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Text File | 1989-10-15 | 22.9 KB | 457 lines

The American PaSTime Baseball Simulator Support Programs - Version 2.00, October, 1989 SPECIAL NOTE for the DEMO VERSION: None of the programs described in this file are on the demo download. You will receive all of these programs if you become a registered owner. Information about these programs is provided in order to encourage you to become a registered owner and receive the whole system. You may register yourself by sending $12 ( or more ) to: Eric A. Lindow Lindow Associates 26 Downer Avenue Scarsdale, NY, 10583 All registered owners will receive at least one program upgrade absolutely free. They will be notified of all future updates when available and will be eligible to receive them at nominal cost. I can be reached on Compuserve at 76227,232 for comments, questions, etc. OVERVIEW This is a documentation file for support programs for The American PaSTime Baseball Simulator. This file contains documentation for the following programs: BBCLEAR - Used to clear cumulative team data generated by the simulator so that you can start a new season. BBINPUT - Allows you to create teams, enter, check and modify player data, trade players between teams, and enter lineups. BBLNDATA - Linescore data reader and team vs. team chart generator for use on .DAT files generated when the 'Linescore Save' option is enabled during game play. BBSTAND - Creates and displays league information- standings, individual batting/pitching leaders, and team batting/pitching statistics. BBSTAT - Display or print statistics for players or teams as generated by the simulator. NOTE: These programs expect to operate on team files with an extension of '.BB' located in a folder called 'TEAMS.BB'. While they will function on other extensions and folders, attempting to work on files that do not contain valid team information will probably cause your system to crash, so it is recommended that you create the 'TEAMS.BB' folder and store all of your teams in it, with extensions of '.BB'. BB-CLEAR -------- Operation of this program is very simple- when started, it shows you a box warning you that it is going to clear statistics and giving you a chance to bail out. If you choose to continue, you are given a file selector box. Choose the team you want to clear. You will be shown the name of the team you have chosen and given another chance to bail out- click on 'continue' if you are sure you have the right team. After this alert, the process finishes and you are shown the warning box again. Click on 'yes' to clear another team or 'no' to exit. Remember that this program does NOT affect the original statistics on which the simulation is based; it only clears out the cumulative records that have been generated by games played with the program. BB-STAT ------- Operation of this program is also straightforward. Upon beginning, you are given a file selector box from which to choose a team. After a team is loaded, you can choose various lists from the menu bar- Hitters, Hitters Additional, Pitchers, and Pitchers Additional. Clicking on any of these will cause the selected list to appear on the screen. You can print any of these statistical lists by choosing 'Output to Printer' from the bottom of the 'List' menu. If you click on this item, it will give you a dialog box asking you if you want to send output to the printer. Selecting 'yes' will send all subsequent lists to both the screen and the printer. Selecting 'no' will turn this process off. Selecting 'FF' will send a form feed to the printer- handy if you a printing stats for several teams one after the other. Do NOT turn this option on if you don't have a printer attached and turned on, as the the computer will get into an endless loop waiting in vain for a printer go-ahead message. Also available from the 'Files' menu are 'Load', which lets you load in another team, and 'Quit', to exit. ( You can also exit by clicking on the close box in the upper left corner of the window. ) Under 'Desk' you can choose an ID box with information about the program, plus any desk accesories you have loaded. BB-INPUT -------- This program is a generalized team file maintainence program. Please note that it works on the original statistics ( from reality ) on which each player's simulated performance is based, NOT on the statistics that are produced when the simulator is run. Thus each player in the simulator has two sets of statistics- the original ones from reality and the new ones produced by running the simulator. All other things being equal, over the course of many games the two sets of statistics will tend to converge, i.e. hitters and pitchers will tend to perform in the simulator about the same way that they performed in reality. Sometimes it will take many hundreds of at bats or batters faced before the convergence becomes apparent, but eventually it will. Of course, if conditions in the simulator are different from what the player faced in reality, the results may not be the same. For example, a good hitter facing worse than average pitching will over a long period perform better than he did in reality. OPERATING THE PROGRAM All functions in BB-INPUT are chosen either from the menu bar or from keyboard equivalents to the menu choices. Going from left to right, the choices are: DESK: About BB-Input - gives an ID box with information about the program. Desk Accesories- available, depending on what was loaded upon startup. TEAMS: New- Allows you to specify the filename for a new team and clear names and data. The filename and path of the chosen team will be displayed in the window's title bar. Save- Saves the current team data to the specified disk file as shown in the window's title bar. Load- Allows you to load in an existing team. Save As- Allows you to save the current team data to a different filename, path, and/or drive. Quit - Exits the program. You can also exit by clicking on the close box in the upper left of the window. ENTER: Enter Hitters- When clicked on, displays you a grid showing the names of any existing hitters plus blank boxes where hitters have not been entered. Use the mouse to select one of these boxes; then choose one of the options below. 