baseball in-game issues

[adam]

I'd like to start a thread of oddities noticed while doing play-by-play or in box scores.

An example: I simmed a random game and found half a dozen intentional walks, most with no one on base. The people who were being walked were not Ruth and Bonds reincarnated either.

Another strategic question: why no double switches? Surely in a non-DH league, those would happen fairly often. There's no sense to change pitchers, to pitch to one batter, and then to pinch hit for the pitcher leading off.

[Jeff Olsen]

Originally posted by adam
Another strategic question: why no double switches? Surely in a non-DH league, those would happen fairly often. There's no sense to change pitchers, to pitch to one batter, and then to pinch hit for the pitcher leading off.

There's no code to have the pitcher bat anywhere other than ninth yet.

[Rand]

No satisfactory answers here, only observations. Old ones.

BBM is great for what it does: Fast and dirty sims that aren't totally absurd. Usually.

Accuracy, strategy, etc, are not it's strong suit. It has many limitations and mostly uses a ton of random numbers to produce results.

BBM gives a long term view of how the player does as an owner/GM. People playing the game as a manager are going to be dissatisfied because BBM can't work that way.

Even the team strategies are painted with abysmally broad strokes if you think about it.

What manager decides that his team is always going to try stealing, even if they play against the best catcher and best pick off move in the league? Or decide to never try a steal even against the worst battery in baseball?

Guard lines applies to every stadium in the game. Same for extra bases and tagging up. You can't tell the game to do it more in a park with deep walls but do it less in a park with short ones, as a manager would.

Infield in? Okay, I like doing like that, but what about on short artificial turf? How about outfield in? Nope, not an option. Play RF close against a RH pull hitter, or play RF deeper against a LH pull hitter with a ton of power? Forget it. Shift toward either field? Nah.

Every pitching decision you make applies to the entire staff. You can't have your ace or closer pitch though trouble, while having your low talent long man or alt get a fast hook. Or set pitchouts and IWs by how good the pitcher's control is. Or have the infield cut off the 56 arm in RF but let the 96 arm in LF try to gun the runner down.

Think of every strategy and variation you see used by the better managers in baseball, all of which are highly situational, and you can't do it. You're not supposed to be able to do it. What you're supposed to do is get the best players you can, set the team and the overall philosophy, and see where you end up in five or fifty years. And with BBM you can see where you end up in five years without waiting five years, like some other games. It's fast and dirty, but the point is it's fast.

Going into play by play mode is only an invitation to get yourself mad at the game's countless limitations, mistakes, and omissions, because you get to see up close just how bad the BBM AI decisions are. The only good reason I can think of for even having play by play is so a multi-player league commissioner can do sims on a net broadcast to prove that he really is doing sims.

[adam]

I'm playing this and Football Manager 2005.

I hate to be this blunt, but this is a game made by amateurs--FM 2005 is a game made by pros. It's a night and day difference.

I've gotten my $20 out of this for fun, and will continue to do so, but this is a quick and dirty amateur game by comparison.