Major Leagues "Scoring Eras" from Wild West to Little Ice Age.

It's popular to think of "eras" in HBD as the lively-ball "Steroid Era" with its torrid offense, and the "Post-Steroid Period" with its ascendant pitching.

In most worlds, and certainly in Major Leagues, there have been more distinct periods than just 2 each with its own scoring characteristics.

In summary, there has been a long, steady downward trend in scoring, bringing HBD pretty close to actual MLB levels.

Here are the 5 pretty easily-distinguished "eras" in Major Leagues history (runs per team per season):

Seasons 1 and 2 - The Wild West:  teams averaged 847.5 runs per season.  Home runs galore.  Quite a few individual hitting records and the foundations of many career hitting records.

Seasons 3-8 - The Mini-Steroid: offense was still dominant, but there was clearly an adjustment, as scoring fell 4% to 814 runs per team per season.  There wasn't much season-to-season variance either - a high of 823 and a low of 806.

Seasons 9-13 - The Transition: biggest percentage drop between eras - scoring fell 6.5% to 761 per team per season.

Seasons 14-28 - The Long Normal: the longest period with a relatively static scoring environment, but still a big drop of 4.8% from the previous era, to 724.5.

Seasons 29-31 - The Little Ice Age (???): Seasons 29 and 30 were the 2 lowest-scoring seasons in league history at 686 and 695, so it was looking like we had entered another new era.  Season 31 recovered to 711 (the low end of Long Normal levels), so it's not totally clear that we've had another algo adjustment.  But the 3-year average of 697.3 is down another 3.75% from the Long Normal.

This just posted a few days ago on the HBD Updates thread...does this give us a real reason to put $$ in Advanced Scouting?

"Now that most worlds have rolled to the next season where the new logic from the May 26th release is in place, I wanted to provide a general overview of how the new scouting system is working since we've been receiving some customer support tickets from folks after their Amateur Draft.

 

'In the old system, the accuracy of all the scouting departments was the same (driven by budget amounts, of course).  A high school scout (with a budget of $10M) would be about as accurate as an advanced scout (with a budget of $10M).  If you had $10M budget for both your high school scouting and your advanced scouting and you drafted a high school prospect, his projected ratings would not change much when you signed him.

 

'In the new system, the accuracy of the high school, college and international scouting departments is now different and less accurate than the advanced scouting department. And because current ratings are no longer visible for prospects, scouts can now under project a prospect's ratings. This means the shift in projected ratings once a player enters your advanced scouting department can be potentially larger in the past.

 

'This also means the Amateur Draft will be less formulaic.  Budgets still matter very much, but there is more variability.  Can you occasionally have a scout be way off on a player with a $15 budget? Sure, but it'll be less likely than if you had a $10M or $5M budget. But it also means your scout may be wrong in a favorable way as well.

 

'Hope this helps explain what you may have experienced (or what may lie ahead)."

Pitchers with Poor Control

The recent post in World Chat regarding Allen Haynes got me wondering about pitchers with really poor control.  I have a pitcher in Robinzon Neruda who has been quite good with control of 45, but just how bad can a pitcher's control be and he still be a useful MLB player?

The following table shows the players who have pitched at least 10 innings in a season with the worst ratings for Control in that season.  I don't see any seasons under a value of 30 for Control that I would want on my team, and most of the ones above 30 are still less than ideal.

