Hi all, my name is Mark Little. I am the senior producer for Major League Baseball 2K11 and I’m going to run through one of our new features for MLB 2K11: Dynamic Player Ratings.
Please also take a second to
WATCH EVAN LONGORIA DISCUSS THE DYNAMIC RATINGS FEATURE. Before we get into the details, I wanted to share why we believe Dynamic Player Ratings is an important addition to MLB 2K11 and what inspired us to build this feature.
Introduction
Like many people, our entire design team loves to play MLB Today games. Thanks to the
MLB Today feature in MLB 2K10, for the first time, we were participating in the real MLB season with our favorite teams and players, but something still didn’t feel quite right. As last year’s MLB season progressed we quickly came to realize that, while the MLB Today was doing a great job of keeping us up to date with the standings and stats for all the teams and players, the players themselves didn’t really change. We watched last year as June rolled around and Derek Jeter started his epic slump. Jeter’s batting average was down almost 50 points, but when I loaded into a game against the Yankees he was close to the same Derek Jeter that I played against the month before. That’s not what we wanted to see, we wanted to play against the Yankees with Jeter struggling through his slump. That would have been closer to the real MLB Today.
We really wanted the players in our game to play like they are currently playing in the real world. Baseball players don’t bat their average 162 games a year; sometimes they are on a hot steak and sometimes they are cold and struggle at the plate. Each new season is a continually changing landscape of player performance. This is what causes lineups to change and how teams discover that unexpected bat which helps lift them into the Postseason. We wanted to play the Postseason with the Giants, a team not known for their bats, and come up to bat with a hot Cody Ross and Buster Posey as they were in the 2010 Postseason. We wanted to play with the unlikely heroes and struggling greats. That’s baseball.
This became our new inspiration: make the players in our game play like their real-life counterparts are currently playing. We also wanted to extend this notion into our Franchise and My Player modes to make those seasons more dynamic and interesting to play through. So let’s get into the details of the Dynamic Player Rating system and look at how the system made our desire become reality.
How it works
To describe the system in one sentence: the Dynamic Player Rating system (DPRS for short) dynamically adjusts player ratings to represent recent performance. It is simple to say but it is a little more complicated to do. I’m going to walk through the basics of how we do this.
To begin with, the only way to make a player play better or worse than normal is to adjust up or down the ratings for the player. Albert Pujols is a beast at the plate because his contact and power ratings make him amazing. So, when we adjust player ratings, we adjust how the game will play with that player. The end goal of the DPRS is to determine how and when to adjust player ratings to represent their recent performance.
The first step is to determine how well a player is currently performing. Obviously, you can’t get a reliable gauge of player performance if you look at just the last few games. So we look back across the last four weeks of performance, putting more emphasis on the most recent weeks and less on the oldest. This rolling four week view of performance ensures that a few bad games don’t impact their ratings; players need to consistently perform below or above expectations before their ratings are adjusted. We also verify that the player has a minimum number of at bats or innings pitched to ensure that there is enough data to make a good determination of their performance.
Based on these parameters on their performance, we evaluate what sort of rating their performance deserves. For batters, we correlate different statistics to different player ratings. Batting average affects the Contact rating, slugging percentage impacts the Power rating and on base percentage changes the Eye rating. When this process is done, we have created a performance rating for contact, power and eye based on the player’s actual performance in batting average, slugging percentage and on base percentage. For pitchers we look at their WHIP (walks + hits / innings pitched) and calculate the appropriate performance based on control and movement ratings for their pitches.
Finally, we compare the performance rating to the player’s base rating to determine if the performance warrants a change to the appropriate player rating and, if so, how much of a change. There is a lot of math involved in this determination but, in simple terms, if the performance rating is close to the base rating, then there is no change. The further the performance rating deviates from the base rating, the more we either increase or decrease the base rating. To ensure integrity in the game, we do impose limits to how much we will adjust player ratings. A 70 rated contact hitter will not be adjusted up to a 99 rated contact hitter, even if they are batting .500, but they will be adjusted up to the mid 80’s which is a significant change that is noticeable when playing. The amount of the adjustment is varied based on size of difference between the performance rating and the player’s rating. The way we do the math allows for a nice progression of adjustment that is not too abrupt but makes a big enough difference for you to notice.
So what does this mean?
Now let’s talk about how this impacts the different game modes and what you should watch for while you are playing MLB Today games or managing your franchise.
MLB Today
For MLB Today, we use the real life results from the previous four weeks of play to drive the DPRS and determine rating adjustments. This means that, while playing MLB Today games, the players are adjusting based on their real world performance. We don’t know who is going to slump or who is going to get hot but the DPRS takes care of this for everyone as the season unfolds. Each series between teams is going to have a different feel and landscape of player ratings. Who is hot and cold will reflect the real world MLB players. If next season, the Oakland Athletics are on fire as they roll into a series against division rival Los Angeles Angels, it will be a very different matchup between the teams.
