Reviewing OOTP 23 Defense: A COMPLETE REWORK!

[@Severi611]

I know it’s been forever, but do you have any insight on how catcher/SS defense impacts in 24 compared to 23? Is it similar or closer to the old 22 and prior model

[@johndfw8680]

Catcher ability was waay too important before. But, I have concerns about the other changes. The big question: Does the new system better represent the game of baseball?

[@ericspies292]

Catcher defense was massively important until the last year or two when catchers league-wide realized they should get better at framing and now the variance between good and bad framing catchers is much smaller

[@cantripleplays]

@@ericspies292 I think that it should be as important as last year BUT catcher ability ratings should be much higher

[@justinamerican8200]

@@cantripleplays As in, there should be more catchers with a 70-80 ability?

[@maesophia4126]

I’m disappointed to hear about SS defense. From everything I’ve seen, it’s increasingly valued IRL as a hitting position, with premium defense no longer considered necessary. It was already *arguably* too good in 22. If it’s as big of a jump as you say, then that feels like a step back in realism (like, if Andrelton Simmons is a more valuable SS in game than someone like Trea Turner then there’s something really wrong with how the engine is working; forget that, if Simmons is a more valuable *3B* than half the starters in the league that’s arguably a bigger problem)

[@sgtmushroom]

I'm really confused by the increases in defensive value as well. I don't think it reflects the reality of MLB at all.

[@michaelkarena1950]

Question: Would you rather have these types of changes annually? Or just continued refinement of the original engine? I kind of like that they are making it different so that I have a different game experience than I have had in the past.

[@sgtmushroom]

@@michaelkarena1950 I wouldn't. It takes a lot of effort to change the engine so largely, so I'd prefer to see them just make a big change some time later, to reflect modern MLB.

[@lilsavdabest]

@@sgtmushroom wtf are you talking about? 😂😂😂 Read what I said. These changes perfectly reflect the modern MLB.

[@user-lg3bn1fb3g]

Adley Rutschman just became an insane must have. Guess its time put put the Romo vs Rutschman debate to bed.

[@sgtmushroom]

Actually, Rutschman is weirdly not OP this year. The hitting and defense are both worse. I still wouldn't say there's a catcher in the game I'd say is a "must have". And actually, Keibert Ruiz may be my top young catcher now.

[@ok-eu5nq]

can't wait for all your 23 videos, lots of stuff to look at at sure

[@sgtmushroom]

Yeah, this definitely changes everything.

[@IRockThs]

So far I think the range needed for CF is insane. even 60 range is barely a 50 with solid arm and error. I wish error was more important for proper route running. Also RF wasn't a punt for me at least in iron tourneys last year, I wanted an average defender at least to throw people at third/home.

[@sgtmushroom]

Anything less than 70 range is now completely unplayable in CF for me, which is up from 65 for last year. I'm not sure how error looks this year, but according to what they've claimed, it could very well be extremely important.

[@IRockThs]

@@sgtmushroom Yeah I have played half a season so far and most of my looking has been when trying to draft players. I'm gonna keep exploring today on stream.

[@cantripleplays]

Why would error be important for route running? I think they should break the ratings down even more, for hitting and pitching. Composure needs to be a stat or a personality trait. You need velo’s for different pitches, and their own control, movement and groundball percentages. You know it would take probably 2-5 years for them to do something like this as they probably wouldn’t just solely focus on it, but I wouldn’t mind lower amounts of other content added between games If it meant really high quality games in the future, however some people will. Eh I rambled on too much

[@lilsavdabest]

NOBODY should ever have someone with such trash range at CF. Anything under 80 is a no from me and that is how I have ALWAYS played because that is how the MLB has ALWAYS been. The CF is responsible for the majority of the outfield, it has ALWAYS been common place to see the CF with twice the range of the RF and LF in real life.

[@TheJohnnySlick]

So… you can modify catcher ability importance if you’re playing solo leagues or you’re the commissioner of an online league. The thing about catcher ability is that pitch framing for a long time was a thing that nobody was sure made a huge difference. Then a study was done in the early 2000s that showed that it did, and then the league just looked at the guys who frame well and taught everyone to do that, so IRL there’s just not as much spread in pitch framing ability now, so long as a guy knows how to catch at all. With 1B defense, I’d love to see a really high upper bound for elite defenders. Guys like Keith Hernandez and John Olerud totally did add a lot of value to their team. Sure, it should have a pretty high ceiling, as even guys with zero range can still catch the ball, but I’d be 100% OK with there being a good, solid defensive premium there.

