Baseball!

[Syt]

When I tried it two or so years ago, whenever they introduced it, I stuck with auctions myself. Progress  (earning PP) was very glacial, though, and eventually I just stopped.

[jimmy olsen]

Those old console games could be a lot of fun, but precise statistical realism was not really the point.

Bonds disagreed

[The Minsky Moment]

Of all team games; baseball is particularly amenable to dice and card style sims (or their computer counterparts).  Although 18 or more players are in a given game, the action is broken up into components consisting of separate batter-defense confrontations. On the batting side, although the batter sees different configurations of pitchers, fielders, and physical conditions during the seasons, those distinctions tend to even out over the course of a 162 game seasons.  So it is fairly straightforward to represent in card or electronic from a batter's hitting performance on average for each year.  All that needs to be done is figure out how to modify those results to take account of the particular defense being faced and the surrounding conditions (in particular the ballpark conditions).

Figuring out and decomposing the effect of pitchers and the 8 fielders is a bit more tricky than the straightforward task of replicating hitting performance.  Still, most batted balls usually only involve the pitcher and 1-3 fielders on each play, so it isn't as complicated as say the interactions between defensive (or offensive) players in American football. But it is a challenge. There is a rough consensus that approximately 1/3 of the overall responsibility on defense is allocable to fielders and 2/3 to the pitcher. But the specifics of how to allocate comparative responsibility for individual events and play results to individual fielders and pitchers is more contested and difficult.

Each game has to commit to some model for handling the defensive allocation model.  The games that use the DIPS framework give the pitcher full responsibility on defense for strikeouts, BBs and homeruns (perhaps with some park adjustment); the other games all give the pitcher some responsibility for hit prevention on balls on play.  Each game has a model of how to allocate "chances" to fielders - Strat uses a standard ratio that doesn't change year-to-year, I think Payoff Pitch uses a standard ratio that varies by year and batter handedness, Inside Pitch uses actual data for the hitters and pitchers, Rostercard spreads them out evenly to all fielders (IMO one of the big shortcomings of that sytem).

All the games give roughly the same importance to fielding but they do so in different ways.  The basic distinction is between games that have a higher frequency of checks but where the run impact of each check is comparatively lower, and those that do fewer checks but where the run impact of different grades of fielders is comparatively higher.  Either approach can work and be realistic. The advantage of fewer checks is less rolls in a session and slightly quicker time to play - not surprisingly, of  the games discussed above, the ones that do this are Payoff Pitch and Rostercard - games that emphasize speed and ease play.  Strat and Inside Pitch go for the former approach.  Although that does result in a little more burden, I think I do prefer that approach as it makes the decision of whether to substitute offense or defense in the lineup - or to make late game substitutions - seem more meaningful and less like Russian Roulette. But YMMV.

[Syt]

Of all team games; baseball is particularly amenable to dice and card style sims (or their computer counterparts).  Although 18 or more players are in a given game, the action is broken up into components consisting of separate batter-defense confrontations. On the batting side, although the batter sees different configurations of pitchers, fielders, and physical conditions during the seasons, those distinctions tend to even out over the course of a 162 game seasons.

As my sig used to say: One strikeout is a tragedy, a million strikeouts is a statistic.

[The Minsky Moment]

I've crawled over .500 in Perfect Team (opening season) and pulled into second in the division but am still 28 games back of the 1st place team, which is ridiculously stacked.

[The Minsky Moment]

Some other baseball games I have some familiarity with but limited exposure:

Statis Pro Baseball: this was a major player back in the day, an Avalon Hill product I used to pass by all the time at Compleat Strategist.  As I recall, it played like a somewhat lighter version of Strat-o-matic, but with some interesting wrinkles.  The most interesting one anticipated the DIPs framework in some ways: instead of a set 50-50 split between batter and pitcher card, some elite pitchers would have a greater chance of rolling results on their card, e.g. on a 2-9 on a 2d6 roll.  This interesting mechanism has been adapted in the next new game I'll review after this post.  Statis Pro also pioneered the use of fast action cards (FAC) as a streamline alternative for dice; several other games use this innovation, including Payoff Pitch.  Statis Pro went out of print but there is a new "advanced" variant version sold through a Facebook page and you can probably find older copies on ebay and the like.

