Player Ratings Constructive Criticism (Running List)

[MaeNekoChan]

Hey everyone! I'm super excited for the new version of the game! In case anyone didn't know, I'm a huge SF Giants fangirl and follow the team very closely and so have become relatively familiar with their 40 man and prospects. Obviously I had to open a game up and see how OOTP represented them :3

I've been playing since 20, so I can't comment on the history of player modeling, but I do find the way that some of the players are represented in game doesn't really reflect reality or capture the uniqueness of some of these players. Pitching ratings especially come to mind (hitter ratings tend to be much better). So I decided to make a list of players that I think aren't really represented well, compare them with similar in-game players, and offer some constructive feedback on how to model them better! So, if you don't want to read my long, boring analysis, just skip to the bottom where I give you revised ratings to plug in!

(All ratings are from 100% scouting accuracy [20-80 scale] & editor data. I've used data/reports from Baseball Savant and Pitcher List to evaluate ratings; FanGraphs & MLB.com for prospects)


Running List of Updated Ratings (See explanations below in thread)
Disclaimer: This is based off of trying to model pitchers according to statcast data, projection systems, & real performance measurements. It has not been play tested yet --- but feel free to do so and give me feedback!

C Patrick Bailey

BABIP 67/77/99
Avoid Ks' 59/60/120
Gap 105/86/121
Power 61/78/117
Eye/Patience 77/79/123
(Bump spd/stl/br down to 60 across the board to give 40 ratings)
(Bump his catcher ability up to 115 and his catcher arm down to 121 --- this gives him 55/55 at 200 exp)

SP Trevor Bauer
v:93-95
FB: 75/75 (250/250)
CT: 60/60 (145/145)
CB: 70/70 (181/191)
SL: 65/65 (160/160)
CH: 50/50 (100/110)

SP Kevin Gausman
v: 94-96
FB: 60/60 (140/140)
SPL: 70/70 (215/215)
SL: 50/50 (80/80)
CH: 50/50 (100/100; added)

SP MacKenzie Gore
v:93-95
FB: 60/60 (140/150)
CB: 50/60 (100/130)
SL: 55/65 (110/150)
CH: 55/65 (110/150)
control: 50/70 (110/105/170)

SP Asa Lacy
v:95-97
FB: 65/65 (141/168)
SN: 55/60 (120/140, added)
CB: 50/55 (90/110)
SL: 65/70 (120/180)
CH: 45/60 (90/135)
con: 30/50 (59/56/110)
(bump up leadership and work ethic to 140)

RP Jake McGee
v:94-96
FB:70/70 (220/180)
SL: 50/50 (90/90)

SP Matt Manning
v:95-97
FB: 65/70 (140/180)
CB: 65/65 (150/160)
CH: 55/60 (110/130)
SL: 40/55 (40/110; added)

SP Max Meyer
v:96-98
FB: 65//70 (120/180)
SL: 65/70 (140/175)
CH: 45/55 (80/120)
con: 35/55 (66/70/126)
(bump work ethic/intelligence up to 100 and 120 respectively)

SP Casey Mize
v:93-95
FB: 55/60 (110/150)
CT: 55/55 (110/130)
SL: 60/60 (130/140)
SPL: 60/70 (170/220)
SN: 50/55 (80/130, added)
CB: 40/65 (50/150, added)
con: 55/60 (121/125/141)

RP Matt Wisler
v:91-93
FB: 55/55 (120/120)
SL: 70/70 (200/200)


--------------------------------------------------------------------

SP Kevin Gausman
v:93-95
FB: 65/65 (190/190)
SL: 65/65 (152/152)
SPL: 65/65 (190/190)

Accuracy: C

What jumps out immediately here is that OOTP models Gausman as a guy with 3 plus, bordering on double plus, pitches. This doesn't really reflect his real life ability at all. While it presents his splitter as one of three very good options, the reality is that Gausman really only has two good pitches (his FB and SPL) and in fact he had the best splitter in baseball in 2020 (-9 run value per Savant, .121 xwOBA across 270 pitches; 6th and 7th in vertical and horizontal movement respectively, with him leading by far the vertical movement category in terms of #of pitches thrown).

