{"id":9429,"date":"2026-08-24T13:43:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T18:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wbl.dmlco.com\/wp\/?p=9429"},"modified":"2026-08-19T17:47:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:47:41","slug":"twiwbl-99-1-year-3-week-2-the-rains-of-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wbl.dmlco.com\/wp\/2026\/08\/24\/twiwbl-99-1-year-3-week-2-the-rains-of-april\/","title":{"rendered":"TWIWBL 99.1: Year 3, Week 2 \u2014 The Rains of April"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

15 April, 2002<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

WBL Players of the Week<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Manny Ram\u00edrez<\/strong> takes the American League award for Memphis<\/a>, Oscar Charleston<\/strong> the National League for Indianapolis<\/a>. Charleston’s case was essentially made in a single afternoon, as he launched 3 homeruns in a 19-5 win over the New York Gothams<\/a>. Those were 3 of the his 4 homeruns on the week, during which he hit .385 with 11 RBIs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ram\u00edrez didn’t show Charleston’s power, but he did hit .524 for the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MiL Players of the Week<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Minor League seasons have begun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they have their own Player of the Week<\/em> awards: Roger Maris<\/strong> (New York Black Yankees<\/a>) took AAA at Newark, Mike Benjamin<\/strong> (Birmingham Black Barons<\/a>) at AA, and Bill Hallman<\/strong> (Homestead Grays<\/a>) at A-ball. Of those, only Maris seems to be knocking on the WBL door, but he’s likely shutout unless injury hits the Black Yankees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the Curtain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to highlight some things that I’ve been doing in the OOTP engine itself, mostly as information that might be useful for other folks running their own leagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the offseason, I updated the ballparks to actual precipitation rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out that’s not great. Here’s why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precipitation in OOTP really impacts the game; as such, the question is not how much did it rain<\/em>, the question is how often did enough rain fall that it impacted play<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The higher precipitation rates–in effect for the first two weeks of the season–were highly, highly impactful. Just under half the games saw rain, just under 10% of the games were postponed, and, in something new to OOTP 27, it seems like rain now pushes error rates up in a noticeable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that I like rain delays and rainouts–I like anything that stresses roster construction, things that force teams to make roster moves, etc. But this was ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick sample of impacted games:<\/p>\n\n\n\n