No one can predict what the upcoming season is going bring to us. But now when you play MLB Today, you will experience the most accurate representation of how the players and teams are currently playing. You are going to be able to participate in the MLB season in a new way that brings you even closer to the real MLB.
Franchise and My Player
In Franchise and My Player modes, the DPRS uses the player results generated by playing or simulating games in your season. Both Franchise and My Player are designed and intended to allow you to play multiple seasons which is why we use the results generated within your Franchise or My Player. When you call up a rookie in his second year after the draft, and he starts lighting up the league, we want you to see him go into a hot streak and get the benefit of playing above expectations. As some of your veteran players age and struggle at the plate, we want them to go cold and for you to decide if you want to bench them or keep them in the lineup. In the next section I’ll show examples of how the DPRS works within franchise mode.
How will I need to change my MLB 2K11 strategy?
With DPRS operational, you need to pay a little more attention to your lineups before games to make decisions about whether or not you want to sit players that are on a cold streak. This creates an important new decision process that adds another dimension to team management. Do you stick with your proven player that is slumping or do you bring in a lesser player that may put up better numbers? I started a new franchise playing as the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants (yes, a little hometown favoritism) so I could walk through some examples of the system in progress. I simulated the games until a late May series between the Brewers and the Giants. Let’s see how the players are doing.
We identify players as being on either a hot or cold streak by placing an icon beside their name on the Roster, Lineups, etc screens. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the Giants are doing well right now with four players that are hot and only one that is cold. The hot and cold icons are indicators that the player is either well above or well below what we expect based on their ratings, but they don’t tell the full story. When you bring up the player card, you can see how their streak is impacting their ratings. Remember that the adjustments to the ratings are not a fixed amount of increase or decrease; it depends on the player performance so they may just be a little hot or completely on fire.
Bringing up the player cards for the Giants players that are hot or cold shows variation in how the ratings have been adjusted to match each player’s recent performance. You can see the original ratings and then beside in the brackets are the adjusted rating; GREEN if it is up, RED if it is down and WHITE if they are unchanged. This makes it really easy to see the impact of the DPRS.
Examining Andres Torres, we can clearly see that he is significantly up in both his power and contact ratings. This means that his batting average and slugging percentage are significantly over expectation for his base ratings; a quick look at Torres’ recent game statistics show that he is 11 for 24 (.458) over the last 5 games with 2 doubles and a HR for a .667 slugging percentage. We actually use the last 4 weeks of performance for the determination but this quick look shows that he has definitely been on fire in the most recent week.
Looking at Aubrey Huff, you can see that his power ratings have been reduced quite a bit but his contact ratings remain unchanged. This indicates that Huff’s batting average is close to expectation for his contact rating. But he is not hitting for extra bases and his slugging percentage is below expectation for his power ratings, so his power is down.
At first glance it seems wrong that Freddy Sanchez, who is a career .300 hitter, is batting .255 and somehow hot at the same time. Looking back over his stats for the year, Sanchez is currently pulling himself out of a horrible start to the season. Sanchez was batting .178 at the beginning of May but has been lighting it up in May to pull his average up to .255. So for the first month of the year Sanchez would have been stone cold but now he is hot. What a difference a month can make. A quick look around the league and I found another interesting example of the DPRS at work.
Right now in my franchise, Chris Coghlan, center fielder for the Marlins, is down in his contact ratings and up in his power ratings. You may think this is strange, but it actually is quite realistic. The system is showing us that Coghlan’s batting average is below normal so his contact ratings have been decreased, but he is generating more extra base hits so his slugging percentage is driving up his power ratings. We reviewed a lot of real world statistics for players and we found many examples of this exact type of shift in player performance. It’s easy to imagine that a contact hitter, trying to generate more power, could cause his batting average to suffer. It looks like that’s what is happening here with Chris Coghlan. We also see examples of the opposite scenario as well, where a power hitter is hitting to contact so he is down on extra base hits but up in average. This is a great subtlety that the DPRS generates. It is not simply deciding if a player is hot or cold; the system actually differentiates how they are hot, cold, or both at the same time.
Getting back to the Giants, I took a look at my next game against the Brewers, who are normally a hard hitting team that I frequently give up quite a few runs to. Loading into the game, I brought up the lineup screen so we can see both teams’ starting lineups side by side. We already know that quite a few of the Giants batters are up in their ratings and now we can see that the Brewers’ five leading batters, including Prince Fielder, are playing below their expected level of performance and have reduced ratings. The hot Giants are about to face off against the mostly cold Brewers. This is a great example of how the DPRS can really impact the composition of a team and is likely to impact the outcomes of games. The Giants ended up sweeping this 3 game series against the Brewers.
Just to see what would happen, I simulated to the next series between the Giants and Brewers in late July, almost 2 months later. Looking at the lineup screen loading into that game, you can clearly see that this is going to be a very different matchup between the same two teams. Some of the Giants’ best hitters are down and the Brewers are playing closer to normal with Prince Fielder on a hot streak. The ebbs and flows of player performance made for new player ratings and a new experience playing with the same two teams in the same season. The Giants did take the series 2-1 but the games were close and in the final game, the Brewers blew the Giants out 10 to 4. The Brewers were missing a solid contributor, Corey Hart, from the lineup. Hart is currently out on the 60 day DL.
