MLB The Show 16 Twitch Stream - Diamond Dynasty (Archive Available)

[MrOldboy]

I am very curious about how their WAR calculation will play out. I am assuming that their stats might be coming from Inside Edge, but as far as I know they don't put out any public WAR stats. Looking at it it does seem to lean a bit more offensively than Fangraphs and more towards BR when you look at other offensive/DH type players similar to Ortiz. It also looks a bit odd that it is to two decimal places, but that may just be to differentiate it from fWAR and bWAR.

What matters though is how they calculate this with user generated stats. i.e. Simmed franchise, RTTS, etc. I'm assuming that the calculation they are using must only use the stats (or ratings) that the game can track other wise it would be useless to have career WAR.

edit: Just watched the stream. Definitely not happy if classic stadiums will be available in ranked DD games. I was surprised when that came up since they seemed to spend a lot of time talking about making sure people can't exploit the missions and rewards systems, but with 279 and 258 ft down the lines I wonder which stadium people will use to boost offensive missions/stats. But most of all I'm sure many people here remember on PS3 how often you had to play at Polo Grounds. It just gets boring to play there so often. Hopefully the classic stadiums will be rare and expensive to buy so people won't want to spend stubs on them and Polo will come up less often. I love that they are in the game, but I don't like them for ranked online modes.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by MrOldboy

I am very curious about how their WAR calculation will play out. I am assuming that their stats might be coming from Inside Edge, but as far as I know they don't put out any public WAR stats. Looking at it it does seem to lean a bit more offensively than Fangraphs and more towards BR when you look at other offensive/DH type players similar to Ortiz. It also looks a bit odd that it is to two decimal places, but that may just be to differentiate it from fWAR and bWAR. What matters though is how they calculate this with user generated stats. i.e. Simmed franchise, RTTS, etc. I'm assuming that the calculation they are using must only use the stats (or ratings) that the game can track other wise it would be useless to have career WAR. Also might just be superfluous if the game's AI doesn't use it in any of it's decision making (i.e. lineup, trades, off season, awards, etc.). Hopefully we hear a lot more about this as it's been one of the feature requests I see get posted the most on here. I would be content this year if the WAR calculation is balanced and at least used for the awards.

As someone who has stat-tracking as the number one issue for improvement, I'm also very interested in hearing about how SCEA is treating/calculating WAR. And also if WAR is the only "advanced stat" that's getting in or not. It looks like they've added K% and BB% also, which is cool, but hopefully they'd have the foresight to add other things like wOBA, wRC+, FIP- as they consider overhauling the stat-tracking system.

I could be wrong, but after looking at the David Ortiz player card screenshot that has been floating around, there don't appear to be any legit defensive metrics present that you could even base a dWAR component on. I mean, it makes sense, because you need human eyeballs watching players to come up with defensive values for things like UZR, DRS, etc... at present. It would be interesting to see if they've concocted a "poor man's dWAR" based solely on things the video game can measure such as RF, FLD %, total chances, assists, ratings, historical stats, player comps, and positional eligibility. In theory, using enough data, they could potentially engineer something that approximates a defensive valuation in lieu of dWAR, UZR, DRS...etc. Now it will be interesting if the WAR we're seeing on these screens is more of an oWAR with a few fudge factors thrown in (replacement, positional, and baserunning adjustments) or if it's a bonafide attempt at doing WAR right. It's not so important they get accurate to the nearest 0.01, but if they can properly account for defense (some regular players get nearly all of their value from defense) and get within a few tenths (say 4.3 vs 3.9 type of accuracy); that would be pretty huge.

Now, adding these "advanced" stats is only cosmetic if the game's logic, especially in franchise mode, doesn't factor in this data to make decisions. It would be a huge disappointment if SCEA added WAR only to have the AI basically ignore it and fixate on HRs, RBIs, ERA and so forth. So, if WAR is in there, the AI should be basing trade proposals, roster moves, HoF decisions, All Star voting etc... on it, at least in part.

In my view, one lesson SCEA could learn from OOTP with respect to front office and roster management is to have user-selectable emphases on different ways to value players. Perhaps you could even build this setting into profile management. Options for roster management could be "sabermetric," "conventional," and maybe another option that's a hybrid. The "sabermetric" option would make team AI value things like WAR, $$/WAR, and OBP more heavily in AI evaluations and the conventional could put more emphasis on ratings/tools, and baseball card stats. I think it would be important to have options because not everyone agrees with sabermetric theory. Just an idea for down the road as they put more and more customization in to deepen franchise mode.

[MrOldboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by WaitTilNextYear

snip

I would honestly be ok if the defensive component of the WAR calculation was based on a few of the defensive stats they do track and also the player ratings, not fielding % and only PO if they account for park factors. If they give Kiermaier 96 reaction I would be more than happy if that just meant that for that game he contributed more dWAR than Ortiz at DH. I am completely OK with that being what The Show's version of WAR uses to calculate the dWAR since WAR is cumulative. If you changed a player's fielding ratings from 99 to 50 mid season if would affect the calculation as you'd expect as he'd have 81 games at 99 and 81 at 50. It can't just be oWAR as that would defeat the purpose of WAR. I have confidence that the devs wouldn't shoehorn in WAR unless they thought it was accurate.

Completely agree that if the AI does not take WAR and any new advanced metrics into account they will be useless, hence the my use of the superfluous. I want to see a team start a player with a worse overall rating who is putting up a solid WAR due to either defense or other statistical factors. I want to see a player like Kiermaier be valued very high by the AI in the way that players like him, Simmons or Russell, are highly valued by teams across the MLB.

[mpulse24]

I turned on the stream about halfway through this afternoon and skimmed back through it after, so, I'm not sure if this was covered. Was there any mention of additions to name/number styles for our Diamond Dynasty uniforms?

[Syce]

im getting really excited for 16 now, i may have to book some days off work to get right into the game when it releases.

[geisterhome]

Is there anything to get out of that stream for somebody who thinks modes like DD is solely for kids?

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[thomas2345]

I like that the Difficulty will change with each Division you go up, and Bullpen Fatigue so you cant use the same pitcher every game. DD with Friends will be really neat. All the Flashbacks, Legends and the Missions will be fun. This year is going to be awesome in Diamond Dynasty. You guys rule!

[baseballsim]

Quote: Originally Posted by thomas2345

I like that the Difficulty will change with each Division you go up, and Bullpen Fatigue so you cant use the same pitcher every game. DD with Friends will be really neat. All the Flashbacks, Legends and the Missions will be fun. This year is going to be awesome in Diamond Dynasty. You guys rule!

Yeah the difficulty change will be nice but I wonder why Bullpen Fatigue was even turned off this past year in the first place. Were they trying to cater to certain gamers or something?

Also, balks were OFF in MLB15 but will be ON in 16. This was mentioned in another stream, though.