It has been brougth to my attention that Strat has been calculating the adjusted batter PA incorrectly, or at least inconsistantly with our Rules.
The Rules say that a player gets 110% of total PA for use during a season. Unfortunately, when Strat does the the 10% adjustment, it is only applied to AB. Thus if Player A had 600 AB, 60 BB, 10 HBP, 20 SF, and 10 SH in MLB, the "adjusted" ARBA total would be 760 (600*1.1+60+10+20+10) instead of 770 ((600+60+10+20+10)*1.1).
There is also another small glitch that results in some players having their adjusted PA off by 2-5 PA from what it should be. I cannot figure out why that is happening - it's not consistant among players, so it's not based on SH or SF or BB or anything. Just additional noise in the system.
With all of this, I think that the only fair thing to do is to be extremely lenient on fines for batter overusage, since all players should have had more adjusted PA available than the game said they did. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to fall out, but I would expect few batter PA fines unless there is something extreme out there.
Of course, I'll be my usual mean self with respect to pitcher overusage.
Going forward, I think that this is an untenable situation - people need to know exactly what their allowed usage is, and they shouldn't be expected to run a spreadhseet themselves to do it. Thus, I propose changing the Rule regarding batter usage to be that a batter will have a number of PA equal to the total PA set forth for such player by the Strat game after a league-wide adjustment of 110% is made. Thus, people can just monitor usage by looking at the stat reports.
Please let me know if anyone has any comments or questions.
Yeah, it's annoying that Strat won't just multiply all their stats by 1.1 in adjusting the league. Changing the rule to fit what we have readily available is probably the best solution even though it's not entirely satisfying. For the record, the YOC example showing a 100 "point" difference between PA and AB shown is rare. A quick check of 2006 MLB stats revealed only 23 players with a 100+ difference. Abreu is the "winner" at 138, followed by teammate Giambi. Setting aside the other unexplained "glitch", you should be able to do a quick and dirty calculation of underestimated max PA shafting as (PA-AB)/10. In any event this shouldn't be a valid excuse for wildly exceeding PA limits.
These assertions are factually incorrect. It is true the "Adjust League Stats" feature calls up a dialogue box that says "Multiply At bats and innings pitched by . . .;" however, when you apply this function to a league it multiplies all quantitative stats by 1.1.
Trust me or try it. Duplicate the 2005ml league file and give it a new designation like 2005xx. Update the newleague to give it a new name, so you can easily distinguish it in your files. Then adjust league stats and compare a player in both leagues. Walks are increased (and so are doubles, hr, etc.). Example, Wilson Betemit for Buda had 246 AB and 22 BB for Atlanta in 2005. He was rated to have 271 AB and 24 BB for Buda in the CL.
However, it is unclear whether hb, sh and sf are increased. However, however, when strat calculates "PA remaining," it looks like it doesn't even bother to include the other stuff. Example, Cliff Floyd was rated for 605 ab and 69 bb in 2006 CL (total 674). He actually used only 559 and 48 (total 607). Final stats show him with 67 pa left.
And, if you are wondering about the peripherals, in 2006 ARBA, Floyd was hit 14 times, hit 6 sac flies, and beat the crap out of all the third base coaches who asked him to bunt. In 2005 NL, Floyd hit 2 sf and was hit 11 times.
So, the big stuff (BB) does get multiplied by 1.1 and the other stuff doesn't even show up in Strat calculations about remaining PA.
Which is to say, yeah, make the rule read that league stats adjusted by a factor of 1.1 and players are limited to PA as determined by Strat throughout the year.
Thanks for yet another reminder of why I should never accept anything that Tom says at face value. I think he's right about the small quirk where the Adj. PA sometimes aren't exactly +10% because I've noticed that before. That discrepancy is almost certainly due to rounding error and shouldn't cause anyone to lose much sleep. As you say, we might as well change the rules anyway to say that Strat's totals are the ones that count.
Wow, that is monumentally weird. I actually spent far too long trying to figure out what was going on, but I guess my back-of-the-envelope figures were off.
Something wacky is definitely happening though, because when I spot-checked Strat's PA remaining feature, it was counting HBP, SF, and SH for the players I looked at.
Bizarre.
Given the oddness, I'm going to stick with the leniency on hitter PA overusage and the rule proposal - the discrepancies are odd but small and this way everyone could keep track of their remaining PA easily.
Weird, indeed. I've checked a few other guys on my team, and PA remaining always equates to AB + BB remaining. In every case HB, SF, and SH numbers would change the PA remaining, whether strat adds 10% to those or not.
Does that apply to his representations about the quality of players he offers in trade?
Yep - what really sets me apart in ARBA is that I sometimes puff up my players and emphasize their good points when trying to trade them. I just hope that nobody else ever catches on to my highly proprietary strategy!
