Hey guys, hope you don't mind a complete n00b cluttering up the forums.
I'm trying to learn about baseball (I'm from the UK, so it's not something I ever had the opportunity to watch growing up). I get the general idea. I can watch a game and know roughly what's happening, the sheer volume of stats is still a bit overwhelming though! But that'll come with time...
I'm having trouble with two areas in particular though... pitchers and the star rating system.
Simplest one first, what do the star ratings represent? The obvious answer is 'how good a player is, and how good he can become', but what does this mean in real terms? There are players with great ratings, but only 1 star. For example, the guy that got me into baseball - Ichiro Suzuki. He's clearly an amazing fielder, and he doesn't seem to be god-awful with the bat. He's paid pretty well for a 40 year old, so why the single star rating? Is that just because he's old? What is it that makes Brett Gardner a 3.5* player, when Ichiro is only 1*? To a newbie like me, they seem similar with a bat (Gardner is slightly better, not not exceptional), and Ichiro seems a much better fielder. On occasions where a player has good ratings but few stars, would you pick a player with more stars or better ratings?
The other thing that confuses me greatly is the whole pitching thing. As I understand it, starting pitchers are obviously the main guys, and they take in turns so you'll have one starting pitcher per game, and good starting pitchers have high stamina and a good variation of pitches. That makes sense.
What doesn't make sense to me is the bullpen. If I understand correctly, these are the guys that take over from the starting pitcher when he gets tired during a game, right?
So your Long Relievers are guys with relatively high stamina who take over from the SP if he gets hurt early on in a game (or starts tired or something so he tires earlier than normal). So in theory these are guys that could be SPs but aren't quite good enough? Or...?
Middle Relievers are guys with lower stamina who can't pitch for a long time, but are otherwise good pitchers with a decent variety who can come in in the mid-game when the SP gets tired, right? So decent pitchers just with low stamina?
Then Closers are guys who are only really good at a few types of pitch, so would be too predictable to use long-term but are good for short bursts at the end of games to change things up?
This all kinda makes sense, assuming it's right!
What I don't get is, other than stamina, what makes a pitcher a relief pitcher instead of a starting pitcher?
Using the Angels as an example because I just played a (horrifying write-off of a) season with them, Ernesto Frieri is clearly a closer. Good at Changeup and Sliders, ok at Fastballs, but nothing else. Really low stamina. Makes sense.
But what about Matt Shoemaker? He's listed as a MR, but I can't see any reason why he can't be a SP? Is there something I'm missing? Or is it just simply that he's not as good as the Angels' other pitchers so they use him as a relief? I have no idea who he is, because as I said I'm a total newbie, so it might be that he used to be an SP for someone else (I've noticed that players who aren't a SP tend to have stamina so low that there's no way they can be used as one).
Specialists; obviously I get the idea here (they're better at pitching to righties or lefties), but when are they used? For EVERY lefty? That doesn't seem to make sense. Are they only used if the SP is particularly weak against a particular handedness. That doesn't seem to happen a whole lot.
Now for the big one... Setup? No idea at all. Any help?
While I'm here... Ground vs. Fly. I'm guessing that if you pitch a lot of ground-balls there's less chance of a HR but also less chance of catching batters out? And vice versa, flyballs tend to HR more but also get caught more?
Oh and one final thing... batting ability vs. fielding ability. How useful is a great fielder who can't bat that well? I'd imagine an average fielder who can bat really well would be better, especially if your batters on the whole weren't great? And if that's true, where do you need the best fielders; infield or outfield?
I mean, from what I've seen it seems that being a baseman is pretty simple (not EASY, but SIMPLE). In general you stand on a base and catch the ball when someone chucks it at you. The hardest part seems to be working out who, if anyone, you need to throw it to afterwards. So I'd imagine that not being a great baseman would be less of a hindrance than not being a great outfielder, because diving for catches and having a good outfield throwing arm would be a better weapon than being an exceptional baseman, due to the 'extra' outs you can get that a lesser player might not have got. Kinda like how in soccer, if you're going to have an exceptional player on your team it's more useful to have him be a forward than a defender or goalkeeper, as even the best defences will leak goals, but crap attackers won't score 'em.
So would I be right in assuming that, in general, if you have to choose between good batters and good fielders, it's better to have the good batters in the infield where their average fielding ability is less crucial, and have the good fielders be the outfielders where they can make outs that otherwise wouldn't have happened?
On a side note, is there much difference in the skills required for the different bases? I kinda just assumed they all did roughly the same thing? If I've got two guys who're great at 3rd base, would putting the slightly-less-great one on 2nd base be a terrible idea?
Sorry, this got really long really fast.
