alexfall862

Frontcourt for the Pels looking bright! (backcourt for the Pels looking also bright, but maybe not as much)

Welcome back to another simMLB dev diary. I ran into a problem in the initial construction of the sim engine in that I couldn't really answer the question "What would happen if a movable force met a static object?" or in other words, "What if the defense was 8 David Ortiz's and the baserunners were also David Ortiz?" In the initial version of the 'ball in play' stage of the game simulation, there were opportunities for good and bad plays, but things like double plays and in the park home runs were not possible emergently. This bothered the heck out of me, both because I love chaos, but also because roster decisions need to matter, and truly abhorrent fielders (and really good ones) should make a true difference just as they do in irl baseball. I've got things working as I'd like and the 'ball in play' stage of the simulation is technically infinite given slow enough runners and bad enough fielders. So this dev diary is to walk through that process. Fielding The process looks like this: Pitcher Batter interaction yields a ball that's in play. Ball location is determined. Barring no doubt homeruns (determined by bat contact type and location), defenders have the chance to make a play on a ball There are two types of balls, airballs (mostly 'flyballs', but not exclusively) and groundballs. The type and location of contact a batter makes with a pitch will dictate the velocity and whether it hits the ground before it gets to a fielder's zone of influence or not. Each type of hit then weighs the defender's abilities (reaction time, ability to track the ball, catching ability, speed, etc.) differently to see whether they'd make a successful play on the ball to: Catch the ball and have the runner out Head off the ball that's already hit the ground Once they have the ball in hand, runners make a choice to continue running or head back to their initial base. The defender will have a chance to make a throw to get out a runner. Depending on the distance between the location of the ball being fielded and the player manning the base, power and accuracy play different roles in whether the throw or the catch are successful. Each time the defense makes a choice, the runners on the bases are evaluated for whether they're going to continue running. They will take into consideration the placement of the ball currently, the defensive abilities of the current ball-holder, and strategy inputs from the manager (you!). Each time the runners make a decision, the defense makes their own decision to cut off the easiest (nearest, then highest base'd runner) runner and throw them out. This process continues until: There are no runners left on the bases. There is no more need for additional outs. All runners have decided to stay on base. The way this will be communicated to the user is through the play by play export, which will include categories such as 'error list' and 'defensive actions' so you can track what kind of decisions your players are making and whether they'll be successful. The below play came from a grounder to short that was bobbled, the shortstop then threw it wide and then the firstbaseman tried to get the runner going to third out, but couldn't pick up the ball in time. Stealing Steal attempts can be initiated by the offense on a player to player likelihood basis, which can be adjusted by each manager. Here's the settings themselves. The ability to steal depends on the runner's ability as well as the defense's ability to play the steal and throw the runner out. You'll notice there's also a pickoff frequency setting there, and of course teams aren't powerless to counter an aggressive baserunning team. One of the ways they can stop the baserunners is to pick them off before the pitch. These are also player by player settings you can adjust, and runs a chance of catching a baserunner not paying attention while gunning for that extra base. Because it works in the system subsystem as regular fielding, a steal attempt is subject to the same potential chaos as defense in general, with pitcher and catcher potentially missing throws and fielders failing to snag the ball. The Shift Hoping you keep the stealing at bay with pickoffs isn't the only strategy defense's have at their disposal either. Users can also implement shifts. Mechanically, what this does is essentially modify the defender/ball evaluation depending on the regular distance. So a shift forward on a contact hitter with no strength might hit a "flare, deep_if, far_left" (a pop up into the infield behind 3rd base) and instead of evaluating as a catchable ball for the 3rd baseman, they might evaluate it as a multiple 'tick' fielding effort, allowing the baserunner to collect a base before they even get to the ball (and vice versa for the other side of the shift) As of right now, the shift is not an emergent property that you can adjust (the baseball diamond isn't rendered in the engine as a 2d plane or anything), so instead they're hand coded sets of adjustment modifiers for each position. As such, I've just added 2 shifts (one in each direction) for infield and outfield for a total of 9 defensive alignment combinations. There are probably other shifts that I've not thought of, and feel free to communicate those. As in real life, when there are runners on base Oh, and as far as using the shift, players do push and/or pull as a natural aspect of their batting, so the trade-offs for running the shift are similar to real life - it works 60% of the time, every time. Once the ball is in play, the defense functions just as it normally would with steal attempts and fieldable balls. As far as setting the shift settings, it will depend on where the baseball sim will live and what's a reasonable degree of data to store about shift settings. It could be either a conditional setting (shift on any hitter with that profile) or discretely set by managers. I'm guessing for the first year it will be a general setting adjustable by managers, but we won't have the capacity to store shift data for every hitter / team matchup in the sim. Wrapping Up My intent with these systems is for the interplay between baserunning action and defensive capability (or lack thereof) to be varied and provide chances for users who want to to really dive into the ways these systems can change outcomes in games. Next dev diary I'll walk through the (still evolving) game data export and how to parse them. Thanks, alexfall862

@TuscanSota I wonder if there's a way to remove the weights for conference champs from teams that don't qualify for one instead of them getting a zero in it?