Replay Baseball: Another older game that went defunct for some time but was later revived and is doing pretty well now in both computer and board form.  This is a pretty nicely designed game based on 6x6 matrix cards kind of like Inside Pitch but in a more conventional way.  Every play result uses a batter card but modified by the pitcher card, so both cards always come into play.  It does require some chart lookups on each play however.  Replay has some very strong partisans and I quite liked it in my limited play but since I prefer Inside Pitch - which plays similarly - I can't find much play time for it.

National Pastime Next Generation: http://www.ntlpt.com/
I found out about this one very recently.  "National Pastime" was a game started in the 1930s that eventually evolved into APBA.  The people behind this project went back to the open source original and added lots of bells and whistles, making it a kissing cousin of APBA Master Edition.  For the same reasons I am not a huge fan of the APBA platform, I am not totally sold on this board game; however there are several critical features of this game that make it of serious interest"
1) It is completely free to download.
2) It has a respectable coverage of past seasons
3) Some genius came up with a program that runs the entire game in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, complete with real schedules and lineups and a dice roller.  The Excel sheet also does the chart lookups for you.  It basically takes away 90% of the downsides.  And yes, it is all still free.
This is one I might be coming back to in the future despite some reservations.

[The Minsky Moment]

Last game is 4th Street Baseball

This is another new model game that uses the DIPS framework to a significant extent.  The emphasis here is on detail and an immersive experience for head-to-head play, but at the cost of longer playing time.  I like this design a lot but although it is possible to play it solo it really required another player to work and the level of detail is not for everyone. The company is known for its table top football game, which allows players to choose from over 100 diagrammed plays using multiple formations.  The baseball game is less complex than that, but it does revolve around the concept of "matchups", either between hitter and pitcher or hitter and fielder.

4th street is the only table top game I know of that begins by determining the count at the time the play is made. This is way of separating quality pitchers as the better pitchers will produce more pitcher friendly counts. Each side then selects "plays" which usually involves the pitcher either selecting fastball or breaking ball and the batter guessing which pitch.  When the plays are revealed , you then roll on the pitcher's card to determine the "matchup" for the at bat.  Again the pitcher quality drives these matchup results; dominant strikeout pitchers will tend to produce more batter-pitcher matchups and less plays for fielders to get involved.



The Count roll is at the far left; the matchup roll to the right of that; all rolls on a d100. Here RJ has a 32% chance to get an 0-1 or 0-2 count; Pavano only has 21% chance to get those counts.  Against lefties, Johnson only has 1% chance of a "power" matchup (he only allowed 1 HR against lefties that year) and a 50% chance of a batter-pitcher matchup; for Pavano, those chances against lefties are 6% and 41% although against righties the matchup probabilities are similar between the two.

About 45% of the time the matchup will be between the pitcher and hitter, with typical results being walks or strikeouts, although other results are possible depending the batter or pitcher tendencies towards ground vs fly outs etc.  There is a chance for a "Power" matchup depending on how often the pitcher yields homeruns - in that case the batter rolls on their power column which will be mostly homers for good power hitters but deep fly outs for weaker ones.  Like Inside Pitch or Payoff Pitch there is also a chance for a "ballpark" result although this plays quite differently in 4th Street.  Finally about 35% of matchups are between the batter and fielder.

On a pitcher matchup, the player that "wins" the matchup rolls the play result on their side's card.  The winner of the matchup is determined by comparing player "grades".  Each pitcher is graded for their fastball and breaking pitches against lefties and righties with grades ranging from 1 to 10. Each hitter is graded against left and hand pitching mostly based on their propensity to strike out or draw walks, but from 10 to 20. The pitcher grade is substracted from the hitter grade, with 2 added if the hitter guessed the pitch right, and 2 substracted for guessing wrong.  If one side has a clear edge in the count, that side also gets a bonus on the matchup roll.  The batter rolls a d20 - if it is under the difference, he wins the matchup; under he loses.

As an example:


If Manny Ramirez is batting against Randy Johnson and RJ throws fastball, Manny's grade against portsider Johnson is 18 and Johnsons' grade is 9, for a difference of 9. If Manny guessed fastball he needs to roll 11 or less to win the matchup; if he guesses wrong he needs a 7 or less.  But if lefthander Johnny Damon is batting, RJ's grade rises to 10 against Damon's 16 for a difference of 6.  Against Carl Pavano, however, Damon's 18 grade against righthanded pitching is compared to Pavano's 2 vs lefties for a difference of 16 before adjusting for the pitch guess.  Pavano is going to lose a lot of matchups.