[@Guancous]

Great video, exactly what I’ve been looking for

[@alexsmith6322]

Totally agree with the other commenters that this is great and speedy content from you but overall it’s very concerning to see them making these choices for the game

[@theseanie9958]

honestly, it's probably for the best that the best/most valuable catchers arent guys who can't hit haha

[@maesophia4126]

Making hit first catchers even playable I think is a welcome addition. Though I question it’s value in relation to other defensive positions. Hopefully balancing defense is still a work in progress

[@theseanie9958]

@@maesophia4126 agreed. i always try to play by house rules to manage my team in a somewhat realistic way, so i dont go out and get guys like hedges, simmons, etc. cuz it feels cheesy to me. hopefully that doesnt tank me now

[@maesophia4126]

@@theseanie9958 exactly, like, ideally the game gets to a point where IRL team construction isn’t instantly invalidated by the game engine.

[@sgtmushroom]

I agree. It's a shame that defense is now even more crazy at other positions. They also need to eventually incorporate pitcher controlled BABIP via creating weaker contact.

[@theseanie9958]

@@sgtmushroom baby steps i suppose. one day it'll all come together and it'll be glorious.

[@TheJustusLeague98]

I had no idea about any of this even from OOTP 22

[@justinamerican8200]

When you talk about the downgrade of defensive importance of catchers, you Hedges 😉your bet by saying that defense is still important, just not as important as it was. How low on catcher ability can you get away with without harming your pitching staff? 60? 65? I want to stay at 70+, but there just aren't that many good catcher bats at 70+ whereas there are lots in that 60-65 range.

[@demfrostytoes]

appreciate you getting this out early, almost traded for hedges

[@Trevil666]

How does this video hold up to the end days of ootp 23? Still accurate?

[@robbyc408]

just purchased ootp23 as it was on sale... are all these issues still in place or have they been patched? Enjoy your stuff!

[@lilsavdabest]

These aren't issues. This was a change that Ootp made to better reflect the MLB. 🤦

[@escott1981]

By what matrix are you measuring to determine how important a position is?

[@sgtmushroom]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3-1Z5qhi7CLpbs

[@psmd3466]

I don't suppose you have these rankings and OFF/DEF priorities in an excel file??

[@philkoch7666]

a question, as im new to this.. I want to make a league of old teams and only for 1 season, no franchise. At the end of the season after the WS, can I reset the season with the same teams?

[@sgtmushroom]

I don't believe so, but you can enact the reserve clause rule and disable trading.

[@philkoch7666]

@@sgtmushroom Thank you..

[@christianbalos8609]

I have officially joined a community where we pay to have our brains hurt and call it fun lol

[@Peyton1218]

Kind of a bummer, look at the best team in baseball this year, the Yankees. Mediocre shortstop defensively (and all around) and switched from all offense at catcher to two sub .200 framing first guys and they've reaped huge rewards. Shortstop range should be tuned down if CA was.

[@dewone2golf936]

Does the ”Catcher Framing Impact” drop down menu change the defensive dynamics between catcher importance and impact the CF and SS importance? It’s found in League Settings, Stats & AI at the bottom left. Default is 5 (Average). I’m guessing 10 extreme would make catcher defense more important.

[@sgtmushroom]

It wouldn't affect the other positions defensively massively. 10 is indeed the most important, and is likely still worse than last year.

[@moodmuzik718]

What would you say are the minimum ratings you want to have at each defensive position? SS and CF range 65+? Or is 70+ a must for both? How about 3B, 60+ range and 60+ arm, or even higher? And the other positions? Would be cool to have like a minimum number in mind for each position.

[@sgtmushroom]

I would've said 65 last year. This year it's up to 70 for sure. I can't speak to minimums for other positions/ratings yet, but I'm guessing 65/70 arm at 3B and 60 arm in RF. I'll have the numbers for sure once I've run tests.

[@moodmuzik718]

@@sgtmushroom Awesome, can't wait to see the results you come up with. I feel like knowing the minimums is probably the most important part

[@sgtmushroom]

@@moodmuzik718 In my opinion, it's finding the best overall player that's the most important, and I'm really interested in seeing who the best players from this year end up being.

