Originally Posted by Timofmars
I've done research on this using the editor in commissioner mode.
Contact is the player's batting average. How often he will get a hit, regardless of whether that is a HR, or a single or whatever.
Power is the HR average, regardless of contact. 2 players with the same power will usually hit the same number of HRs even if 1 has terrible contact, and the other has great contact. It also seems that power beyond average (beyond 50 on a 1-100 scale) has double the effect, compared to the 1st 50 points of power. So a 100 power guy should hit 3 times as many HRs as a 50 power guy. Power also adds to the contact rating, but you don't need to consider that since it will already be reflected in the contact rating for you.
Gap is the double and triple average, regardless of contact. The difference from power is that gap seems to offer linear benefits through the whole 1-100 scale. Gap doesn't add to contact, but again you don't need to consider this because you can just look at the contact rating. How many of these hits will be triples instead of doubles depends on the player's speed. The slowest players might have like 5% of these hits be triples, while the 100/100 speed guys might have 20% be triples. Extreme speed guys, like 125/100 (the highest possible speed) could get nearly 50% triples, but even a bit lower than that at 112/100 still only gets like 25% triples. Most real players in the game seem to have the triple ratio hard-coded instead of using their speed, presumably to make them more accurately reflect their real-life triple ratio.
Eye is walks. Like power, it seems to have double the effect per point beyond 50/100. Also, because the other ratings are on a per/AB basis, higher eye will slightly reduce the frequency of hits, HRs, etc. because walks don't count as an AB. Every walk means a missed chance for a HR or whatever. So a power hitter with low eye should get slightly more HRs than a power hitter with high eye. But eye is still beneficial in pretty much any case, it's just more beneficial on a player with less slugging ability.
Avoid Ks is another rating, but it's main effect is adding to contact, which again is already reflected in contact. But avoid Ks does tell you the chance of a player hitting into an out but still perhaps allowing a baserunner to advance a base on the out. They can also be more likely to hit into a double play, but the benefits of avoid K usually outweigh the negatives. I don't know how much speed might affect avoiding double plays, if at all. The number of strikeouts avoided by this stat seems to be exponential. So a 1/100 avoid k player will have almost all his outs be strikeouts, while a 50/100 avoid K player will have maybe 25% of his outs be strikeouts, and 100/100 will have like 5%. This is generally not an important stat, but it could be valuable in a pinch batter situation, like if you've got a runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs, and so you want someone that will be sure to get the ball into play even if they don't get a hit themselves (and it can actually be more important than contact in this case).
For pitchers, each of the 3 ratings seems to reduce the number of hits allowed, plus 1 other secondary effect. Their effects seem mostly linear too.
Stuff rating seems to have the most effect in reducing the number of hits allowed (by maybe 2x or 3x compared to the other 2 ratings), but its secondary effect is to increase the proportion of outs that are strikeouts, which isn't that helpful.
Movement reduces HRs allowed (in addition to the reduced number hits).
Control reduces walks allowed (in addition to hits reduced). However, according to my research, the 1st 50/100 points of control seem to have the most effect. So it's important for a pitcher to have a decent amount of control before anything else.
Groundball tendency % also seems to reduce HRs, though I don't know if it can possibly be a negative thing in a large ballpark or on artificial turf or something like that. Unless you look at the editor, you can only see that the player has 1 of 5 ratings here from Extreme GB to Exteme FB pitcher, so you don't know the exact percentage. But you may be able to get a good idea of the exact rating by looking at the GB% stat history for the player.
For choosing pitchers, I think you generally just want the overall best pitcher in most cases. Maximize favorable L/R matchups as much as possible too. But for specific situations, there can be a lot of considerations, and you can favor certain stats.
Like when leading by 1 run late in a game with bases loaded, favor control since giving up a walk is almost as bad as giving up a hit. With nobody on base in that situation, avoiding HRs (movement) may be most important. But if there's a man on 3B with less than 2 outs, then stuff rating is important to help prevent the runner from advancing on an out and scoring.
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