Control	Season	Player	IP	WHIP	ERA
15	25	Allen Haynes	24.2	2.110	6.570
21	1	Joey Reid	59.1	1.890	8.040
22	1	Harry Iorg	27.1	2.490	9.550
22	2	Harry Iorg	39.0	3.180	13.150
22	1	Donaldo Uribe	81.0	2.380	9.560
23	2	Donaldo Uribe	86.0	1.910	7.430
24	10	Dante Klassen	91.0	2.110	8.310
24	1	Stubby Stoops	127.2	2.220	9.520
25	1	Del Yosida	15.0	2.600	8.400
25	9	Gerald Bennett	53.2	1.880	6.040
25	23	Tsubasa Martin	85.1	1.860	6.750
26	2	Ricky Westbrook	50.1	2.170	6.620
27	2	Stubby Stoops	160.2	2.170	8.740
27	3	Stubby Stoops	128.1	2.300	10.100
28	1	Bailey Damon	17.0	1.470	4.760
28	2	Flip Matthews	63.0	2.570	12.570
28	25	P.T. Hampton	38.1	2.190	11.030
29	3	Flip Matthews	59.0	1.920	7.780
30	3	Rick Becker	35.0	2.370	8.490
30	1	Rip Ford	58.0	1.860	5.280
30	1	Dustin Boudreau	90.0	1.810	4.400
30	2	Dustin Boudreau	80.1	1.790	5.830
31	1	Ronn Lesher	45.1	1.900	4.570
31	18	Andy Hull	72.0	1.820	7.130
31	19	Andy Hull	112.0	1.880	6.670
32	2	Luis Martinez	82.2	1.980	8.380
32	2	Cody Dunwoody	86.0	1.990	6.700
32	1	Dennys Little	183.0	1.680	6.100
32	2	Dennys Little	173.1	1.930	7.790
32	4	Taylor Dean	70.1	1.860	5.760
32	20	Andy Hull	58.0	2.000	5.740
32	19	Alcides Hernandez	55.2	1.720	6.310
32	20	Alcides Hernandez	39.2	1.820	7.030
33	1	Morgan Cepeda	48.2	1.380	3.510
33	2	Morgan Cepeda	30.1	1.650	6.230
33	1	Rico Zapata	10.1	2.230	6.970
33	2	Phil Daniels	169.0	1.630	5.800
33	15	Stone Mercker	118.0	1.280	2.520
33	16	Stone Mercker	91.1	1.760	6.010
33	13	Yuniesky Brito	19.0	1.840	3.790
33	15	Cesar Andrus	125.2	1.730	5.590
33	20	Cesar Andrus	130.1	1.770	6.490
33	21	Don Shibata	196.1	1.810	6.560
33	22	Don Shibata	85.2	1.740	6.200
34	4	C.J. Little	110.1	2.110	7.910
34	2	Tomas Saenz	100.2	1.760	6.530
34	3	Tomas Saenz	106.1	1.580	5.250
34	1	Omar Castro	116.1	1.740	5.490
34	9	Joel Gallagher	14.1	3.070	14.440
34	1	Phil Daniels	106.2	1.640	5.650
34	3	Phil Daniels	18.1	1.910	8.840
34	4	Phil Daniels	105.1	1.840	6.070
34	17	Stone Mercker	77.0	2.210	9.000
34	18	Stone Mercker	50.1	1.410	3.040
34	19	Stone Mercker	135.1	1.570	4.590
34	20	Stone Mercker	95.2	1.520	3.860
34	21	Stone Mercker	101.2	1.480	4.430
34	17	Cesar Andrus	173.2	1.390	3.630
34	18	Cesar Andrus	21.0	2.620	6.430
34	19	Cesar Andrus	19.1	2.070	9.780
34	18	Peter Wood	74.1	2.130	6.300
34	19	Peter Wood	25.1	2.130	4.620
34	19	Danny Benton	69.2	1.950	5.430
35	1	B.C. Carey	16.1	1.530	6.060
35	1	Carson Butler	83.2	1.590	4.200
35	1	Carson Butler	51.2	1.720	5.400
35	2	Carson Butler	120.0	1.800	6.000
35	1	Mike Stock	24.1	1.970	9.250
35	2	Taylor Dean	151.1	1.390	3.630
35	3	Taylor Dean	50.0	1.500	4.860
35	1	Dan Quinn	18.1	2.400	9.820
35	14	Sam Moseley	162.2	1.760	4.980
35	20	Bubbles Spehr	65.1	1.810	6.890
35	21	Bubbles Spehr	73.2	2.310	10.140
35	21	Barney Lincoln	63.1	2.040	7.250
35	23	P.T. Melian	35.1	2.430	8.920
35	24	J.R. Voigt	32.2	1.410	3.310
36	1	Ken Sauveur	64.2	2.100	8.630
36	3	Carson Butler	60.0	1.550	5.850
36	4	Carson Butler	14.0	1.210	1.290
36	1	Taylor Dean	108.1	1.500	4.820
36	2	Omar Castro	100.2	1.800	5.630
36	9	Allen Mulder	44.0	1.500	4.700
36	19	P.J. Colangelo	119.0	1.480	3.930
36	24	P.T. Melian	41.1	1.650	5.230
36	24	Clarence Alexander	97.0	2.130	8.910
36	25	Clarence Alexander	54.0	1.720	3.670
37	1	Greg Strange	53.0	1.890	7.640
37	1	Kiko Thompson	66.2	2.090	7.700
37	2	Kiko Thompson	52.1	2.030	8.250
37	1	Wally Lincoln	126.0	1.470	4.500
37	1	Eduardo Cairo	46.1	2.010	6.990
37	1	Eduardo Cairo	36.2	1.770	5.150
37	2	Eduardo Cairo	164.0	1.760	5.540
37	1	Gene Decker	181.1	1.470	4.620
37	2	Gene Decker	196.0	1.580	4.270
37	3	Gene Decker	82.2	1.790	6.420
37	1	Mitch Giles	194.1	1.670	5.840
37	2	Mitch Giles	172.0	1.480	5.080
37	3	Omar Castro	64.0	1.890	7.030