'Name' allows you enter or modify the hitter's name and to choose his year and team by selecting the appropriate button. 'Stats' goes to the data entry dialog ( more on the nature and sources of data below ). Enter Pitchers- This item works the same as 'Enter Hitters' above except being for pitcher's data. Enter Lineups- Sets the screen up for entering lineups. Instructions for entering lineups are shown on screen, and consist mainly of dragging the desired players and positions into the desired spots using the mouse. Three preset lineups are allowed; by convention, lineup #1 is for use against right handed pitchers, #2 is for use against righties, and #3 can be a specialty lineup or a substitute lineup. The list of hitters on the left hand side of the screen, from which the lineups are chosen, lists each batter's average against right and left handed pitchers next to each hitter's name. This makes it easier to select players. Underneath each lineup box, the fielding rating for each lineup is shown. Any time a lineup is changed, this number will be recalculated and redisplayed. If the number becomes very positive, you have probably made a mistake in assigning positions. If you attempt to assign the same position to more than one player in a lineup, the program will warn you when you exit the lineup entry mode. It is up to you to go back in and fix things up. If you do not, the game program will function, but strange things will occur, such as an error being generated every time a ball is hit to the unoccupied position. When creating a new team, a default lineup is created that uses the first nine players entered. Even the first time you select 'Enter Lineups' these lineups will show. They will probably need major revision to make sense; they are created just so that a team will function in the game even if 'Enter Lineup' is never selected during a team's entry time. Fill Hitters- This and the next item, Fill Pitchers, can be used to automatically create hypothetical data for some of the more obscure stats, as well as to rapidly fill in team and year data for all players on a team. It is intended for use when the actual numbers are not available, either because they has not been released yet or because you are entering historical players where the data was never compiled. Fill Hitter can automatically fill in team, year, hit by pitcher, intentional walks, caught stealing, grounded into double plays, sacrifice hits (bunts) and batting vs. left handed pitchers. By using this function, you can create teams that will perform realistically in every aspect of the game even with only the basic data available. The 'team' function will assign whatever team the first player on the list is on to all of the other hitters. The 'year' function will apply the chosen year to all hitters. The various statistical fills have two modes, fixed and random. In the fixed mode, the chosen percentage is applied to the base stat for each hitter. In random mode, the final stat will be randomly selected to be greater or less than the fixed amount by no more than the specified range factor. By way of example, suppose we are talking about a hitter who has 500 at bats. If we fill hit by pitcher at a fixed rate of .006, this hitter will always be assigned 3 HBP's. If we fill random with a rate of .006 and a range of .006, he will be assigned between 0 and 6 HBP's each time we do a fill. ( 500 * .006 = 3 plus/minus 3 = 0 to 6 ). To actually do a fill, first select the item from the menu. Select either fixed or random for each data item that you want to have filled. Enter your choice of percentages and range factors if you don't want the defaults ( which incidentally are based on Major League results of the last two years ). Then click on the 'Do Fill' button. Be aware that no action will be taken on items which do not have either 'Fixed' or 'Random' selected, and fills will only have effect on hitters who already have their base statistics ( AB, Hits, etc. ) entered. Note: Fill Batting Vs Left Handed Pitcher only has a fixed mode. If you want to randomize this data you will have to do it to each batter individually. Use caution when applying this function to existing teams, as it will wipe out any existing, possibly accurate, data for each stat that it is applied to. Fill Pitchers- See above- this function allows you to fill in data for team, year, home runs, intentional walks, hit batsmen, wild pitches, double play percentage, sacrifice hits, balks, and batting vs. left handed hitters. It functions in exactly the same fashion as the Fill Hitter function. Team Info- This dialog allows you to enter a longer team name that is used at various times in the game program instead of the limited filename- i.e. '1988 Seattle Mariners' instead of 88SEATLE.BB. It also allows you to