Player Progression Mod V2 Released

[billharris44]

I am very happy to announce the release of v2 of the player progression mod.

Quick statistical comparsion:

Here are the results from season 20 (2024) of a Dynasty. You will see that the walks/steals issues from v1 have been significantly improved.

The variance (from MLB2004):

STAT MLB2004 DEFVAR V1VAR V2VAR

Hits; 44,500 10.85% 0.04% 1.64%

Runs; 23,376 2.54% -12.12% -9.69%

HR; 5431 29.53% 12.06% 0.18%

2B; 8918 -4.78% 4.24% 3.70%

3B; 898 3.79% -8.80% 4.90%

BB; 16,222 -3.04% -18.85% -8.65%

SO; 31,828 1.97% 5.35% 4.07%

SB; 2589 6.37% -28.85% -10.43%

After 40 seasons:

And the variance (from MLB2004):

STAT MLB2004 V1VAR V2VAR

Hits; 44,500 1.14% 2.76%

Runs; 23,376 -12.91% -7.00%

HR; 5431 13.22% 5.03%

2B; 8918 4.95% 4.47%

3B; 898 0.33% 1.45%

BB; 16,222 -22.93% -11.90%

SO; 31,828 5.71% 3.76%

SB; 2589 -27.27% -0.19%

v2 is significantly improved, particularly in the categories of home runs, runs, walks, and stolen bases.

It's possible that some categories might decline slightly after season 50 (I didn't test beyond that), but I believe the mod would be fully playable for 100+ seasons with no problem.

I don't anticipate doing a v3. The amount of time it would take to improve accuracy slightly over this would be huge compared to the benefit.

[Kelekin]

Awesome! Great work Bill.

[billharris44]

Okay, that formatted really badly, so let me try it this way:

The variance (from MLB2004):

STAT; MLB; DEF; V1; V2

Hits; 44,500; 10.85%; 0.04%; 1.64%

Runs; 23,376; 2.54%; -12.12%; -9.69%

HR; 5431; 29.53%; 12.06%; 0.18%

2B; 8918; -4.78%; 4.24%; 3.70%

3B; 898; 3.79%; -8.80%; 4.90%

BB; 16,222; -3.04%; -18.85%; -8.65%

SO; 31,828; 1.97%; 5.35%; 4.07%

SB; 2589; 6.37% -28.85%;-10.43%

After 40 seasons:

And the variance (from MLB2004):

STAT; MLB; V1; V2

Hits; 44,500; 1.14%; 2.76%

Runs;23,376;-12.91%; -7.00%

HR; 5431; 13.22%; 5.03%

2B; 8918; 4.95%; 4.47%

3B; 898; 0.33%; 1.45%

BB; 16,222; -22.93%; -11.90%

SO; 31,828; 5.71%; 3.76%

SB; 2589; -27.27%; -0.19%

[billharris44]

Sorry, I just can't get that to format well. Hopefully the semi-colons will help you sort it out.

[poonani]

billharris44, i got a couple of questions i'd like to ask you about the progression. Should i PM you or do you have any instant messenging programs? (that would be easier)

[billharris44]

billharris44, i got a couple of questions i'd like to ask you about the progression. Should i PM you or do you have any instant messenging programs? (that would be easier)

Sorry, I don't have an I.M. program. Just p.m. me. I'm at the computer now so I should be able to respond pretty quickly.

[jbmagicfan]

Sorry, I just can't get that to format well. Hopefully the semi-colons will help you sort it out.

to format try ["code"] at beginning and at end of your text try [/"code"]

take quotes out when you do it

[Goldensuitcase]

If a dynasty is already started, these should still be implemented in the system and work, right? With my dynasty that is.

[billharris44]

If a dynasty is already started, these should still be implemented in the system and work, right? With my dynasty that is.

Yes. It will work fine. You should be able to start using it at any point (even mid-season) with no problems.

During a season, the only thing it changes are park effects--in the default settings, the stadium factors are pretty exaggerated. Then, when players are created for the draft each year, it changes some of those ratings distributions (contact,power, baserunning, speed, and plate discipline for position players), and after spring training, it changes how often players progess and how much.

[The Show]

I installed V1 for the start of my owner mode. I just finished Spring Training and am at the start of season 2. If I install V2 over V1 at the start of Season 2, will I have any problems?