[@lilsavdabest]

I play fictional leagues so I don't really care who in the base game performs well over others but I do enjoy all these changes. I still think having a good catcher is very important but I have also noticed a guy who went from 1.000 pct defense in ootp 21 and after downloading the demo of 22 and buying 23 and importing everything, to playing at a .863 pct last year. Dude is basically my backup catcher but mostly plays 3rd base but injuries to my starting catcher gave him a lot of time there the last 2 seasons. I feel like defense as a whole in simulations has been nerfed in a sort of way. I can play games and win 2-0 or 4-1 or lose a close 2-1 at the end but when simulating I see teams scoring 6+ runs and have even seen my team win by odd scores like 15-7. In game we have near perfect defense and might have 1 error every 4 games but during simulation errors are common occurrences. I can play 10 games and have a SS with 1.000 defense and simulate a game and he gets 2 errors and his defense pct drops to .920

[@baseballdreamland]

Cool video. Would be really interesting to include your aggregated sim results. Building on the relative value comparing positions, how many wins is one defensive “rating point” worth for each position? Also I assume this analysis was done using 2022 modifiers that have lower rates of balls in play? I’m curious about the impact in different eras.

[@sgtmushroom]

I couldn't tell you precisely atm. That's my next priority, though. Yeah, I have used the 2022 modifiers. That's priority number 1 when I important the game.

[@chalplec4241]

Do the position ratings play into anything? For example is a guy with 70 arm and 40 third base gonna win you more games starting at third than a guy with 50 arm but 60 third base rating?

[@sgtmushroom]

The only thing positional ratings are good for in my opinion is telling you how close a player is to full training. My defensive value calculations are miles better than what the game provides. I actually have sheets that give you a more accurate weight for positional rating, but they were designed for OOTP 21/22 and haven't been updated to 23 yet.

[@TheJohnnySlick]

If you play a guy at 3rd for a full season he’ll be maxed out in rating more or less anyway. I doubt a 10k game resin is going to suss that out for that reason. That said, arm’s going to be a big deal there, as it should (becoming the 2nd or 3rd most important defensive rating in the game might be a bit much but I don’t know).

[@royrowland5763]

I just started playing OOTP 22 and probably won't upgrade to 23 until late in the year. Did you happen to do the same defensive video for 22? I've always gone defense first with my player acquisitions and have had a lot of success, but I'm sure there's positions in that version that I could be concentrating more on offense.

[@sgtmushroom]

Yes I have! kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5bXppd3fMeIiNE

[@sidndjfbfj]

has any of this changed? since the beta?

[@sidndjfbfj]

also does speed affect range ? in the stat?

[@sgtmushroom]

Some of it has. Catcher ability is a little better. I'm still working to figure other specifics out, but no major reworks.

[@sgtmushroom]

@@sidndjfbfj As strange as it is to say, yes, speed affects range. I ran a test last year that determined CFers were slightly more effective with range when they had higher speed. It's not a major factor, but it does make some difference, and eventually I will run test to determine just how much the difference is.

[@sidndjfbfj]

@@sgtmushroom thanks! for me it’s just kinda hard sometimes to tel with defensive stats if something is making a big impact or not unless you do like what you do to tell!

[@sidndjfbfj]

@@sgtmushroom okay that does make sense because it would either be speed is already affecting the range stat or it helps but thanks for the info really helps

[@Antipodeano]

Wow Trevor Bauer suspended for 2 years by MLB.

[@sgtmushroom]

I'm glad to see MLB and the Dodgers taking sexual assault seriously. It's a big step in the right direction, especially for a sport looking to be more inclusive to women.

[@GustavoDrodri]

hi from brazil, I'm using the translator so if the english gets weird sorry, could you explain a little about pitch to batter/around/to contact in the game?

[@sgtmushroom]

Pitching to a batter will increase the rate of contact, but decrease the walk rate (so fewer walks and fewer strikeouts). Pitching around does the opposite, so more strikeouts and walks.

[@brandonlawrence8077]

So my catcher's glove is useless and centerfield is op af.

[@sgtmushroom]

Not useless, but significantly weakened. Yeah CF and SS are busted this year.

[@motostar37]

How are you determining these increases in value? My first two seasons I put together a rockstar team with good offense and elite defense(Catcher was mid on both offense and defense, but was a team leader). Finished with 88 wins, while the dodgers with very questionable defense guys won 110 and the WS. BABIP was only .020 better for my team.

[@sgtmushroom]

I'm running 100,000 game simulation modules for teams with identical players and only changing defensive ratings. I mean yeah, stuff like this happens, for a few reasons. One, baseball is fluky. Your team may have had a bad year, while the Dodgers had a strong year. Two, your team may not have been good as you think it is, for a variety of reasons. Three, pitching. The Dodgers have by far the best pitching of any OOTP team, which gives them a strong advantage. I will mainly call upon sample size and possible misconceptions on how strong each team was for an explanation to this. Also, even though a .020 BABIP difference may not be as good as it could've been, THAT'S STILL A HUGE DEAL! Each team is going to see thousands upon thousands of balls in play a year, so you're creating a lot more outs from just that. For more info on how I made these numbers, watch this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3-1Z5qhi7CLpbs