Hi everyone, Have you ever wanted to look at how effective your inside draws are, or whether your QB throws a better deep ball against blitzers or against a clean pocket - now you can! The newest version of the simFBA scouting tool is designed to reduce the amount of legwork you need to do to run it and basically work like a program. You'll still need to download the play by play files for the games you'd like to look at, but otherwise the process is much easier to navigate and has many more looks at team and player performance. Here's the link to the new scouting tool: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19GzPyRC2J8_HI1bsdRjakbLE2C25wie2/view?usp=sharing Changelog: - Users can now assign the loading directory and the saving directory, so placement of the .exe file does not matter. - Comparisons for offensive skill players based on 'clutch' situations has now been added. 'Clutch' in this case looks at 3rd and 4th down performance. - Time of Possession now both compiles for specific games as well as the season as a whole. - Fixed an issue with sacks not calculating for certain QB exports. - Kicking and punting has now been added. Because they're basically by definition in 'clutch' situations, there is not an export for comparing their performance. - New 'Slices' export list, which takes a selection of indexes (team, QB, WR, RB, defense, playcall, number of blitzers, etc,) and pulls data that breaks down performance in the passing and ground game by various combinations of these factors. They exist in their own folder called 'slices'. How to Use: Step 1: Download the play by play exports for the games you'd like to scout. You can do this by going to the interface and then selecting the i under the game's score. From there, you will see the box score and a big blue button that says 'EXPORT'. Click the export button and download the games that you'd like to scout into one directory. You can add subfolders if you want and the program will still run properly, so organize things to your heart's content. Step 2: Run the .exe file from the link above, and you'll see a window like this Make sure to assign the folder where you have your games play by play exports saved, and then you are welcome to change the save location if you'd like. By default it will choose the folder where the .exe is located, but that's not required. Step 3: Run the program. As the status bar says, this may take awhile depending on your computer and the amount of games you're processing. Step 4: Once done, in your save location, you'll now see a folder named 'scoutput' that should look something like this: And you're done and can close the progam! What does any of this mean!? The slices folder will contain the slices, which I'll elaborate on a little lower, but in the main folder you'll find what I hope are self-explanatory files. "boxscore" means it'll be the stats from the games. "BC" is ballcarrier, "QB" is whoever threw the pass (probably a QB), and "RC" means receiver (of the pass, not just WRs). TOP is a time of possession breakdown by game. The TOP_cumulative is for each team across all games in the folder. running_touches shows the number of carries each player gets and what proportion that may be for their team as far as total running attempts. game_scores contains the scores of all the games by quarter. strategy_* files contain formation and play call tendencies of teams, including some columns for generalization. The defense export also includes columns named 0, 1, 2, 3. Those number refer to the number of blitzers and should give a sense of how aggressive they were on defense. The raw_PBP file contains the raw data and the immediate processing data from those files all in once place. Slices Slices are files that run the same compiling function on the play data through various combinations of ways to divide or 'slice' the data. Some are really useful, some probably aren't as much, but here's how to read the file name to know what you're looking at. Meanings: - SLICES_boxscore is the name. - The next part is the position it's going to look at. So QB means passing stats. BC means rushing stats. RC means passing stats. - _by_ is just text and won't change. - The information between the parenthesis are how it's cutting up the information. So, for example: SLICES_boxscoreQB_by_('defense', '#ofb') would be: - QB, so passing stats - 'defense', so it's grouped by the defense thrown against - '#ofb' which means it's also broken down by the number of blitzers on the play And that's what we see when we open the file, it's a breakdown of defensive passing performance by the number of blitzers. Another example: SLICES_boxscore_RC_by_('poss', 'targets', 'dcall') would be: - RC, so receiving stats - 'poss' means grouped by the offense running it - 'targets' means we're looking at receiver targets - 'dcall' means we're also breaking it down by whether the defense is running a pass or run defense And that's what you see: Feel free to DM me on discord (or here I guess if you wanna be weird and wait a long time until I noticed you messaged me) Thanks, alexfall862

Nebraska is waaaaaaaaay too high on that list 😬 My own model is also really high on Minnesota this year too.

