Earlier today I played a game and within the first 3+ innings, my opponent had SIX "ok" contact base hits (including 4 ground balls). During that span, I had a good/squared up swing with FotF Torres against a LHP that was a lineout. Jump ahead to the 8th and I'm losing 9-8 (it was All-Star so it was a low-scoring game). My first hitter is FotF Soto who hits a perfect line drive and lines out to the CF. Going into the 9th I'm still down one and get a lead-off single. On a 3-2 count, I send the runner and have a good/squared up swing with FotF Devers against a RHP and line out to the RF who then doubles off my runner from first. So over the course of the game, I have 3 high-power guys have good/squared up or perfect swings for outs. Meanwhile, my opponent does not have a single good/squared up or perfect swing out the entire game and I end up losing by one.
Now, I'm NOT arguing that there shouldn't be hard hit outs or that there shouldn't be weak contact hits. Those are part of baseball and should be somewhat represented in the game (although you can argue to what extent). And then by that logic, I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be RNG to a certain extent. However, it seems to me that what you can't argue is that there is RNG at play in these games, and sometimes it can be the deciding factor. And for people who play this game competitively, it can be incredibly frustrating to do everything perfectly on your end and not get rewarded while your opponent does everything wrong and DOES get rewarded. And yes it goes both ways, but whether it helps you or hurts you doesn't change whether or not it is too prevalent in the game.
So the question becomes "how much RNG is acceptable in a video game based on a sport that does have an essence of randomness to it"? Should it be so prevalent that we all (and I'm sure we all can) can look back at games that we've won AND lost and say "I won/lost that game,not because of my input or skill, but because something out of my control went against me/went my way"? Should the "that's baseball" excuse really transfer over to a video game? Or should a video game focus more on cause & effect (or input/reward) than trying to replicate randomness which, by the very nature of randomness, is impossible to replicate.
I'm going to put up another post now as well that takes this question and applies it to another popular style of game that might help us come to an answer. I'd love to get an actual discussion going that SDS can actually look at instead of people just trolling each other.