[@motostar37]

@@sgtmushroom Thank you for the reply, I've spent a large amount of time using your tools and re-watching your videos the past year. Ive been noticing some bizarre things in my challenge mode run and decided to do a few test runs just simming 5-10 years sitting back in commish mode with 100% scouting. Players are reaching their prime and regressing MUCH faster than ootp22 with default settings. Im talking 19-22 year olds at their max potential in the 70-80 range, with most starting to regress around 23-24, but some guys sticking around into their 30s. In three sims, in the year 2030, the top players are mostly under 25 with very few players in their high 20s and into their 30s. For comparison, at the start, most of the highest rated guys in the ootp23 roster are 27+, with a handful of elite younger dudes. I am curious what other people are seeing. Also, I know it isn't concrete in the slightest, but at the end of every season when I look at who performed well in the regular season and who won the WS, I am still seeing offense first teams. Again I get that its a small sample size, but I feel its worth reporting. I may take some time away from the game and let y'all figure things out haha. The VAST majority of talent coming into my sims has been scouting discoveries. It feels impossible to find a nice difficulty range, because I either get lucky and get a few badass TCR bumps and the game is too easy, or I get unlucky and don't discover anything for years and my best players regress via TCR and I throw my computer out the window.

[@sgtmushroom]

@@motostar37 Very interesting about the aging curve. That's definitely something I will add to my list to look in to, and it is a good thing that is now editable under settings (that is, the age at which players begin regressing). As for offensive teams winning the world series, there are a few reasons for that. The first and foremost is that offense is one of the three contributors to winning games (pitching and defense being the other two), so yes, offense strongly correlates to wins. Defense often comes at the cost of offense, so you have to be very strategic (and it takes a really niche build at times) to successfully run a hardcore defensive team. I think I have some videos on this youtube where I've won like 95 games with barely any offense, with the pythag to back it up. The AI doesn't often recognize that, and the teams that do end up running defensive players often won't run all the right ones. Offense and pitching is obviously still important, but the AI being unable to build a successful defensive team doesn't mean defense isn't valuable to humans who can. (For the record, my test run simulation, which I rushed through and didn't build a fully optimal team for, saw me win 94 games and make the WS with the Mariners using defensive players as I've outlined.) The engine is definitely really crazy this year and will take a lot of work to figure out. That sounds about right, I've seen that international talent is even crazier than before. I will definitely be toying around with the engine to make the game feel more normal, because default settings have the game absolutely fucked right now.

[@brianmason6356]

Sgt. Mushroom, do you have a Discord channel?

[@sgtmushroom]

Yep! discord.gg/E3Sr5dTH

[@Davy-659]

Defense wins championships

[@sgtmushroom]

It wins even more championships now

[@stanleyrosella7042]

I read that catcher framing has been remodeled. Not to the worse I hope. Top catcher with good framing do win games, so you say now that a hitting catcher outshine a top notch defensive catcher that has tons of importance on the pitchers ? Makes me wonder. Always thought that OOTP bundled up too many defensive skills for catchers in that Ability. We never seen that effect some catcher got on certain pitchers. The normal thought when a vet catcher truly makes a rookie pitcher calm down and get better results than having a hitting catcher handle that same pitcher.

[@sgtmushroom]

Framing does win you games, but now it's not as crazy as other positions, like shortstop and center field. I'm not happy about it as the champion of framing importance, but it is what it is. There are a lot of misconceptions about what catcher ability really is. What you just described, helping young pitchers settle down, is more that pitcher's adaptability and your team's leadership ability (in other words, personality traits). Catcher ability only influences framing and blocking pitches (passed balls/wild pitches)

[@stanleyrosella7042]

@@sgtmushroom Look at this in the new patch . "Adjusted catcher framing balance" Surely it touches something what you said about catchers, or ?

[@sgtmushroom]

@@stanleyrosella7042 I'll look into it and post an update some time if they do in fact have changes.

[@matts7975]

Why do y’all enjoy sucking all the fun outta this? Half the magic is playing the game and experimenting. It’s like if I immediately run 1000 simulations to find the most OP setup, what’s the point in actually playing. I guess it’s for you ultra competitive online players that are all about winning as opposed to experiencing.

[@sgtmushroom]

If that's how you want to play, that's fine. But this is genuinely what's fun about the game for me. You have no obligation to take my advice or use the big data, so don't insult me for putting it out there for people who do get value out of it. There are more ways than 1 to play this game, and you shouldn't be disrespectful to anyone over how they choose to play.

[@chewalk]

My dude stop breathing into the mic it's driving me insane