Roger Maris in 1961
A Conundrum
Roger Maris in 1961
Roger Maris provides all replay fans with a problem.
The easiest way to understand this problem is simply to glance at his statistics. Here they are, courtesy of Baseball Reference:
You see the problem, right? Maris’ 1961 season is a clear outlier. He was an offensive machine in 1961 — by traditional metric standards, at least. His 132 runs scored and 141 runs batted in seem to fit in better with 1930 than with the relatively calm offensive environment of the early 1960s.
And then there’s the question of those 61 home runs.
Now, the mathematically gifted will undoubtedly point out that his OPS+ was very similar to what it was in 1960. There’s a good argument to be made that he was just lucky in 1961 — that he had a few more fly balls go out for home runs than he did in 1960, and that missing 28 games in 1960 hurt his offensive productivity.
But anybody who has attempted a 1961 replay knows that the problem isn’t that he was lucky in 1961. No — the problem is that he’s got as good a chance of hitting 70 home runs in your replay as he does of hitting 52.
Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds — any of these guys could hit 70 or 75 or even 80 home runs in a replay without making us furrow our brows and gnash our teeth. But there’s something that seems wrong about the 1961 Roger Maris hitting in the 70s. Something seems off about that — it feels unrealistic, and gives you kind of an upset feeling in your stomach.
So what do we do about this problem?
Do we insist that the real life statistics take precedence over everything else, and wince when the rolls go his way?
Do we tone down (or “nerf”) his statistics a tad, making 61 into a true outlier and putting him in line with the rest of his career?
Do we purposely ignore home run results near the end of the season to try to replicate the difficult time he had in real life?
I’d love to know what you guys think. Comments are open for all for this post.
"No — the problem is that he’s got as good a chance of hitting 70 home runs in your replay as he does of hitting 52."
Yes! This is a key point that a lot of people miss and I sometimes have a hard time explaining it to people. It also leads to what I think is a bigger problem: it messes up the leaderboards. (This part is a little harder to grasp.)
These were the top 5 home run hitters in the American League in 2023:
1. Shohei Ohtani: 44
2. Adolis Garcia: 39
3. Luis Robert: 38
4. Aaron Judge: 37
5. Rafael Devers: 33
If you replay the 2023 season in Strat, I will bet serious money that the #5 guy on your HR leaderboard will hit MORE than 33 homers. This is because there's a good chance that the top 4 guys will all hit 34 or more. And there's about a 45% chance that Devers will reach that level. And then there's a BUNCH of guys with 28+ homers who all have a decent chance of hitting 34 homers if the dice fall the right way for them. All that adds up to the likelyhood that your leaderboard will be inflated compared to the real-life stats.
Any sim that just plugs in the historical numbers and rolls dice will have this problem for homers, doubles, hits, batting average, etc. That's why Baseball Mogul doesn't do this. To use your term, it "nerfs" outliers to some degree so that the leaderboard is realistic, even though the randomness of the game will put different players on that leaderboard. The good news is that you don't have to "nerf" the stats very much to make the game more realistic in this way.
I would let it roll and whatever you get, you get. It might lessen the enjoyment if he's way off, but then why are we doing the replay - why not just read the daily papers or Sporting News from 61?
And I agree with Steve - a bigger name - Mantle, or in another year Mays or Aaron - would bother me more.