enter two lines of notes about the team. These notes can be anything you like; they are not otherwise used by the program. When entering data into these fields, pressing the 'Esc' key will clear the line of any previous entries and put the cursor at the beginning. The arrow keys will move you forward and back through existing data. The 'Backspace' and 'Delete' keys will erase one character to the left of and where the cursor is, respectively. Design Ballpark- Calling up this dialog allows you to enter in the ballpark statistics that will be used for the team's home park. You can enter: name of ballpark, distance of outfield walls at seven equally spaced spots, height of walls in left, center, and right, whether the park is grass or artificial turf, and batting average and homerun differentials. Distance of walls affects the likelihood of a home run occuring to that specific location. Height of walls affects the number of balls that bounce off the wall instead of being homers. Turf type does not currently affect play but will in future versions of the game. Batting average and homerun differentials affect all hitters and pitchers equally, I.E. a negative differential makes it harder for hitters and easier for pitchers, and a positive differential does the reverse. Control Stats- Control stats can be understood as the statistics that an average player in this particular league ought to acheive. When the game is determining the likelihood of a batter getting a hit, homerun, etc., it sees how much better or worse than average the hitter is, and likewise for the pitcher, and then combines the two, comparing the result to a random number. Since control stats are applied equally to hitters and pitchers, changing them does not increase or decrease the chances of a team winning games- it only moves the overall offense for both teams up and down. Since the control stat represents an average player, increasing the numbers for the control stats will have the effect of decreasing offense. For example, a .300 hitter is 50 points better than a control stat of .250 but only 20 points better for a control stat of .280. For a pitcher the effect is reversed- a pitcher with a .200 BA against is only 50 points better in the first case and 80 points better in the second. Note that the effect of each control stat point is doubled since it applies to both hitters and pitchers. A change of 30 points, as described above, would have a drastic affect on the overall offense in a league, lowering average batting averages in the vicinity of 60 points. For this reason it is suggested that control stats not be moved far from the actual league averages for the year being entered, unless you want to experiment with far out scenarios or the like. LIST: These functions allow for complete listing & printing of the entered data. Hitters and pitchers each have two screens available, the second showing some of the more esoteric data. The 'List Fielders' screen shows which players can play each position, spread about the screen in more or less where they would stand on the field, plus each player's fielding data. If 'Output to Printer' is selected, all subsequent lists will be sent to both the screen and the printer. When selected, the 'Output to Printer' menu line will be checked. Clicking on 'FF' in the 'Output to Printer' alert box will send a form feed to the printer. This is handy when you are printing many lists in a row. The TA item for hitters, appearing on the right of the main data screen, is for 'Total Average', the ratio of bases gained to outs made. The PA for pitchers is for 'Performance Average', roughly analogous to hitters TA, measuring baserunners allowed vs. outs, with some adjustments for HR's allowed, and so on. In both cases a higher number indicates a better performance; a number greater than one is exceptional. TRADE: Allows you to trade players between teams, or to copy players from one team to another. When selected, a file selector allows you to choose the team to trade with. Then all players from both teams are displayed on the screen, with the original team's hitters and pitchers in two columns on the left of the screen, and the other team's hitters and pitchers in two columns on the right. You can only trade hitters for hitters or pitchers for pitchers, and you must start by pointing to a player from the original team ( on the lefthand side of the screen ). Hold down the mouse button and a box will appear; drag that box over the player to be traded with. If you have not specified players correctly, an alert box will appear explaining what is expected; otherwise, an alert box will appear naming the players involved and allowing you to confirm the trade, abort it, or simply copy the player from the team on the right to the team on the left. ( If you just want to copy a player to your new team, it is best to start with a blank line from the team on the left, so that an existing player will not be overwritten. ) In order to trade a pitcher for a hitter, first trade the hitter for a blank line, and then the pitcher for a blank line. To end a trading session, click the left button on the bottom of the screen. If you have made trades, you will be given a chance to save them at that time. Choosing not to save will NOT erase any changes you have made, so if you want to be sure to lose these changes, it is best to reload your original team from the disk immediately. SWITCH: Allows you to shift the order of hitters or pitchers for a team. This is useful for moving starting