Note that "winning" a batter-pitcher matchup is not always a good thing; a hitter that strikes out a lot is likely to roll a strikeout on his card.  However, a batter with a decent propensity to draw a walk is going to have a decent chance of drawing a walk if the win the matchup, as can be seen by the many 44 results under the "P" column on Manny's card, signifying a walk.

The same matchup process works on a play to a fielder, except then the batter grade for infield or outfield is compared against a fielding grade, again from 1-10.  Here winning the matchup is usually pretty decisive; hitters with good averages will usually roll singles for infield plays on their card and doubles or better on outfield plays.  EG Johnny Damon - a quintessential singles hitters has all "10" results under the IF (infield) column on his card - that means an automatic single if he wins the matchup.   Whereas even historically awful fielders like Manny in LF will usually generate outs if they are lucky enough to beat the odds an win the matchup.   

Like APBA, 4th street uses coded results for play results, with the codes listed on another chart.  However, the chart is quite simple and anyone familiar with positional codes in baseball will have most of it in memory in minutes.  10 is a single, 20 a double, 30 a single, 40 a homerun; 47-49 are also home runs with the second number indicating to what field it went to (left, center right). 50 and above are all out with the second number indicating the primary fielder involved on the play.   43 is strikeout, 44 a walk; the rest are rare plays.

Lastly there are the ballpark plays.  Each ballpark has its own full page sized card in the game with correct dimensions dividing up the field into zones and indicating where the walls are. The defense can position fielders as they wish.  On a "Ballpark" matchup you roll to see what zone the ball land in, adjusting by the hitters pull tendency.  Strong HR hitters have an adjustment to add distance, which may result in the ball going over the ball.  If a ball lands where a fielder is positioned it is an out.  If it is a zone away, the fielder can attempt a play with success depending on fielding ability.

Conclusion

There is a lot going on in this game but it isn't too tough once you get the hang of it.  The virtue is that there are real things for both players to do throughout the game and the game makes it like every decision has consequences.  Eg. if the Red Sox play Manny in the field to get his bat in the lineup with Ortiz the price they pay is losing most matchups the other side rolls with the left-fielder, likely resulting in a hit.  Damon seems like a safe bet in CF with his above average "6" grade, but if he needs to make a throw his "+4" arm (plus is a bonus to the runner) is a liability. On defense you have to weigh the benefits of shifting fielder against pull hitters.  And so on. 

But the downside is there is a lot more rolling and longer play times then a simpler modelled game like Payoff Pitch.

Another downside is that the player cards are of lower quality than Payoff Pitch and are on the small side given how much info is jammed in.  Because each season comes with a full set of ballpark sheets, seasons are not cheap at about $50.  I would recommend going for PDF versions of  seasons but those are also comparatively pricy at $25-30 compared to around $15 for Inside Pitch and $6 for Payoff Pitch.   Still if you want a detailed competitive baseball tabletop game for head to head play and are willing to go over an hour of play time per game, this game would be a top recommendation.

[Syt]

Thanks for this. You have the makings of a blog here with these articles. Throw in a couple of game replays and you'd be all set.

[The Minsky Moment]

Throw in a couple of game replays

My intent was to post a few here after I introduced some of the game systems.

Before getting to that, a brief discussions of computer platforms.  There are and have been many baseball themed games on PC, console and mobile platforms but the focus here is on games that substitute for or are akin to tabletop games.  So for example, although The Show is a very fine game that includes real rosters, stats and performance, it is at its core a video game and not a replay sim. 

Many of the board games discussed have computer versions - mostly for PC.  I haven't played the ABPA or Dynasty League so really can't comment, although the fact that ABPA windows is still being sold though a CD-ROM doesn't suggest that it is super up-to-date.  Dynasty League looks pretty swank and is tempting given that having the computer take care of all the complex fidlly bits counteracts the main disadvantage of that system.  Also the Dynasty League online platform is the only one in this category I am aware of that presently has tablet apps.  The downside: Price.  It  is distributed as part of an online fantasy service by subscription at $15 per month.   

I played the Strat PC version years ago but left it.  My problem was and is they make you pay extra for the card images; but without those images there isn't much point in playing a board game port as opposed to a dedicated computer-based replay sim.

