Out of the Park Baseball 25 - New York Yankees Mini-Series (Ep 3) 

And here I thought you might only care about Perfect Team these days... thank you for helping get that enhanced!!!

@@oldschoolsports I'll never quit playing the base game!!!

@@sporer_ Great to hear!!!

Thanks for watching! Not claiming anything I do is "right", but hopefully some of my decisions at least give you a different perspective!

Yeah, I think something is up. Cole just won a Cy Young Award and is arguably the best pitcher in the game over the past half-decade... and his best pitch is a 55 fastball?!?!?! Maybe the devs just hate the Yankees like most people do, but come on man!!! More seriously, I assume some kind of patch will need to be coming.

​@@oldschoolsports have you seen anything on this at the sites? I was going to snoop. This is very common this year even with good pitchers, I'm trying to understand if it's a new way of looking at things or busted. Not sure how they exist apart from 'stuff' which can still be decent despite these mediocre pitches.

@@guthrien I only saw one mention recently, of someone asserting that all that really mattered was the overall "Stuff" rating rather than the poor ratings on the individual pitches, but I have no idea how or why the commenter would have inside information on that topic. I'm hoping they update the game manual for OOTP 25 online soon, hopefully that will answer some of these questions. Please let me know if you see anything interesting!

@@oldschoolsports I had a little dialogue on the site and got an answer from Lukas, one of the developers. It seems there's a bug with how some pitches are being shown, especially breaking pitches are showing low ratings. The positive part is that he said it's purely descriptive, ie. it's not impacting Stuff or the true value of the pitches themselves. While not great for looking at pitchers with all this new info, I guess it does mean we can trust Stuff/Movement are as intended and needn't make us worry it's broken the player.

@@guthrien That is great information, thank you for investigating and sharing the information!

Thanks, hope you find watching this helpful... even if my decisions only let you know what not to do!

Always good to hear from another Yankees fan!!! I think if I was playing for the longer term and really trying to build a sustainable dynasty, I probably would not have included Dominguez... which means I probably would not have gotten the deal done, unless I was willing to hang on to 70%+ of the contract, and at that level I'd probably just keep Stanton on the team and hope for the best. I'm definitely thinking more short-term in this save than I do when I know I'm going to be building an organization over decades in the game. I agree it's hard to think of a worse contract than Stanton's for the Yankees... Carl Pavano, Kenny Rogers, and Jacoby Ellsbury come to mind, but we still have FOUR MORE YEARS of Stanton at this point... just have to hope he can stay somewhat healthy! Thinking back longer term, guys like Ed Whitson and Dave Collins definitely did not work out, but I don't think those contracts were worse. I'm glad Gleyber is back too, I like him also... and I don't see us in on Holmes, I'm glad he did not accept the QO I offered, was rolling the dice on that one!

@oldschoolsports Wow. I remember booing Whitson in 1985. He was horrible. In 1984, Ed had 14 wins and helped the Padres to the one-sided World Series loss to the Juggernaut in Detroit, and George had to get him. He was intimidated by New York. Happens some time. I remember the speed movement George Steinbrenner wanted in 1982, which led to Collins and Griffey. Griffey worked for a while...Collins not so much. ARod fell off the rails late in his career, exacerbated by his admitted steroid use, and that contract was a burden the team had to deal with. At least he was as advertised early in the contract. Always good chatting with another Yankee fan. We've seen a lot of good baseball over the years. Had some lean years too. Love watching what you're doing with the team.

@@alangoode779 Good point... the A-Rod opt-out during the World Series and subsequent renegotiation was typical A-Rod (likely with an assist to Boras), and the final years of that contract were pretty rough...

It definitely seems high to me too... not sure if it's just a fluke in the first season or two of the game, or something going on with the algorithms that they will need to address.

It surprised me too, but I'm happy about it... that was the scenario I hoped for... was willing to use this year's savings from the Stanton contract on Holmes if I had to, but it was not my preference! I does seem odd that the Padres, whose owner just passed away and are cutting back on spending, would be the team to take on that contract. I'm sure Dominguez will be around, and hopefully they'll try to develop the infielder and find a use for the catchers, but the rest may not be long for professional baseball... hopefully the AI is better than that though... if they valued these guys enough to include them in the trade, presumably they have a near to medium term spot for them in the organization!

I hear you. Definitely agree on Snell, frontloading that contract as much as possible should help when guys like Volpe, Wells, etc. start getting paid more in arbitration too. If I planned on playing this series for a decade or more, I totally agree with you on investing more in player development at the expense of Bellinger and some relievers. Investing in scouting, player development and coaching are kind of my personal "cheat codes"! In this case, where I'm likely only playing several seasons, I'm more focused on winning now than building a long-term, self-reloading, and sustainable dynasty, so I'm probably more willing to make sub-optimal medium and long-term decisions. I agree Bellinger is probably too expensive for what he is, and 5 or 6 million for middle relievers isn't incredibly efficient, but if I decide those are the best options to fill the holes I have on the team today, I will likely still consider doing it. Your point about player development for the MLB team is a good one, especially with the new Player Development Lab. I don't fully understand if/how player development and/or coaching influence the chance of success in the Lab, but it seems plausible that more money in player development and better coaching could contribute to a better chance of success there. Another thing to try to figure out, I imagine when the new online manual for OOTP 25 is finally posted some of these open items will be addressed more clearly.

Hmmm... I missed that. Can't find it yet, but apologies and thanks for the update. Might be time to upgrade some of my equipment!

It is kind of a core competency...

Ha, trading Volpe would be heresy for a Yankees fan! But I get you did what you had to do... not sure that me dumping Dominguez was any better!

@@oldschoolsports In fairness, I traded Volpe after two failed attempts to bring him up. His development stalled. And I already had the 2B, SS, and one of the utility roles locked up. He did go on to have a nice career with the Jays, although not spectacular.

I hear you. I don't think it bothers me as much as some of the reactions I have read on the message boards, but it is definitely different. I'm trying to give it a chance, but it is a whole new look for my player cards and my search screens with the additional ratings lines, and my brain is still looking for and trying to process the old way I am used to seeing! I agree that it's not elegant, as I'm used to thinking about BABIP as a stat/result, but as you noted, it is a rating in the game, previously hidden and now displayed. It doesn't look like the online manual has been updated for OOTP 25 yet, so trying to simplify things for my old brain, I am just telling myself that Contact is composed of Avoid K's, which is whether or not the hitter actually makes contact, and BABIP, which is how "well" the ball is hit when contact is made, even if that isn't how the developers would describe it.

I agree. I have been looking at BABIP more as the quality of contact. more like the "Barrels" stat from statcast.

I think your barrels idea is smart. It's just transparent now, but I'm having trouble adjusting to looking at more bars.

I hear you... it worked out fine for me, but really was just experimenting more than anything else.

@@oldschoolsports I was surprised that the didn't take it.

@@patrickdebonis6493 I kind of was too...