining which card the at bat takes place on, the game engine then randomly determines which of the three columns the result will be found on, depending on whether the person being faced (the pitcher when rolling on the hitter's card, for example) is lefthanded or righthanded. Each of the three columns has the same chance of being selected.

Finally, the system simulates rolling two six-sided dice and adding the results (also referred to as 2d6)-- this represents which specific result will be applied to the at bat.

Considering the probability of different results when rolling 2d6, the most common result will be a "7" in any particular column. The next most common results being "6" and "8", then "5" and "9" and so on. "2" and "12" are the least likely results to occur.

Note: The Baseball 365 by Strat-O-Matic game engine is essentially the same as the one the Strat-O-Matic Baseball Windows game uses with some significant improvements. This engine allows the customization of many different optional rules, including those that take advantage of a computer's processing power to improve upon minor limitations of the original cards-and-dice game. Please be aware that some of the play results as shown on the cards may be slightly altered due to these rules. You can read all about which of these rules are being used, their effects, and the improvements we've made to the game engine here.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/help/rules/baseball#games

That's the answer. The outcomes are determined by the dice with a few exceptions as detailed in the Max Rules wiki. There is no room in that description for any major departure from the dice such as a secret redistribution of wins from veteran managers to rookie managers. So the problem is not that Strat has failed to address these questions. The problem is that people disbelieve Strat's statements on the issue. But there is nothing further Strat can say to convince the doubters, because you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. If I thought there was any statement Strat could make that would satisfy these folks then of course I would hope that they would make such a statement. But I do not think that any such statement would be found satisfactory. Truly, what more is there for them to say apart from mounting that section of the help page on a big sign and tapping the sign whenever the question comes up? https://i.imgur.com/dgObTK5.jpg

Where is the explanation for the ten points of batting average advantage the home team gets...

"Home field advantage -- This forces a statistical advantage of approximately 10 points (.010) on the batting average for the home team. This is the traditional major league difference between batting averages at home and on the road."

Where is the explanation for the ten points of batting average advantage the home team gets...

https://stratomatic365.fandom.com/wiki/Maximum_Rules

Say that the "Home field advantage" Maximum Rule is turned on. This rule, in general, creates a statistical advantage of approximately 10 points (.010) on the batting average for the home team. This is the traditional major league difference between batting averages at home and on the road. In this case certain play results that would have been outs turn into hits and vice-a-versa. These changes occur "behind the scenes" as random numbers are rolled and compared to statistical probabilities, only "kicking in" in a relatively few instances.

For J-Pav and Max--
to answer how many events meets the "good enough" criterion for many instances to approach a choppy looking bell curve.

Issue 1 is your data set is selected. ie J-Pav--it would be less instances if your teams were random SOM teams. ie, no play style bias. Play style bias matters because it affects how desrciptive/applicable and free of bias the pythag theorem is--which is yet another approximation on other approximations.

That is, if your play style has an inherent skew effect on pythag applicability to your own data (think bullpen types, team construction, parks, etc) then your distribution of pythag effects is not a random sample. It does not represent that perfect bell curve population. So you would be applying a model that assumes infinite cases, zero bias. Not the case.

The thing with successful managers is their reults are extremely biased because that is how you create the "outlier" of long term success. Their curve is shifted in different ways with maybe even "humps" in certain places, like a loch ness monster vs a bell.

I don't have an answer for some of the unexplainables in this game. But my interest was in trying to say there certainly is not some mathematical certainty to any claims I have seen for these unexplainables. Doesn't make it impossible, but we can't claim "math" and take out the pitchforks.

I've been wanting to take a pitchfork to math since middle school! Once I was able to figure out batting averages my education was complete. That is, until I found Strat-o-matic, dammit.

The vast majority of my teams begin with the premise “What if?”

My last team’s “What if?” was “What if plate discipline is exploitable?”

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1707804

I set up the spreadsheets and sorted them first by BB/K ratios, then hits, then defense (if I’m remembering this right). So what I’m trying to point out is that my universe of teams is about as random as one manager’s universe of teams can be. I’m aware of the card math, but only in a very secondary way. And I do get that I would likely have an even better record if I was math first, artistic impression second. I just prefer things the other way around, to keep the game from getting boring (to me). So I don’t really have a “play style”. In fact, one could probably say I have a decidedly anti-play style.

Having said that, I do have more successful teams than I don’t. So an “outlier of overall success” does apply here, and I’m aware that if the Strat Pythagorean formula is skewed to disfavor higher run differentials, then my personal results will therefore be skewed negatively more than the general universe of managers.

What I continue to be focused on is (it appears to me) that there was a time when expected win totals fell generally within +/- 3, and there were balanced outliers on either side. Regardless if the pythag exponents are optimized, or if the current formula treats high and low run diffs disproportionately, I think we should still see balanced tails approaching a bell curve.

So best guess is that my personal results are (in order of most likely) either 1. an incredibly long stretch of “bad luck”, or 2. the Version 3 Bullpen has really altered the current performance results, or 3. there is some type of undetected code flaw within the game. (4. would be a mass conspiracy and HAL is out to get me ).

So I know you said that you don't trust data you can't see, but I don't trust anecdotal evidence - so I again looked at my data of close to 12,000 teams and find that the average pythagorean error is 0 and the standard deviation is 4.3. The percentage of teams with errors at +4.3 or more is 16% and the percentage of teams at -4.3 or less is 16%.

"The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions" - John Ruskin

I've been wanting to take a pitchfork to math since middle school! Once I was able to figure out batting averages my education was complete. That is, until I found Strat-o-matic, dammit.

ha