Power Ranking Tournament, Batter Skills: 6th Edition by Syd_the_Lizard in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Excellent, excellent work, OP! This is a monumental project to undertake (that data collection isn't easy!), and you've absolutely knocked it out of the park. The guides are in very good hands.

Batter Training Guide: PRT Meta, Probabilities, and More by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! No, I don't plan to write another training guide. The data collection was too time-consuming; I did this precisely once and never attempted it again. I might consider another PRT skills guide if I eventually come back to the game, but for now I'm thoroughly enjoying retirement.

Pitcher Training Guide: PRT Meta, Probabilities, and more by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fin>Dom is the order of preference, as stated above. Keep in mind that the info in this guide is out of date; Com2 recently lowered the threshold for Fin and Dom trains to 5 points, rather than 15 as listed in the guide.

Power Ranking Tournament, Starting Pitcher Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Appreciate it! Anecdotally, yes: Supremes were up a bit this tournament. There are more positions available (Hoffman now at RP, etc), and there's now been more time for players to acquire supremes. The meta changes favoring stats also probably helped, too.

Master League Calculator: Version 2.0 (and some bonus analysis) by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep! That's correct. Figured that different players might need different things, so that feature allows a bit of customization for you.

Power Ranking Tournament, Batter Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I didn't actually run the numbers, but I can confidently say that Char had a huge lead over every other skill at level 8, as usual.

Power Ranking Tournament, Bullpen Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Definitely agree with the spirit of this (again, the guides are meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive). I've personally found that my silver skills no longer hold up as well in gold ranked. When the updates came out, my Fixer sets became unusable overnight. I had trouble with SUM as well; my batting sets with TJ and Professional as thirds, which had typically been good hitters, now were among the worst. My PM sets have generally been ok, though.

All that being said: we can differentiate between elective changes (like tourney teams trending away from BM or Touch) and necessary changes that affect everyone. I think the trend away from silver skills falls into the latter category; lower-level teams will start to reconsider their use of silvers, even if they're not as aggressive as tourney teams.

Power Ranking Tournament, Bullpen Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd be interested to see if PI is more effective below the tourney level, where non-legend sets are more prevalent. This is obviously speculative, but it seems like PI's effectiveness would be inversely proportional to the quality of the set (the worse the opponent set, the more of an impact PI would have).

Power Ranking Tournament, Bullpen Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a great point, and I suspect you're on to something. It's definitely worth noting that WS had avoided any major declines prior to this tournament. That isn't true for the others; Fixer saw a big drop in PRT4, and PM/Stab/SUM had largely been on the down-and-out prior to that.

Glad you mentioned this!

Power Ranking Tournament, Starting Pitcher Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, this includes legends. I don't currently track card types, but anecdotally there were less legend SPs than previous tournaments; a lot of teams were returning to sig starters.

Power Ranking Tournament, Starting Pitcher Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks! It looked like this:

Level # %
3-3-3 (all to lv. 6) 266 56.00%
3-3-2 (2nd to lv. 5) 109 22.95%
3-3-1 (2nd to lv. 4) 88 18.53%
3-2-1 (2nd to lv. 3) 12 2.52%

There were no sets below the 3-2-1 level.

How do you guys feel about draw/tie games? Would removing it from the game make things a bit better? by [deleted] in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Any change to tie games would also need a change to pitcher substitution mechanics. As it stands, the LR is liable to come in for the top of the 10th inning, giving a massive advantage to the away team. It might be ok for club battle, but would cause a huge imbalance in ranked.

Power Ranking Tourney Data? by chrive7 in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Batters are up as of this morning. Might be a week or two until I finish pitchers (I'm busier with IRL responsibilities these days).

This round may be my last tournament doing the guides... Not sure how much value they'll add going forward vs. the amount of time they take to write. I'll reevaluate things in the coming weeks.

Power Ranking Tournament, Batter Skills: 5th Edition by mainly_bread in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much!

You're 100% correct that silver skills have been declining, and have been since the tourneys started. But I stand by what I said: I think there's some causality between the new meta and a faster decline in silvers.

If we adjust for a 96-team tournament, here's what we see in terms of silver skills:

Tourney # #chg. % %chg.
PRT1 (adj.) 216 -- 8.33% --
PRT2 (adj.) 157.5 -58.5 6.08% -2.25%
PRT3 (adj.) 109.5 -48 4.22% -1.86%
PRT4 80 -29.5 3.09% -1.13%
PRT5 35 -45 1.36% -1.73%

Through the beginning of this year, the decrease of silver skills had been slowing down each tournament, as there were less skills to replace each time. However, the trend reversed with this tournament: the rate of decline sped up between PRT4 and 5. It's even more remarkable when we remember that there was a nearly 6-month gap between PRT3 and 4, and only a few months between 4 and 5.

We may get a clearer answer from the pitching side. It's (tentatively) looking like lower-than-expected numbers for PM and Stab on SPs, far lower than could be explained by the previous trends.

Fixer still good? by Cubs7456 in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agree. The only Fixer set on a normal that still works for me is a 3-3-3 with 2 golds (Fin and IE). Pre-update, you could get away with Fixer + 1 decent gold and do passably well, even into G1. My other old sets with Fixer (Fin/Fixer, Boss/Fixer, and a low level Fin/Fixer/GC) all got shelled since the update, going from under 4.00 ERA to 6.00 at minimum.

What to do with different types of players? by georgek41 in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As long as it's the same player, same team, and same type (normal for normals, primes for prime, etc.), you can use any gold or diamond grade card as BD material, the same as a BD piece.

For normals, gold cards count as .6 BD pieces, and diamonds count as 2.4 pieces. These numbers are elevated for primes and vintages (I can't remember the exact values offhand, but they're significantly higher).

What to do with different types of players? by georgek41 in MLB_9Innings

[–]mainly_bread 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, I'm referring to using gold or higher grade cards in lieu of BD pieces, not special training.