Richard Berg shared this modification with me which increases accuracy for Homeruns Allowed for the APBA’s Baseball Master Game. With his permission, I’m posting it here.
In case you’re wondering, Richard does come with some credentials. He a quite prolific game developer. At least *I* was impressed when I saw his list of accomplishments in the tabletop gaming world.
Here’s a description of Richard’s HRA modification in his own words:
I am, by profession, a game designer (140+ published board games). I am also not only a major baseball aficionado, but have been playing tabletop baseball games since 1955 (my first APBA) and I have literally played them all (you name it, I played it . . .) So I tinker; well not so much tinker, as make the games more "statistically" realistic.
I have done so for the APBA Master game pitchers (let’s face it, pitching stats were/are never APBA’s strong point). Mostly in two major areas (which then affects basic Pitcher numerical "hit" rating, which is, one would hope, based on Hits per Batters Faced, although it usually isn’t).
The two areas? Walks Allowed and Home runs allowed. Let’s take the latter (and I’ll use #’s from the 1964 season, one of baseball’s most interesting). The first item you need to know is the league’s % stat of HR’s per Batters Faced (or Plate Appearances) as the Base # (in 1964, for the AL, it was .025 . . . the # used to create these ratings).
Using that # (.025) you take a pitcher – let’s use Orlando Pena, who lead the AL in HR’s allowed with 40 – and multiplying his Batters Faced by .025 you find out how many HR he would "normally" have allowed. Compare that figure to how many he DID allow and you get the number you will use to make his FR Allowed Rating.
How do you do this? Well, for pitchers like Pena who allowed many HR, you use an adjustment to ‘9’ hit results. Why? Because virtually every hitters card has two 9’s – no more, no less. So, dividing 2 by 36 you and then multiplying that # times the pitcher’s Batters Faced, you get the total number of statistically probable 9’s hitters will get when facing him.
You then take his excess HR’s allowed (above the league norm figure) and divide that by Possible 9’s, to get a % which you then multiply by 36 to get his HR Allowed Rating. For Pena it would be +25, meaning every time a hitter gets a ‘9’ result (remember, the pitcher’s Hit rating may negate that; it has to be an actually ‘9’ result), you then roll the dice to see if Pena changes that 9/single into a HR . . . if the dice roll is an 11-25, the 9 becomes a HR; otherwise, it stays a single.
The advantage of this is not only that it is a more accurate play out of HR’s allowed(not the L/M shtick),but it is applicable to any base situation. Obviously there is a Fewer HR Rating for such pitchers, to turn Possible HR’s into singles.
Just an example of expanding the horizons for your players . . .
Richard H Berg
It’s been a while since I’ve played the Master Game though the rules are still pretty fresh in my mind. That said, I’ll leave it to those avid fans of the Master Game to weigh in first with any comments.
What do you all think?
There are 307 cards in the 900-card 2012 season set with fewer than 2 9s. Only a handful are non-pitchers, though. Leonys Martin has no 9s (unique, I think: a 2-4-6-6-6-8-11 card). Taylor Teagarden, Ryan Lavarnway, Ryan Raburn, Mitch Maier, Brett Jackson, Willie Harris, Josh Vitters, Scott Cousins all have only 1 9.
I wouldn’t apply this to batters with no result number lower than 6 on their card.
All that said, I like the CMBA HR modification better (which converts doubles to HRs for high HR pitchers, and vice versa for low HR pitchers). It’s a bit less easy to compute, but not much.
I play the master game exclusively. One thing I found out is that you can really take the fun out of the game by making it more complicated. One example was when my brother & I played APBA football. It took us 6 hours to play one game with our modifications. That being said, I noticed that if a pitcher has an 11 grade, he gives up a lot of HRs with bases empty, especially with the old SA ratings. I compromised by finding what the chances of getting a homerun factor for every situation. I came up with L&G: 1 in 6; H&M: 2 in 6. Easy to use 1 die to determine HRs and it keeps the game flowing and use the APBA HR ratings. I also changed the steal allowance, but thats another post..
Good to see some dicerollers commenting. As I noted in my little essay, I did not cover ALL of the morphing I laid on the #s. I was very aware of the CMBA mechanic – it was what led me down the path of Further Enhancement. What I did not like about that method was that it affected another important statistic – doubles. Using the ‘9’er eliminated that tangential effect.
And yes, there are many cards with “not” two 9’s, but they are – or at least are in the year/set I am using; 1964 – virtually all pitcher cards, and since my application of this mechanic does NOT apply to pitchers as hitters (ules they already have a ‘1’ result on the card) it is of little matter.
This system IS far more “realistic” than the creaky GHLM methodology . . .then again, it does require one to do a bit of work (which I like to do as I am a professional game designer anyway). Oh, and I also changed the Walk-Adjustment system . . .so that, again, it does NOT depend on the “on-base” situation . . .
ALL of which, if used, means also adjusting the Advanced Game Pitcher numerical ratings – which are far too often NOT based on a Hits-per 9 inning statistic (or per Batters Faced) .. . As I said, I’m a game designer by nature, so this stuff is fun . . . like trying to do a truly realistic card for Tommy Byrne, NYY, 1949 . . .check his stats out!!
rhb
Have you worked out the adjustments to the pitching grades that will be needed if you adjust the HR model?
Changing HRs allowed even a little will create a not insubstantial effect on runs, which would necessitate adjusting pitching grades. Changing HR allowed by more and you’re moving pitching grades all over the map.
All that said, why not use the PRNs 30 thru 32 that are at DRN 14, 34, and 54? The number of cards that wouldn’t have these are not likely to be HR producers, I would guess. For most situations, you really only need use one of those (say, the 31 at 34), allowing expansion to two or three for those hitters who double the average HR rate in a given season, if not greater.