Wait, you took 3 QBs in the portal? What are you, @subsequent?

Article Recruit First Name: Minimus Last Name: Speed Position: DT Archetype: Balanced Height: 6'2" Weight: 405 Hometown: Lincoln High School: Lincoln High Zoo School for Arts State: NE

New Places Jr Syracuse DE Robert Mauer - Bob comes to Nebraska looking to get playing time, after being stuck on the bench in the former Carrier Dome due to problems with academic discipline. Nebraska is looking at potentially 2 new starters at the end position, and Mauer is in contention for 1 of them. (So) WISC CB Brian Juel - Coming from former division rival Wisconsin, Juel gives the huskers just a little more seniority in their cornerback room, that was previously looking at true sophomores getting significant run, and a real depth challenge if there were any injuries. Talk in camp has been positive so far, with Juel getting reps at all 5 positions. He previously received snaps on special teams at times for the Badgers as a frosh. So GASO WR Joseph Wilson - Wilson comes from Georgia Southern after notching 0 catches behind an upperclassman heavy receiving corps led by Josh Conger. Looking for a change of pace at Nebraska, who’s losing their top 8 receivers in the next two seasons. (So) NEB OG Dwayne Riddle - Rumors abounded all winter that the 4 star recruit - who started every game last year at right guard - was looking to play at a ‘more lucrative’ position. Coaches told him to put his money where his mouth is, and have been giving him run at the tackle positions along with a few youngsters primed for reps. He’s looked solid, if a little out of his element at times. Riddle will definitely be on the field, but it might be in a new place this season. New Faces Sr RB Josh Happ - Happ came in with Nebraska’s heralded first recruiting class, but hasn’t seen the field as Richaun Alsadek mopped up pretty much all the carries. He’s impressing right now in camp and looks to have taken over last year’s #2 and presumed starter Williams Porter in camp. (Fr) OT Raymond Johnson - Raymond came into camp last year overweight, but a year in the nutrition program has done him well, and the former 4 star recruit has shown enough potential to earn snaps at a tackle position over winter conditioning work with the rest of the offensive line. The room is young, but crowded, and it remains to be seen if he’ll land at left or right tackle. (Fr) DE Juan Arias - with the gradual departure of most of the NFL-caliber defensive line over the last two seasons, Arias looks to be the Husker’s hope at DE, showing immense physical tools and ‘bend’ around the edge so far. He’s giving the offensive line fits, but it’s too early to say whether that’s from the lack of tackle development or the strength of Arias’ play. Camp Odds and Ends - Poona Edwards met the credit requirement for his degree in automotive science and is taking a selection of general education courses at the very real International Quilt Museum. Time will tell what needlework and an appreciation for appliqué will bring the Husker offense in 2025. - Heralded 4 star freshman RB Matt Tedford has been turning heads for all the wrong reasons, and will likely take a redshirt year as he's spending more and more time with the graduate assistant team on the finer points of playing runningback. - Coach alexfall862 no longer lives in the university provided condo downtown and has purchased a home at an undisclosed location in Lancaster County. "I feel like I probably won't get fired for at least 2 more years, so what the heck, why not? It's got heating elements in the garage floor and there's no neighbors to call in noise complaints while I'm doing coach stuff at night." he was quoted regarding the transaction in the Journal Star.

Everyone hurry up and make fun of Delaware.

For legibility, can we get a spacing corrected on the player modal so it reads ID Archetype Position Name instead of ID ArchetypePositionName?

When trying to look up stats, I'm getting this error for both College and NFL.

That 1 FA signing actually launched you into being a decent team, since it completed your DL and bumps your bad DE1 to a decent DE2.