pitchers to the front of the pitching list, etc. Instructions on how to use this function appear on screen when it is selected. Use of this function is straightforward: just click on the player to be moved and drag him to the desired new spot. The list will automatically be redrawn to reflect the change. Fielding range ratings go from 1 ( the best ) to 8. Players who actually play a position are never rated higher than 4. For most positions, if a player never played it in the season being entered, he is rated 5; however, the three skill positions, center field, shortstop and catcher can have higher ratings. Non- outfielders are rated 6 in center, non-infielders are rated 7 at short, and non-catchers are generally rated 8. The rating numbers are, as mentioned above, based on the Strat-O-Matic cards, but there is nothing sacred about them- you are free to apply whatever system you want, as long as you rate players from 1 to 9, with 1 being the best. Within the game, outfielders are allowed to move around, from center to left or right, for example, with little or no change in ratings. Similarly, shortstops are allowed to play second or third with no penalty. During the game, each team is assigned an overall range rating that is a combination of all the players in the field, with greater weight being given to the skill positions. This overall rating can be positive or negative. A team with a positive rating will give up more base hits than a team with a negative rating, all other things being equal. Ratings for fielder's arms also come from the Strat-O-Matic cards. These only have effect on outfielders and catchers, and thus most pure infielders are automatically rated zero, regardless of how well they might throw. As with fielding ratings, lower numbers are better; the range is from -5 to +3. BBSTAND ------- This program allows you to create leagues and examine various kinds of league data, including standings, leaders, and team statistics. To begin, choose a league file ( extension of '.L' recommended but not required ), and all the data for each team in the league will be loaded. Note that a league file can hold a maximum of 10 teams in each of four divisions, although currently actually having four 10-team leagues would overflow the screen and probably cause a system crash. I you are using all four divisions, don't put more than seven teams in each. If you only use two divisions, you can have ten teams in each with no problems. Leagues are created by entering the appropriate data after choosing the 'Create' option from the menu bar under 'Leagues'. Note that in entering a team name you must get it exactly as it appears on the disk, minus the ( '.BB' ) extension. Entering a wrong name can lead to unpredictable results. A different league can be loaded from 'Get League', and 'Standings' will show the actual standings. If 'Output to Printer' is on, the printer will also receive and print the standings. LEADERS: The 'Leaders' menu bar items supply sorted information about league leaders in the various categories. Using the slider bar at the right side of the screen, you can examine the position of every player in the league in each category. In areas where percentages are calculated, you can adjust how many at-bats or innings pitched are needed to be listed. This lets you eliminate hitters or pitchers who have not played enough to officially qualify for a batting title, and so on. The default for determining who is listed is the same as is used in the Major Leagues- 3.1 plate appearances per game for hitters and 1 inning pitched for each game played by a pitcher's team for a pitcher to qualify. The 'Options' menu lets you change this standard, either to show all players, or to enter an absolute standard, such as 100 AB's. Note that the above discussion does not apply to categories that are not averages or percentages, such as Hits or RBI's. In these cases all hitters/pitchers are always listed. OPTIONS- See above- lets you change qualifying standards for appearance on leader list for percentages and averages. TEAM STATS- Team Hitting/Team Pitching- Choosing either of these will give you a statistical listing of all teams in the league, along with totals for the whole league. BBLNDATA -------- The program BBLNDATA.PRG can be used to look at the linescore data from a .DAT file. When the program is started it will ask for a linescore file to be loaded in. LIST- Linescores- when chosen from the LIST menu bar option, linescores will be shown. Tape recorder like buttons can be used to move through the linescores to find a particular game. Games Chart- this option will allow you to see how various teams have done in head to head competion against each other. Reading across for a team will show number of games won vs. the team in the vertical column, followed by a hyphen, followed by total number of games played between the two teams. For example, 7-12 for the Yankees reading horizontally and the Bosox reading vertically would mean that the Yanks won seven of the twelve games played between the two teams. The total number of wins and losses is shown for each team on the right hand side of the screen. The games chart also shows some additional statistical data for each team- runs, hits, and errors for and against. Future versions of this program will also give other statistical information about team performance, such as the number of runs scored in each inning over the season, most runs scored in one game, number and performance in extra inning games, and so on.