Where Do Players Come From (Part 2)

As I've gained experience playing this game I've developed my own ideas as to the value of draft picks such as how they compare in value to international signings and when a pick should be forfeited to sign Type A free agents.  I've also enjoyed reading the ideas of others on the message board, but until now I've never attempted to aggregate the data and look at any actual numbers or trends.

And although I love the newer "sabermetric" statistics and to read about new ideas and theories in the world of baseball statistics, I am most certainly not a statistician.  So I'm not putting forth any grand conclusions here.  I'm simply sharing the data in the hope that others might be interested in discussing what they mean and suggesting other things to investigate.

From the beginning of this world through the end of season 25, there have been 4228 players to appear on a major league roster.  Of those, 1741 were created during world creation, 595 were signed as international free agents and 1888 were drafted.  It is these 1888 drafted players we are looking at here.

First, if we simply group these 1888 players by the round they were drafted in we will see that it is extremely top heavy as expected.

Now realistically, we are looking at maybe 21 years of draft data since even the most advanced college players typically need a couple of years in the minors to develop and haven't yet made it on an MLB roster. So the 6th round has given us about one player per year to make an appearance on a MLB roster and it quickly drops to a half player and less beyond that.  And this is simply making an appearance on a MLB roster, not being a real contributor by any means.

If you set very minimum career requirements of achieving 600 at bats, pitching 200 innings or appearing in 40 games as a pitcher, the numbers change to the following.

So from this, it appears your chances of drafting a player who ever plays a meaningful role on your MLB team beyond the 3rd round is very unlikely.  And as we all know, the depth of each draft varies significantly so some years you can get a decent player in the supplemental or 2nd round and some years even the players at the bottom of the 1st round are garbage.

The one player drafted in the 25th round stuck out to me so I had to look him up.  He was Ethan Wyatt, a relief pitcher drafted in season 16 by the Cubs who was a Diamond in the Rough and became just good enough to have a couple of decent seasons in MLB bullpens.  

The other players taken after the 10th round were mostly relief pitchers and defensive catchers.  Other notables include Cliff Jones who has a high power/eye player that managed to have a couple of decent seasons and Ellis Higginson who is still active and currently has a career .391 OBP.  Both of these players were also Diamonds in the Rough.  And Jared Boone was a pretty solid back of the rotation SP for several seasons.

In the next post, we will focus on the 1st round picks and look at those players by draft position.

Where Do Players Come From? (Part 1)

I've been doing some research on the origin of players in our league that I would like to share.  My main purpose in doing this is to evaluate the various draft rounds and draft picks in the first round to get a better idea of what I'm giving up when I sign a Type A free agent.

This first post is just for fun though as I look at what state and country players in our MLB universe have come from.  I was mainly just curious if it was completely random or not.

The chart below shows the number of players from each state/country who have appeared on an MLB roster in our league along with the number of players who meet a minimum set of qualifications I came up with.  Those qualifications are 600 at bats for position players and either 200 innings or 40 games for pitchers.  This is just to eliminate the players who never really contributed anything at all to their MLB team.

The results show that our league has been dominated by Dominican players.  I was a little surprised to see it tilt that heavily.  It also appears I should be sending more of my scouts to the upper midwest.

Over the next few weeks I will try to get a few more posts ready looking at players by draft position and then international signings.  Hopefully it will be interesting to some of you and I would love to hear your feedback, ideas and theories from the data I present.