[billharris44]

I installed V1 for the start of my owner mode. I just finished Spring Training and am at the start of season 2. If I install V2 over V1 at the start of Season 2, will I have any problems?

It should be fine. The park effects will be slightly different, and your rookies will have different ratings than if you'd used V2, but over multiple seasons that's not going to wind up being a huge difference.

If you can reload a Dynasty save and go through your first spring training with v2, though, you'll be better off. I significantly tweaked the ratings distributions for created players in v2.

[KySteveH]

Quick question:

What effect does a player's star rating have on progression? The reason I ask is that I am overhauling the minors for my dynasty rosters, and I'm trying to figure out how to assign the star ratings.

[billharris44]

Quick question:

What effect does a player's star rating have on progression? The reason I ask is that I am overhauling the minors for my dynasty rosters, and I'm trying to figure out how to assign the star ratings.

A 5-star position player has roughly a 3-5% advantage over all other position players when it comes to a rating progressing each year. That might not sound like much, but over a player's career it is. This, coupled with higher ratings distributions when created (on average, a 20% gap between 5-star and 1-star players), gives a 5-star project a large advantage over other players.

There are no progression advantages for 1-4 star prospects beyond the initial advantage in ratings distribution (a 4-star prospect, for advantage, has roughly a 15% advantage in all ratings rolls over a 1-star prospect). There are two reasons for this: one, when I built a multi-tiered progression system, 1 and 2 star prospects had almost zero chance of getting to the majors. Now it's still not likely, but they do have a legitimate chance. Mike Piazza can emerge from this progression system. Two, beyond a certain point, baseball scouting is a total crapshoot. I didn't want a rigid system with star ratings giving overwhelming advantages. 5-star players do have an advantage, but some of them will flame out, too. Nobody is a guarantee. And a guy who is a star in one dynasty may well be a scrub in another.

Pitchers are different. Increases in pitch ratings are limited to 1-5 points per year by the engine, and we can't change it. So a 20% advantage in initial ratings rolls for a 5-star player versus a 1-star player is even larger in the pitching system than in the position player system (which has a 1-15 yearly ratings change possible). And because of the 1-5 cap, getting guys to major league skill levels at the right age means that for a 3-4 year period the vast majority of all pitchers will progress. So for pitchers there's no advantage at any star level. I wanted to include an advantage for 5-star players, but I couldn't do it without screwing up the age distributions.

I know that some people will not like this approach. I tried giving prospects an advantage for ages 18-22 by star level, then leveling out the probabilities, but even that was really hurting lower star prospects. So many guys succeed in the majors after not being top prospects in the draft that I wanted to emulate that environment as much as possible. Like I said, there are no guaranteed stars in this system. There won't be any lists of sure-fire superstars, because they don't exist. They emerge in the course of each dynasty, and each dynasty is unique.

Sorry the long-winded answer. I have a problem shutting up sometimes.

[hh20xxconvert]

Bill-- How much is progression influenced by player performance, both in the minors and majors? Does playing time influence progression in any way? Thanks in advance for your comments, and thanks a bunch for the mod.

[billharris44]

Bill-- How much is progression influenced by player performance, both in the minors and majors? Does playing time influence progression in any way? Thanks in advance for your comments, and thanks a bunch for the mod.

As far as I can tell, it has no affect in the game engine. That's not a mod design decision on my part--it's how the engine appears to work. Now it's possible that there are some hidden influences, but if there are, we can't see them. As far as I can tell, the engine has no "memory"--a great performance one season has absolutely no affect on the probability rolls for ratings changes next year, and I haven't seen anything to indicate that playing time makes a difference, either. I wish it did, because it would be interesting to make playing time decisions for your minor leaguers.

There would be a way to test the effect of playing time, but it would be pretty work-intensive. You could save a dynasty after spring training one year, then put one of your pitchers into the rotation. Have him pitch in the rotation all year. Then check his ratings changes after spring training the next season. Then reload the save, take him out of the rotation, and put him in a mop-up role or something so that he gets very few innings (maybe you could draft enough pitchers so that he didn't even have a defined role). Then compare the ratings changes after spring training the next year.

