Please explain player ratings system!!

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

That's just generated by the game's algorithm based off his stats as of now. We'll edit it manually to better reflect how good it actually was

Thanks It ruined my holidays that New Years Eve.

[Threnodas]

Originally Posted by ElementalKnight

Larry Dierker (73 Overall):



Gaylord Perry (82 Overall):



Why the difference?

Can we come back to this for a moment? Dierker is better in almost every rating and worse in none. By what algorithm could his overall be 73 while Perry's is 82? This isn't about nerfing or buffing certain players or eras, nor do I have an opinion about which player was better in real life or by how much. I'm just bothered by the disconnect between Overall and their individual ratings. One of the two is lying. We can disagree with the AI about how to weigh different ratings to calculate "overall quality", but Dierker dominates Perry in all ratings. He is a Pareto improvement. How can he be worse?

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

Can we come back to this for a moment? Dierker is better in almost every rating and worse in none. By what algorithm could his overall be 73 while Perry's is 82? This isn't about nerfing or buffing certain players or eras, nor do I have an opinion about which player was better in real life or by how much. I'm just bothered by the disconnect between Overall and their individual ratings. One of the two is lying. We can disagree with the AI about how to weigh different ratings to calculate "overall quality", but Dierker dominates Perry in all ratings. He is a Pareto improvement. How can he be worse?

The extra pitches that Perry can throw will definitely bump up his rating, but I'm not sure it should be a 9-point swing like that.

[Threnodas]

I get the value of extra pitches, but I thought that would go into Stuff, as a previous poster said, and his time-through-the-order penalty for being a starter vs. reliever. My understanding of the game engine is that Stuff, Movement and Control are the ratings that determine the outcome of an at-bat (besides fielding and RNG-esus). If it isn't helping him strike out more batters or avoid homers or walks, what are his extra pitches doing for him? And I wouldn't expect the time-through-the-order penalty to be relevant here because we are comparing Dierker and Perry on level footing as starters.

[Chomps]

Markus, please respond to my previous post in this thread about the worthless player ratings. What is the deal? Why do I have to bench my pitchers that have 92 ratings!!!?

I really wish you guys would have focused your energy on improving OOTP Baseball rather than this Perfect Team nonsense.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Chomps

The Ratings listed on the Player Cards are complete garbage. I mean absolutely ridiculous, the ratings don't mean anything and have no bearing on how well the player will perform.

For example - I had Aaron Nola and Blake Snell both with ratings of 92. They started the season off with a 20+ and 13+ ERA respectively. They improved slightly over the course of the season, but their ERA's never dropped below 5+. I also have Madison Bumgarner and Zack Wheeler who can't get below 4+. None of my pitchers have an ERA below 2, and the vast majority of my pitchers cant get below 3+. In Summary, I have had multiple pitchers with ratings 85 - 95 that were so awful, I benched them, an then eventually sold them.

In one game I had 4 Relievers come in the game and each of them gave up 5 runs in 4 different innings, resulting in 20 runs! These were all players rated above 65.

I also have Aaron Judge (94) and Ichiro (70) that are doing nothing. BA's around .230

How am I supposed to manage a team when the ratings mean nothing and the players perform like they belong in Triple A?

I have seen all of these players in my leagues over the past two seasons. Nola and Snell are always top performers. Ichiro is always a batting champion - sometimes two versions of him competing for the title. I think you just have experienced some bad luck.

[CrazyWR]

Originally Posted by Chomps

Markus, please respond to my previous post in this thread about the worthless player ratings. What is the deal? Why do I have to bench my pitchers that have 92 ratings!!!?

I really wish you guys would have focused your energy on improving OOTP Baseball rather than this Perfect Team nonsense.

What kind of stadium do you play in? How is your rotation set up? What is your hook setting? What is the pitch count limit for them?

There are a lot of variables that go into whether your pitchers are successful, its not just plug and play.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Chomps

Markus, please respond to my previous post in this thread about the worthless player ratings. What is the deal? Why do I have to bench my pitchers that have 92 ratings!!!?

I really wish you guys would have focused your energy on improving OOTP Baseball rather than this Perfect Team nonsense.

You can't just put together your diamonds and cruise to the world series. Try being a GM and use all they give you. There are many ways to get the most out of your team. Try them and have fun

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

You can't just put together your diamonds and cruise to the world series. Try being a GM and use all they give you. There are many ways to get the most out of your team. Try them and have fun

So, are the OVRs bogus on purpose? I don't really understand the point.

Also, with no way of seeing all the ratings on the AH for a rare card, what the hell are you supposed to do? Guess?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Chomps

Markus, please respond to my previous post in this thread about the worthless player ratings. What is the deal? Why do I have to bench my pitchers that have 92 ratings!!!?

I really wish you guys would have focused your energy on improving OOTP Baseball rather than this Perfect Team nonsense.

Why does Clayton Kershaw get shelled in the playoffs in real life more often than not? Luck, sample size and randomness all come into play.

Overall is only a rough approximation of a player's skill but good players have bad years and bad players have good years, both in OOTP and in real life. High ratings are not a guarantee a player will never underperform. They will. it happens in-game and in real-life too. If it didn't, the game would be both boring and unrealistic.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

So, are the OVRs bogus on purpose? I don't really understand the point.

Also, with no way of seeing all the ratings on the AH for a rare card, what the hell are you supposed to do? Guess?

There are a few historical guys that are intentionally underrated per overall, and a lot of the historical guys in general are rated a bit lower overall than they "should" be based on their pure ratings, for reasons both Markus and I have repeatedly explained, but generally speaking the overalls are a pretty close approximation of player skills.

They're never meant as anything more than a very rough guide though, either in regular OOTP or in PT.

Even when players are legitimately exactly evenly rated overall, they'll still vary in performance from year to year and team to team and some guys will out-perform other guys with the same overalls, because of randomness, and because every player gets to their overall in a different way.

Some are lefty mashers who can't hit righties. Play them against the wrong handed guys and their performance will suffer. Some are defense first, some are high contact and low power, high stuff and low control or vice-versa and the teams, roles, parks and leagues they're in all make a difference, as does sample size, pure luck and randomness.

Player performance is extremely complex, nuanced and realistic in OOTP and we couldn't distill everything down to a perfectly accurate and wholly predictive overall rating even if we wanted to, especially since different users will give different weight to different player abilities. The overalls are very rough guides to a player's general ability level. That's all they're intended to be.

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

There are a few historical guys that are intentionally underrated per overall, and a lot of the historical guys in general are rated a bit lower overall than they "should" be based on their pure ratings, for reasons both Markus and I have repeatedly explained, but generally speaking the overalls are a pretty close approximation of player skills.

They're never meant as anything more than a very rough guide though, either in regular OOTP or in PT.

Even when players are legitimately exactly evenly rated overall, they'll still vary in performance from year to year and team to team and some guys will out-perform other guys with the same overalls, because of randomness, and because every player gets to their overall in a different way.

Some are lefty mashers who can't hit righties. Play them against the wrong handed guys and their performance will suffer. Some are defense first, some are high contact and low power, high stuff and low control or vice-versa and the teams, roles, parks and leagues they're in all make a difference, as does sample size, pure luck and randomness.

Player performance is extremely complex, nuanced and realistic in OOTP and we couldn't distill everything down to a perfectly accurate and wholly predictive overall rating even if we wanted to, especially since different users will give different weight to different player abilities. The overalls are very rough guides to a player's general ability level. That's all they're intended to be.

I totally get sample sizes, luck and randomness. I have arguments with fans of my team all the time because for some reason, younger baseball fans seem to complain if their team doesn't go 162-0 and it kind of drives me insane. And your team can still have a great season if they don't win the WS.

I guess I just don't understand why historical players have lower OVR on purpose. I just can't comprehend that a 1997 Mariano Rivera is rated an 80 OVR while there are about 50 live card relievers rated higher than that. (I'm guessing on that) If 1997 Rivera is an 80, diamonds relief pitchers shouldn't exist.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

So, are the OVRs bogus on purpose? I don't really understand the point.

Also, with no way of seeing all the ratings on the AH for a rare card, what the hell are you supposed to do? Guess?

The AH is not perfect but you can see a lot of information. You have to analyze it with what you are trying to do. If you set up a home field for a couple of power hitters you have thinking I am going to bash. Then you get a bunch of fly ball pitchers and extreme fly ball pitchers on you staff. Then I come into your field with my lineup full of power hitters you may get a lot of strikeouts with that high hard one and gaudy numbers against weaker teams but remember when you set up your home field? But, this is the playoffs. You set it for your hitters. My pitchers are not fly ball pitchers so I have mitigated your line up to an extent while you have played right into mine.It works the opposite way too with speed and deep parks. There are tons of nuances involved as you set up your team. Look at every rating and compare it with what you are trying to do. That 85 OVR pitcher may be way better for your team than that 92.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

I totally get sample sizes, luck and randomness. I have arguments with fans of my team all the time because for some reason, younger baseball fans seem to complain if their team doesn't go 162-0 and it kind of drives me insane. And your team can still have a great season if they don't win the WS.

I guess I just don't understand why historical players have lower OVR on purpose. I just can't comprehend that a 1997 Mariano Rivera is rated an 80 OVR while there are about 50 live card relievers rated higher than that. (I'm guessing on that) If 1997 Rivera is an 80, diamonds relief pitchers shouldn't exist.

It's basically because if we rated historical players all on the exact same scale as the regular guys, the vast majority of them would be high diamonds or high golds, and you wouldn't see them as much. By lowering the overalls a bit, we can make them a little more available and even out the distribution a bit. And their overalls are not changed by as much as people are thinking, it's just by a touch.

As for 1997 Rivera, he was great, but he had a 240 ERA+. That's incredible, but not exactly historically dominant.

This year for instance, something like 7-8 regular RP's had better than that.

Jose Leclerc had a 311 ERA+. Jeremy Jeffress had a 317 ERA+. Jeffress is an 78 overall. Lecelerc is an 81 overall, 1997 Rivera is an 80 overall.

Rivera is rated better than those guys in-game I'd guess, as he should be, but the point is that the overall isn't exactly far out of line with the cards of many other players who put up similar or better seasons.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Chomps

Markus, please respond to my previous post in this thread about the worthless player ratings. What is the deal? Why do I have to bench my pitchers that have 92 ratings!!!?

An All Star can't have a bad stretch? Are you new to baseball?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

Can we come back to this for a moment? Dierker is better in almost every rating and worse in none. By what algorithm could his overall be 73 while Perry's is 82? This isn't about nerfing or buffing certain players or eras, nor do I have an opinion about which player was better in real life or by how much. I'm just bothered by the disconnect between Overall and their individual ratings. One of the two is lying. We can disagree with the AI about how to weigh different ratings to calculate "overall quality", but Dierker dominates Perry in all ratings. He is a Pareto improvement. How can he be worse?

Both Markus and I have mentioned that a few specific cards are intentionally underrated, to create diamond in the rough type cards it can be fun for people to find and use. Dierker's one of those cards. That's all.

[Threnodas]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Both Markus and I have mentioned that a few specific cards are intentionally underrated, to create diamond in the rough type cards it can be fun for people to find and use.

Thanks for the explanation (and for your patience addressing many players' sundry grievances). I had assumed that the underrating of historical players was in their actual skill ratings relative to what a 2018 player with the same statistics would be rated, to prevent all Hall of Famers being Diamond+ and all 2018 players being Gold-. That should be 100% cool with everybody, to mix in the historical players earlier in the game.

I was not expecting their displayed Overall to be intentionally underrated relative to their actual ratings in the game. I guess I thought the diamond-in-the-rough moments would come from finding players who overachieve because they complement the rest of your team and/or ballpark well. I am surprised that some player cards are straight-up better or worse than the value shown. Well, I'll stop relying on Overall and learn to live with it.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

I was not expecting their displayed Overall to be intentionally underrated relative to their actual ratings in the game. I guess I thought the diamond-in-the-rough moments would come from finding players who overachieve because they complement the rest of your team and/or ballpark well. I am surprised that some player cards are straight-up better or worse than the value shown. Well, I'll stop relying on Overall and learn to live with it.

To be fair, you're right in that the majority of the diamond-in-the-rough moments will come from finding players who overachieve because they complement the rest of your team and/or ballpark well.

The guys with the intentionally low overalls are pretty few and far between, it's not a large amount at all, but they are out there.

[Lukas Berger]

Generally though, yeah, it's absolutely best not to rely on overall, because even if all the overalls were absolutely using the same scale in every way, like in regular OOTP, it would still be a pretty flawed way to evaluate players, because of how much the individual ratings matter and because the overall can sometimes create an appearance of there being a much bigger gap between players than there actually is.

In game terms, there's probably only a minor difference, if any discernible difference at all, between most guys rated say 82 overall and most guys rated 87 overall. Or whatever. Pick your own number gap

But because of how our brains work as humans, we process a gap like that as being much more important than it is in the reality of the scale used in-game.

Thing is, I don't know how we could ever change that, other than by scrapping the overalls completely, which I don't think would go over well at all with most players

And overall does still have its uses, even with its limitations. But it's best to be aware that it is only a shorthand that's limited at best, and to plan your team and lineups while taking that into account.

[One Post Wonder]

I've got silver players starting for me who I wouldn't replace with any diamond. Like people keep saying, it's really about deciding what your team's game is going to be about and getting the right player at each spot to meet that vision.

In single player, no-one just signs the most expensive players they can get and expect to win that way. It's the same way here, and I hope it doesn't change.

There are a lot of great undervalued historical players. My 73 rated Jose Oquendo is magnificent IMO. And I think 80's catchers are overrated. I saw them play and with the exception of Tony Pena in his prime, they didn't have what I'd consider to be 100+ arms.

Plus have you seen a '97 Piazza? He's rated something like 98 as a catcher, with matching numbers at arm and ability. I liked Piazza - he pulled the Dodgers out of their miserable period in the early 90's. But defensively I doubt he was a 48, much less a 98.

I don't agree with the historical player ratings as a rule, but I understand that the given ratings for those players are what is best for the game. And they do tend to be 'different' and be useful in some way even if they're not rated like they should be.