Probably the best computer version of a tabletop game I've played is Replay Baseball - a game I gave short shrift to (probably unfairly) above in its cardboard version.  Although Replay would not be my first choice to hit the tabletop their computer port is really well done and worth considering on its own.  The interface is very clean and well-designed and it has lots of season replay friendly features.  Like others in this category, a full season file comes with complete schedules, rosters and real-life lineups for the year to allow you to replay the full schedule as originally played.   In Replay Baseball however, if you play one scheduled game, the engine will (if you want it) auto-play the other scheduled games in real time.  If something interesting happens in another game from the one you are playing, you can jump  in and take over the action.  This kind of feature is not unusual for dedicated computer games but is a cut above the usual for tabletop ports.  If I wanted to replay an entire season - something that I find untenable to do with paper and real dice - I would give the PC Replay version serious consideration, despite my overall preference for the Inside Pitch system

I previously discussed Inside Pitch's PC version - it provides a very good replica of the board game experience with the record keeping and chart check conveniences of the computer.  Compared to the Replay PC version, however, the interface does not look as nice and it lacks some of the cool features and bell and whistles that Replay PC has. 

4th Street also has a PC version - I played their demo but didn't care much for the interface or gameplay feel - also playing on PC draws away from the person-to-person, head-to-head play where 4th street really shines.

Next up will be a discussion of some dedicated computer replay sim games: Diamond Mind, Action PC baseball, and OOTP - which in theory can used to do season or past game replays.

[Syt]

I've recently dabbled a bit with Digital Diamond Baseball (in its 9th iteration on Steam). It's very much a table top game in spirit, with player stats translated into (joined) probabilities for each at bat for which 3 ten sided dice are rolled to determine the outcome and generates a decent play by play analysis. It gives you access to all historical seasons, allowing you to play each game with "as played" rosters, but you can also set up "fantasy games".

I can't speak to its accuracy, though: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1536600/Digital_Diamond_Baseball_V9/

[The Minsky Moment]

That's a new one to me . . .

I ran my usual test based on the 1977 season (chosen b/c it is "typical" on key statistical aggregates like RPG, HR per 9, K per 9, BB per 9; because even though typical in the aggregate there were some relative outlier individual performances like Carew, Foster, Ryan; and because I am relatively familiar with the players and teams of that era)

Right away I really liked the speed of running a full season replay on auto - took just a couple minutes to run through.  Switching sceens is laggy

The results  . . . it was only one run through so take it with a grain of salt  But there were some concerning things like:

+ the Texas Rangers won 109 games, which would be a historically dominant team performance for any team.  The 77 Rangers were a good team but not that good.  IRL they finished 6th in runs scored in a very good hitter's park; their best hitter was Mike Hargrove and their HR leader Toby Harrah.  It doesn't scream 1939 Yankees levels of dominance.  In the replay they scored 770 (vs 767 in IRL - very accurate) but allowed only 608 (vs 657).   The biggest outlier was Bert Blyleven who went 24-5 with a 2.09 ERA in the replay.  Love the Nasty Dutchman, but that doesn't seem that credible.

+ The Baltimore Orioles OTOH, who contended in 2nd place with a 97-64 record, fell to 78-83 in the replay.  I guess replacing Earl Weaver with a machine hurts.  I guessed the computer was struggling doing 70s era Oriole platoons but that wasn't the issue - the replay Orioles actually scored more runs.  But they also allowed 730 runs in the replay as opposed to 653 IRL.  Two obvious culprits - starters Rudy May and Ross Grimsley both has sub 4 ERAs in real life but well over 5 in the replay.  That is interesting - both May and Grimsley were low K finesse pitchers.  Weaver used to stockpile guys like that (e.g. Dave McNally) put them into that big stadium with Brooks, Belanger and speedy guys in the outfield. The game may not be giving sufficient credit to strong defense - maybe I'll run a couple 1973 Orioles replays to test this.

+ Tito Fuentes hit .367.  IRL he hit .309, the only time in his career he hit over .300.  The following year he hit .140 then retired.  BA can vary a lot; I could accept something in the .330s but .367 seems far out.  In the NL Reggie Smith hit .351  - similar issue though not quite as extreme as Fuentes.

+ Ken Reitz was #5 in the NL in RBI with 109 and Larry Bowa had 219 hits.  The game seems to have a yen for 70s era good filed bad hit infielders.