So far we looked at examples of the DPRS adjusting players based on their current performance and how it impacts players and teams. Most people interpret this as a temporary change to players based on a hot or a cold streak but it is more than that. The DPRS also adjusts players that are experiencing a breakout season. This could be a rookie that finds his bat or perhaps a seasoned veteran that gets back into his groove. Historically these players would play the same the entire year, but now with the DPRS, if they play well above their norm all year they can be hot all year. The same is true for a player that has an off year: a player’s bad performance can impact their ratings in a meaningful way. As long as a player continues at the same level of performance, they can be hot or cold for the entire year.
Another quick look through the league and I found that Gaby Sanchez, first baseman for the Marlins, is batting .331 and slugging .561 for the year. Sanchez’s ratings in both power and contact are way up and his overall rating has jumped from an 81 to a 93. Checking back through the months, Gaby has been on a streak almost the entire year. That’s a big new found bat for the Marlins.
In game presentation
Now let’s jump into a game and take a look at how you will see the change in gameplay. To keep with the goal of being the best baseball simulator out there and not simply an arcade baseball game, we decided that we wanted the presentation to be elegant and clearly convey the appropriate information. So don’t worry, there are not going to be any flames overhead or bats on fire. Although, we did have a few fun brainstorming sessions that had our batters looking a lot like a buffed character in WoW...
Like last year, we show the batter’s power and contact rating versus the pitcher on the mound at the start of every at bat. This served as a great reminder of player ratings for both your own team and the opposing lineup. We now show the adjusted ratings for the batter instead of their base ratings. If the adjusted power or contact rating is up or down they will be colored GREEN or RED. We also added some callout text to let you know the batter is hot or cold. Below is a screenshot from my first matchup with the Brewers where Prince Fielder was cold and a second screen shot from the current matchup in July when Prince Fielder was hot. Which version of Prince Fielder would you want to pitch to?
The real difference is in how the players play based on the adjusted ratings. It is a great feeling to be on the mound and see a batter who is normally strong come to the plate on a cold streak with greatly reduced ratings.
Number crunching
I know that many people are probably wondering how we are able to tune such a system. That would have been a difficult task if we hadn’t already built MLB Today. Through MLB Today, we were able to load all the real world data from last season into our game and review the impact of the DPRS. Through this process, we were able to tune the results to be believable based on what really happened last year. This was the best possible way for us to validate the results of the DPRS.
Through this process, we also discovered that player performance varies even more drastically than we initially believed. A very large percentage of the players in the league are frequently playing well above or well below their established averages. This discovery further fueled our excitement about this system because it means that for the first time, we are going to be able to feel and see how player performance changes throughout a season. We were so excited by the results that we went even further and started comparing the real world player performance numbers to the results generated by our simulation engine. Very quickly, we were able to adjust and tune our simulation engine to create the same types and variety of player performance that we saw in the real world data. At the end of all this work, we confirmed that our system works with real world data and that our simulator creates data that is very believable based on our real world comparison. Success!
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We are very excited about the Dynamic Player Rating system. It has changed the way we look at the players and the games we play.
In Franchise and My Player mode, we now get to see the results of players having breakout years, rookies playing beyond their years, seasoned vets finding their groove again and players faltering and playing poorly. These changes and updates happen automatically on a daily basis so the players in our franchise are playing like their stats suggest.
Having players that hit cold streaks, also, adds new levels of nuance and subtlety to decisions before and during games. Do we keep our normal starting center fielder in the lineup even though he is slumping and our backup’s base ratings are better than our starter’s adjusted ratings? Or do we make the swap to the hot backup and get our starter some rest?
As for MLB Today games, only time will tell what is going to happen in the league this year. We are anxiously waiting for the season to start so we can see who is hot, cold or both and watch as teams with amazing lineups seem weakened and teams not known for their bats become hot and light up the scoreboards. Who is going to have a breakout year? Is Jason Heyward going to put up crazy numbers? Will Mark Teixeira get off to his typical slow start? Who will be this season’s Jose Bautista? Did someone we don’t suspect find some new power in the offseason? With Dynamic Player Ratings and MLB Today we can now play every streak and slump that develops in the MLB. No subjectivity, no hype, we are going to let each player’s performance do the talking.
Personally, this adds a whole new level of excitement for me as I look forward to the season ahead. It’s amazing knowing that each time I pick up the controller and load a MLB Today game, it is going to be a new experience with the players playing like they are in the real world. April can’t get here soon enough.
- Mark Little
Senior Producer
P.S. I’m sure that many of you noticed other changes to some of the screens shown. We’ll go over all those goodies in an upcoming Franchise Insight. There is a lot to share and we are eager to share it.
Originally Posted by CLW
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