The difficult thing about doing this is that you'd have to run quite a few trials--probably ten of each--to get enough data to reduce the role of chance in the changes. But like I said, I don't see anything that indicates the up/down/same probability rolls or the increase/decrease amount rolls are influenced by playing time.

[KySteveH]

Bill:

Thanks for the answer! You will never be accused of being long-winded as long as you are giving useful info. There's not enough of that going around!

Follow-up to that question: What percentage of players do you think ought to be 5-star? I'm trying to accurately assign these ratings, and I'm not sure how to go about it.

Thanks.

[billharris44]

Bill:

Follow-up to that question: What percentage of players do you think ought to be 5-star? I'm trying to accurately assign these ratings, and I'm not sure how to go about it.

Thanks.

Here's the star distribution for created players in the game engine (default--I didn't tweak these). It looks on first glance like way too many lower level prospects are created, but it actually works out fine. So if you want to match the player creation engine, about 4% of the players should be 5-star.

 


pos	1	2	3	4	5


1B	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


2B	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


3B	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


 C	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


CF	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


LF	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


SP	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


RF	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


RP	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04


SS	0.52	0.24	0.12	0.08	0.04

And thanks to jbmagicfan for teaching me how to format a table. :)

[poonani]

so basically giving a player a star rating between 1-4 doesnt matter at all? Just between 1-4 & 5?

[billharris44]

so basically giving a player a star rating between 1-4 doesnt matter at all? Just between 1-4 & 5?

For created players, it's very important, because the star rating controls the initial ratings distribution. Once players have been created, though, unless they're 5*, their progression probabilities are the same.

For roster sets to have accurate stats, the ratings distribution is much more important than the star rating. That and having an appropriate number of 5* players--if it's greater than 4%, there will be more 5* players in season one (via the default rosters) than in future seasons (when the player creation system controls the number of 5* players created).

It would be very interesting to see if there are any studies on how often prospects get to the majors based on their "star rating" in real baseball. Maybe based on an evaluation of 1-10 or something. I'll dig around and see if I can find anything.

[billharris44]

I found an article on the top 100 prospects and future success:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/20020509covert.shtml.

Excerpts:

"Indeed, the results for high-school pitchers are stunningly poor. Even those ranked in the top 10 have contributed an average of only 3.6 games to their teams' win columns...There's just too much that can go wrong with a pitcher, and if that's true for pitchers in general, it's doubly or triply true for pitchers signed out of North American high schools."

The article is discussing the future contributions of position players versus pitchers in the top 100 prospects list, and concludes that position players are much more likely to be productive at the major league level.

Another excerpt (VORP is Value Over Replacement Player):

"BA Top 100 Prospects, 1990-97

Average Career VORP in Games through 2001

Ranking	Hitters  Pitchers


1-10		18.2	   6.5


11-25	   10.9	   5.8


26-50		8.3	   5.2


51-75		5.2	   4.4


76-100	   4.9	   3.7

What this tells us is that an average pitcher in the top 10 contributes scarcely a third as much as an average hitter in that group. It tells us that pitchers in the top 50 are only slightly better than hitters in the second 50."

So this article appears to be saying that top-rated position players are much more likely to succeed than top-rated pitchers. That's all I could find with a quick web search.

[bbythepier]

Great work, great posts, great stuff Bill!

I have latched on to a different roster set but will definitely be using your progression mod in my dynasty. I hope my "thank you" rings true. Wonderful "statistical" work combined with baseball insight. Did I say this was great work?

(Man I lay it on thick sometimes)

[billharris44]

Great work, great posts, great stuff Bill!

I have latched on to a different roster set but will definitely be using your progression mod in my dynasty. I hope my "thank you" rings true. Wonderful "statistical" work combined with baseball insight. Did I say this was great work?

(Man I lay it on thick sometimes)

Thanks very much. :D

[sfgiantsflgators]

do progression mods change anything about roster sets (i.e., player ratings)? i'm about to start a dynasty with an overhauled roster set with many attributes changed and a myriad of created players...will using this mod alter anything done in that regard or does it just define the way the game processes those ratings?

[Totte]

...will using this mod alter anything done in that regard or does it just define the way the game processes those ratings?

You said it yourself. The mod just defines how the game process the ratings from season to season.

[sfgiantsflgators]

awesome. gracias. :mrgreen: