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sansterre · 10-25-2018, 02:52 PM

First off, while I've played this game for a long time I don't make any representations that I know how the code is written. But from jiggering in the ratings editor here's how I understand it:

Eye: walk rate. The batter's Eye is mixed with the pitcher's control and a percentage chance of a walk is generated.
Avoid K's: strikeout rate. The batter's avoid K's is mixed with the pitcher's Stuff and the percentage chance of a strikeout is generated.
Power: home run rate. This doesn't convert singles to home runs, this converts outs to home runs (by which I mean, your power going up increases your batting average, if not a lot). The batter's power and the pitcher's movement are mixed (plus park effects) and the chance of a home run is generated.
Gap: doubles (and sometimes triples) rate. This *does* convert singles to doubles, so higher gap won't bump your average, just make more of your hits be for extra bases. Obviously the quality of fielding and park effect adjust the rate of doubles/triples hit, but generally it's controlled by the batter's rating.
BABIP: batting average on balls in play. This batter rating, combined with park effects and fielding controls how likely the ball they make contact with (that's staying in the park) is going to be a hit.

So where's Contact? Here's the weird part; Contact is a catch-all stat that represents batting average (against a pitcher with average Stuff). It is a combination of BABIP, Avoid K's and Power (a tiny bit of power).

So if Avoid K's is already part of the Contact rating (which it is) then why does the game bother to show it?

Because Avoid K's controls how dependent the batter's success is on a pitcher's Stuff. Imagine two batters, both with Contact 60, but one has Avoid K's at 40, the other at 70. Which will hit for better average? Generally, they'll hit for equal average, because they have equal contact. But against a soft-tossing control pitcher? The one with 40 Avoid K's will generally do better because his weakness can't be exploited, which means his higher BABIP will be leveraged more. But against high-Stuff ace? The 70 Avoid K's will do better, because he's less susceptible to being struck out.

Let me give you a more practical example. I run a lot of historical simulations with teams of all eras. When you do this the game asks you for the default stat environment for the games to be played in and I use 1971, which is sort of like an average of all trends. Where is this going?

Babe Ruth is surprisingly mortal in 1971. But why? The short answer is that his batting average in 1971 is decent, but not great.

Babe Ruth is a career .342 hitter. In 1927 he hit 356/486/772 for 12.4 WAR. But he struck out 89 times, 16.5% of the time. 16.5% is a pretty good number in the modern game, but in 1927? The average strikeout rate was 8.1%. The incomparable Lefty Grove struck out only 6 per nine innings, and only six pitchers in the AL had K/9 above 4.

Babe Ruth is the classic example of a low Avoid K's but high BABIP hitter. He struck out twice as often as league average, but the combination of him making fantastic contact and the fact that pitchers in his day didn't have high Stuff meant that he could hit above 300 almost every season.

But when moved to 1971? The league average strikeout rate was 16.1%, with the strikeout ace of the year averaging north of 9 K/9. Take a low Avoid K's batter (striking out twice as often as league average) and move him to a situation where opposing pitchers strike out batters twice as much, and suddenly Ruth strikes out a looooot. And because he's striking out a lot, his average drops even though his BABIP is still incredible. And so in these historical sims, 1927 Babe Ruth usually only hits in the 270-310 range. Does he still walk a ton? Heck yes. Does he still have crazy power? Heck yes. But his average drops a lot because he strikes out so much more, and he becomes merely one of the very best batters in the league, but no longer the best of all time.

tl;dr Contact is the batter stat that controls batting average. Avoid K's is the batter stat that tells you how much this batter will suffer against dominant pitching (which becomes especially important in the playoffs).

10-25-2018, 02:52 PM	#3
sansterre Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 251	First off, while I've played this game for a long time I don't make any representations that I know how the code is written. But from jiggering in the ratings editor here's how I understand it: Eye: walk rate. The batter's Eye is mixed with the pitcher's control and a percentage chance of a walk is generated. Avoid K's: strikeout rate. The batter's avoid K's is mixed with the pitcher's Stuff and the percentage chance of a strikeout is generated. Power: home run rate. This doesn't convert singles to home runs, this converts outs to home runs (by which I mean, your power going up increases your batting average, if not a lot). The batter's power and the pitcher's movement are mixed (plus park effects) and the chance of a home run is generated. Gap: doubles (and sometimes triples) rate. This does convert singles to doubles, so higher gap won't bump your average, just make more of your hits be for extra bases. Obviously the quality of fielding and park effect adjust the rate of doubles/triples hit, but generally it's controlled by the batter's rating. BABIP: batting average on balls in play. This batter rating, combined with park effects and fielding controls how likely the ball they make contact with (that's staying in the park) is going to be a hit. So where's Contact? Here's the weird part; Contact is a catch-all stat that represents batting average (against a pitcher with average Stuff). It is a combination of BABIP, Avoid K's and Power (a tiny bit of power). So if Avoid K's is already part of the Contact rating (which it is) then why does the game bother to show it? Because Avoid K's controls how dependent the batter's success is on a pitcher's Stuff. Imagine two batters, both with Contact 60, but one has Avoid K's at 40, the other at 70. Which will hit for better average? Generally, they'll hit for equal average, because they have equal contact. But against a soft-tossing control pitcher? The one with 40 Avoid K's will generally do better because his weakness can't be exploited, which means his higher BABIP will be leveraged more. But against high-Stuff ace? The 70 Avoid K's will do better, because he's less susceptible to being struck out. Let me give you a more practical example. I run a lot of historical simulations with teams of all eras. When you do this the game asks you for the default stat environment for the games to be played in and I use 1971, which is sort of like an average of all trends. Where is this going? Babe Ruth is surprisingly mortal in 1971. But why? The short answer is that his batting average in 1971 is decent, but not great. Babe Ruth is a career .342 hitter. In 1927 he hit 356/486/772 for 12.4 WAR. But he struck out 89 times, 16.5% of the time. 16.5% is a pretty good number in the modern game, but in 1927? The average strikeout rate was 8.1%. The incomparable Lefty Grove struck out only 6 per nine innings, and only six pitchers in the AL had K/9 above 4. Babe Ruth is the classic example of a low Avoid K's but high BABIP hitter. He struck out twice as often as league average, but the combination of him making fantastic contact and the fact that pitchers in his day didn't have high Stuff meant that he could hit above 300 almost every season. But when moved to 1971? The league average strikeout rate was 16.1%, with the strikeout ace of the year averaging north of 9 K/9. Take a low Avoid K's batter (striking out twice as often as league average) and move him to a situation where opposing pitchers strike out batters twice as much, and suddenly Ruth strikes out a looooot. And because he's striking out a lot, his average drops even though his BABIP is still incredible. And so in these historical sims, 1927 Babe Ruth usually only hits in the 270-310 range. Does he still walk a ton? Heck yes. Does he still have crazy power? Heck yes. But his average drops a lot because he strikes out so much more, and he becomes merely one of the very best batters in the league, but no longer the best of all time. tl;dr Contact is the batter stat that controls batting average. Avoid K's is the batter stat that tells you how much this batter will suffer against dominant pitching (which becomes especially important in the playoffs).