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risp2out · 10-13-2010, 10:52 AM

First of all, welcome to the greatest game in the world--baseball. (OOTP ain't too bad, either). Your questions are enormous and many books are filled with the answers. I'll give you a few thoughts.

You'll use the stats to help you create your line ups, naturally, so the answer to your first question helps answer your third as well. Many baseball fans feel that OPS (on-base + slugging) is the best single stat to use in rating batters. On-base % (OBP) is probably ultimately a better stat to look at than batting avg. because OBP tells you whether the batter is able to reach base via hitting, base on balls, hit by pitch, etc. High OBP guys are the ones you'd like to have at the top of your batting order. Slugging (which is calculated by dividing total bases by at bats) tells you who gets a greater percentage of extra-base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). These are the guys you want in the middle of your line up.

One good way for you to assess these stats might be to start a historical game (import complete history) or go to a website like retrosheet.org, where they have all of the historical stats. Take a look at the stats there for some of the great players of all time. You'll see that Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth were extremely high in both OBP and Slugging. They rank among the very best overall players ever. Then, look at someone like Rickey Henderson, who was probably the best lead-off hitter ever. You'll see that he had a very high OBP almost every year and was a great base stealer, too, of course.

On retrosheet, you can even look at box scores from individual games. Go through a few of those for teams that were really good during a certain season. Take a look at who they had at the top, middle, and bottom of their line up. Then compare teams who weren't so good. You'll see that over the course of a full season, the stats for the top teams are almost always better throughout their batting order than for those at the bottom.

Naturally, I could go on and on and on. But, the best way for you to get a feel, I think, is to play out some games. Look at the players that the computer AI places in the line up for the other team. Have fun with it. Try it out with a team built for speed and basestealing. Try it out for a power built team. Find the fun of the different kinds of teams. Baseball is awesome. OOPT is awesome. Have fun.

10-13-2010, 10:52 AM	#2
risp2out All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 648	First of all, welcome to the greatest game in the world--baseball. (OOTP ain't too bad, either). Your questions are enormous and many books are filled with the answers. I'll give you a few thoughts. You'll use the stats to help you create your line ups, naturally, so the answer to your first question helps answer your third as well. Many baseball fans feel that OPS (on-base + slugging) is the best single stat to use in rating batters. On-base % (OBP) is probably ultimately a better stat to look at than batting avg. because OBP tells you whether the batter is able to reach base via hitting, base on balls, hit by pitch, etc. High OBP guys are the ones you'd like to have at the top of your batting order. Slugging (which is calculated by dividing total bases by at bats) tells you who gets a greater percentage of extra-base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). These are the guys you want in the middle of your line up. One good way for you to assess these stats might be to start a historical game (import complete history) or go to a website like retrosheet.org, where they have all of the historical stats. Take a look at the stats there for some of the great players of all time. You'll see that Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth were extremely high in both OBP and Slugging. They rank among the very best overall players ever. Then, look at someone like Rickey Henderson, who was probably the best lead-off hitter ever. You'll see that he had a very high OBP almost every year and was a great base stealer, too, of course. On retrosheet, you can even look at box scores from individual games. Go through a few of those for teams that were really good during a certain season. Take a look at who they had at the top, middle, and bottom of their line up. Then compare teams who weren't so good. You'll see that over the course of a full season, the stats for the top teams are almost always better throughout their batting order than for those at the bottom. Naturally, I could go on and on and on. But, the best way for you to get a feel, I think, is to play out some games. Look at the players that the computer AI places in the line up for the other team. Have fun with it. Try it out with a team built for speed and basestealing. Try it out for a power built team. Find the fun of the different kinds of teams. Baseball is awesome. OOPT is awesome. Have fun.