Part of this could be due to the shorter season, but also there is reason to think that working with the Giants coaching staff legitimately led to real talent improvement. Even so, going back to 2019, he had the 9th most effective splitter in the MLB (-4 run value, .242 xwOBA; he was 11th and 5th in movement, with no other starters sniffing his usage totals on the vertical movement leaderboard).


Kevin Gausman's splitter is probably the best amongst all MLB starters, or at the very least the most important splitter relative to all other splitter starters' repertoires. The game does model this relatively well, giving him the best splitter amongst starters, even over Ohtani! Nonetheless, there are some curious comparison cases, such as when comparing Gausman's splitter to guys like Tony Gonsolin who has a very similar rating with a 65/65 (170/170) rating despite having well below average vertical movement on this pitch and never having posted a negative run value with it in his career (it is much more a horizontal changeup type of pitch, hence why Pitcher List actually counts it as a changeup instead of a splitter like Savant and OOTP do). Likewise, James Karinchak is curiously given a 70/70 (181/181) splitter, which rates better than Gausman's, despite him not throwing a splitter? Karinchak throws a fastball that notably gets an elite amount of rise and his curveball is his only secondary offering. I can't really find anywhere in the data to suggest that the splitter rating is somehow modeling a fastball variation that he throws, but correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, this comparison is significant given that Gausman is a starter who has reliever risk/upside, so if he does move to the pen irl or in-game at some point, it would be disappointing to have his signature pitch rated below guys with inferior versions of it or who irl do not have it at all. I think Gausman will be better modeled in game by bumping up the pitch's ability a bit and lowering some of his other ratings (see below).

In addition, his fastball saw a good deal of improvement last season with the velocity increasing to 94.9 on average (OOTP tends to overrate some pitcher's average velocity, which makes is strange that he's only given 93-95 by their ratings). That being said, the pitch rating itself seems to be passable, though I think given his 82nd percentile velocity and 52nd percentile FB spin, the 190 might be overselling its true ability. This is especially problematic when comparing the pitch to Trevor Bauer's FB rating which is 65/65 (181/181 - 9 points lower????) at 94-96. On no planet should the reigning cy young winner who had the highest fastball run value in baseball be a lesser rated fastballer than Gausman in this regard (probably will visit Bauer's ratings later). That being said, given Gausman's run value was 69th in the league last year with that pitch, his relative rating to the league as a whole seems pretty good!

Gausman's slider rating is also notable at 65/65 (152/152) which is way too high for a pitch that has well below average movement ("65% less break than average") and has had a positive (i.e. bad) run value for years now. It's "average at best" according to Pitcher List and I have edited it accordingly into a 50 grade pitch to reflect this.

Final note, Savant lists Gausman as having a changeup that he consistently used more than the slider. It has below average movement, but seems to get him neutral to even negative run values. Seems like another average offering to model.


REVISION:

SP Kevin Gausman
v: 94-96
FB: 60/60 (140/140)
SPL: 70/70 (215/215)
SL: 50/50 (80/80)
CH: 50/50 (100/100; added)

As you can see, I bumped Gausman's velocity up slightly, lowered his fastball by 50 points to reflect a still plus pitch, but one that gets it done with velocity more so than with spin and movement---a dip in velocity could quickly make it a less effective offering, which would reflect its poorer performance earlier in his career. The splitter has been dramatically raised to make it a plus plus pitch and give Gausman that high strikeout ability despite effectively being a 2-effective pitch starter that he is IRL. The slider has been nerfed considerably and the changeup has been give a fairly inoffensive rating. All that being said, it looks like this has made him a better pitcher in-game, at least in the short-term (which I also think reflects real life). His projections put him at 9.98 k/9 which is right about where projection systems have him (ATC puts him at 9.97 k/9 and I swear I did not intend for that projection to be that close, but I guess confirms my instincts were correct here?)

One aside that I didn't talk much on: Gausman's B/9 seems to be very overrated at the moment. The projections have him at 2.07 whereas he's more around 2.5ish by projection systems on fangraphs. His control ratings were 60/60 140/142/142, so I bumped everything down by 20 and now his projection says 2.56 B/9, which seems to be spot on!

As it stands, his projected FIP is 3.57, which seems to track really well now with the 3.50-3.69 range given by projection systems! I didn't touch the homerun rate at all, but I think OOTP nailed it at 83/86/89 (1.13 HR/9 projection) given that the systems place him between 1.07-1.16 so awesome job guys!