+ Bill Bonham posted a 14-11 record with a 2.87 ERA (4.36 IRL).  No way Bonham posts a sub-3 ERA in Wrigley.  Not a chance.

On the plus side a lot of the results look pretty solid, e.g. George Brett keeps his low strikeout rate. Aggregate results were very close with the replay at about 3-4 pts higher in OBP and slugging.

Pricing is terrific.  Worth keeping an eye on for sure.






 

[Syt]

Pricing is terrific.  Worth keeping an eye on for sure.

From what I could tell from the forums it looks like it's a one-man passion project. The official page is over here: http://digitaldiamondbaseball.com/

[The Minsky Moment]

The 73 sim went fine; Orioles starters actually had lower ERA than IRL including McNally.  So the sim is capable of properly representing low K pitchers.

I ran 2 more quick 77 sims and the 77 Orioles had losing records in both, in both cases with high runs allowed and poor performances from May and Grimsley.  It may be the defense ratings on position players need to be upgraded.

In sim 2 the NL leaders for batting average were Gene Richards (.349) and Steve Ontiveros (.346), way off real life performances.

In sim 3 the Rangers won 107 games and Bill Bonham's ERA was 2.61; I also saw Lenny Randle repeat a high BA performance I previously saw the first sim.

[The Minsky Moment]

Diamond Mind is a PC replay sim designed by Tom Tippett, a statistician and baseball analyst who used to publish in SABR journals and like.  I played it some in the late 90s and the Oughts.  It had (has) a clean functional interface and for the most part delivered statistically plausible results.  The main downside was that season disks were expensive.  Tippett took a job with the Red Sox in the mid-00s and annual updates to the core engine ceased for about a decade.  It appears the game is being supported again - the season disks are now downloaded instead of coming on CD ROMS and the deluxe seasons have gone down in price to "only" $25.  This is still a lot more than the competition though.

When Tippett left Diamond Mind, I started to shift over to David Koch's Action PC Baseball. Action PC gets an update every year (admittedly sometimes minor) and so over time the interface has overtaken Diamond Mind, with a better look and lot of display and informational options.  I have simmed  a bunch of Action PC seasons over the years and while there are always a few weird outliers, I've found that is usually yields plausible results.  Historically there have been issues with mistakes in files but the company is good about distributing corrected files.  Seasons sell for $15 list, but they are almost always on sale for half price, and sometimes there are special sales with even deeper discounts - also there are steep discounts for getting an entire decade and an additive 20% discount on big orders over $100.  So if you are selective and wait for the best sales, you can pick up season files for a lot less than Diamond Mind.

Lastly there is Out of the Park Baseball ("OOTP"), easily the most commercially successful data-based baseball game, and the one that completely dominates the "Manager" niche..  Most of the other board and computer games I covered are essentially one-man shops or very small ventures, with the exception of Strat-o-matic.  OOTP started that way - as the hobby project of a German teenager - but now is a real business, recently sold to a Korean gaming conglomerate.  It really took off when it acquired MLB licenses - allowing it to package true rosters with authentic logos etc. - in early years if you wanted to play real life rosters you needed to manually load in the Lanham database.  I first tried an early version (v3??) and found it to be an intriguing but underbaked development project; it began to stabilize as a functional game around version 6.5.  Current version is 22 and includes complete minor leagues, international leagues and historical roster information for the majors and minors.

As a management sim, OOTP is top notch with lots of customization options and a very swank interface that now includes realistic looking stadiums and ball animations in game.  It is not designed to be a historical replay sim but it does have the capability to do that  and there are even specific settings that facilitate it. That makes it very tempting to use for historical replay because for one price you get access to every historical season. Unfortunately, the game really is optimized for other purposes and I find that even with the development and scouting systems shut off and ratings based on that season only, big outlier results are frequent (e.g. in a recent 77 replay I ran, the Orioles won 118 games).  So at least for me I don't use OOTP for that purpose.  However OOTP is still great if you want to play past seasons as a manager or general manager - e.g. take over a strong franchise that underachieved like the Giants of 60s or the Indians of the 50s and see if you can do better. 

[Syt]

To add to OOTP's positives - it's also a breeze to set up a completely fictional baseball universe in it (or a fictional universe with real world players). I've started fictional leagues in the early 1900s, had a post-war Soviet league, and a global Languish league in the past. Options have improved over the years, e.g. you can now run leagues with promotions and relegations between tiers.