Hi all! Denver doesn't have cap space or picks this season, so I thought I'd take some of the time I usually spend sliding into your DMs to share some info on the relative strengths of the teams in the league before the draft and free agency (at least how I see it)! This ranking was generated by comparing positions across the league to see which teams have players at their likely roles that are better or worse than league average (so comparing WR1s to WR1s, but also compared WR3s to WR3s). Tiered Overall Rankings: Betting Favorites (teams that are more than 1 SD above the league at most positions) - Denver Broncos - Washington Commanders - Los Angeles Rams - Dallas Cowboys Contenders (teams that are one or two solid FA signings from being >1 SD at most positions) - Miami Dolphins - Los Angeles Chargers - Cleveland Browns - Cincinnati Bengals - Green Bay Packers In the Mix (team that will need a little luck to break their way) - Carolina Panthers - Las Vegas Raiders - Chicago Bears - Baltimore Ravens - Philadelphia Eagles - Pittsburgh Steelers - Tennessee Titans - Tampa Bay Buccaneers Retooling Teams (have serious deficiencies somewhere on the team) - New York Jets - Buffalo Bills - Kansas City Chiefs - Jacksonville Jaguars - Atlanta Falcons - Minnesota Vikings Rebuilding Teams (are worse that league average at most positions) - Detroit Lions - Indianapolis Colts - New England Patriots - Seattle Seahawks - New York Giants - San Francisco 49ers - New Orleans Saints Arizona Cardinals (bear a strong resemblance to the Arizona Cardinals) - Houston Texans - Arizona Cardinals Link to Legwork: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yLQqH2p1h7YAHqVc7HbQ1B3bze9VncRrCfyw4DO6j8E/edit?usp=sharing You can use that link to also check out positional rankings in the 'All the Mathy Stuff' tab, and feel free to copy it and explore/edit to learn more about how to generate these sorts of dashboards. Once the draft and FA starts to wind down I'll regenerate this sheet and weight the positional strengths for a more exact power ranking before the season starts. Here's the table of teams and their likely starters based on the average standard deviation of players at their position. K/P is weighted lighter and doesn't impact the overall team rankings quite as much.

DEN Sends: 2026 NO 6th 2026 BUF 6th 2027 DEN 3rd NYJ Send: TE Sobrevilla DE Garcia QB Peterson OG Elmore

DEN: 3 2025 7th Round Supplemental Picks (247-249, I think) ARI: 2026 ARI 7th Round Pick WR Milton @kgreene829

Hi all, alexfall862 here with a public service announcement and a reminder that draft picks cost money, and some of you are actually under water on your draft pick obligations as it stands now. I took a moment to compile each team's status into a doc, using @Piercewise1 awesome draft ownership chart as a baseline, and then using some of my patented google sheets-fu to pull roster details together. Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IG76aH4cmmZh2qeRW0UHdyv7FPmJWIWMoTaYnvJ_rfM/edit?usp=sharing Some unexpected teams are in deep cap trouble by these back-of-the-napkin maths, so please take a look and evaluate your situation. Keep in mind this doesn't include any pending FA deals. Notably, DAL, NYG, CHI, BUF, LAR, and BAL will be over the cap unless they make other moves post-draft with NYJ within 70k of being over the cap as well. Explanation Draft Picks Cost - The cost of year 1 of each team's draft picks in total. Total Picks - The total number of picks in the current draft 1st round - The total number of 1st round picks in this draft Top 100 - The total number of top 3 (roughly) round picks Current Cap Space - The total cap space for the team Post-Draft Cap - The total amount of cap after draft pick costs is removed from the cap Roster Size - The current amount of players on the team Roster Min Charge - The minimum amount of money needed to bring the roster to 51 after including the current year's draft picks Cuttable Contracts - The total amount of money that can be saved from the roster from cutting or trading players regardless of player ability Cuttable Contracts (starter-level) - The above, but filtered for only players 67 OVR and above. Cuttable Contracts (non-starter level) - The above, but filtered for only players below 67 OVR. Total Possible Cap Space Post-Draft - The amount of cap available if all possible cap saving moves were made post-draft minus the cost to bring the roster back up to 51 players. Cap Space without losing Starters - Total amount of cap room while retaining all draft picks and starter-caliber players

You're taking Drew Henson?

Tom, Myspace: Any word on making the Cardinals players have to pay out of pocket for their uncrustables?

Hi y'all. It's that time again! Like last year, it's time to sign up for the printed run of the draft book. The timeline for this year's book looks like we'll close sign-up around 11/12/24. Price will be dependent on the number of people signing up, but I would expect a similar cost to last year. Here's the sign up form itself: https://forms.gle/VzW5xPVYe3uneM529 Thanks, Alex

Also cashing in subscriber perk: Croot First Name - Rick Last Name - O'Shea Position - K Archetype - Power Height - 7-4 Weight - 264 Hometown - Lincoln High School - Lincoln Northeast State - NE

Denver is back in the draft!

Player with initial 2m 1yr deal was offered a 5 year extension at a flat rate - and unlike his peers with their green extension box (below) his turned yellow and added the extension offer onto the original contract (minus the last year) such that it looks like the extension ends a year early.

Extraneous and unplayed OT scores were added to the box score, but not calc'd in the outcome or play by play.

How is no one eliminated yet?!

Do G-League minutes count towards their minutes requirement for progression - and if I put them on GLeague they aren't claimable by waiver, right?