Anyways, let me know what y'all think! There are some other Giants pitchers I'd like to evaluate (Jake McGee and Matt Wisler immediately come to mind) and some other players around the league that I think are worth revising (Bauer being top of my list). If you have any evaluation requests, tell me below! I'd totally love to see y'all post your own revisions below too if you have any good ideas! Also OOTP, hire me I'll revamp player ratings for you at minimum wage

---Mae

[Lukas Berger]

So, first off, I have to mention that this is an excellent analysis and one of the best examples of well-thought out constructive criticism I've ever seen on the forums here!

One big thing to be aware of here is that we only have so much control over the specific ratings of individual pitches in-game.

The editor we use doesn't give us the option to specifically rate individual pitches, only to set a target rating for stuff and then to set what each individual pitch is and to set their ability in proportion to each other.

So what's basically going on here is that since Gausman is being rated on three pitches rather than four, the game increases the ability of each of those pitches to reach his targeted stuff rating. Adding in a fourth pitch (the change) drops the ratings of each of the other three.

Now, the original thought behind this was that I was/am not sure that the change is truly a different pitch from the splitter given the overlap between the two pitches in many cases and the difficulty in telling them apart.

Now that being said, all the good points you've made here very clearly make the case that given the OOTP engine, Gausman needs to have 4 pitches in-game.

So whether the change and split are truly different pitches or not becomes pretty much irrelevant. For our purposes, it totally makes sense to classify them as different. So I've done so now and this will be reflected in the next patch.

Now as to the control rating etc, don't take the in-game editor overly seriously in its projections. They're static and do not change based on the overall ratings of the league as a whole, or of the league modifiers.

So they do not really completely reflect what you can expect a specific player in the roster set to do. They're a really rough ballpark estimate at best.

And it's also worth nothing that they are based on ZIPS (which is the base for all our ratings of MLB players), which is by far the most bullish of all the projections systems on Fangraphs on Gausman's control, so is what's reflected in the ratings.

[MaeNekoChan]

SP Trevor Bauer
v: 94-96
FB: 65/65 (181/181)
CT: 60/60 (145/145)
CB: 70/70 (181/181)
SL: 65/65 (141/141)
CH: 65/65 (141/141)

Accuracy: C

So what makes Trevor Bauer's fastball special? It's not velocity, given that its average has sat somewhere between the 93-95 area for his prime. Okay, obviously we all know it's the spin and movement, like that's a whole thing that people have been talking about, right? So as I noted previously, on no planet should Bauer be graded at a 65 FB given that it was the 3rd most valuable pitch in all of baseball in 2020, and its 2018 version was even better! He also led all pitchers in vertical movement for his fastball, edging out our aforementioned friend James Karinchak. Given that the latter has a 232/232 rating on his fastball in the editor, we're going to have to hike up Bauer's pitch rating in order to represent his truly elite spin rate.

Bauer's cutter (145/145) is a very good offering and had the 12th best horizontal movement in baseball amongst cutters last year, breaking 79% above average and comparing similarly to guys like Yu Darvish (144/144) and Caleb Ferguson (n/a in OOTP model) in terms of total movement style. Given Darvish's rating, the rating seems to be fine, though Darvish was 4th in run value with this pitch to Bauer's 24, so Darvish may be in need of a bump. The plus value though I think is accurate for Bauer's second most-used pitch!

Bauer's slider has had really strong showings in 2018 and 2020. Some of it appears to be due to BABIP (as Pitcher List notes, "While the slider generated fewer strikeouts than the previous year, it produced an incredible 61.5% infield fly-ball rate, which are just as valuable as a strikeout."), but the pitch does have the 5th most horizontal movement as of last year. Overall, this seems to be a good model, though I suspect we should bump it up a little regardless. Savant put its movement and value above Darvish's, despite Darvish having a 181/181 rating (though it's worth noting that Pitcher List puts Darvish's slider as one of the top 2 pitches in baseball next to Lamet's slider and one spot ahead of Bauer's fastball). Definitely want to respect Darvish's rating, but I think we could split the difference here and get a satisfying result ^_^

Bauer's curveball is a 12-6 beauty that has the best vertical movement in MLB. The 181/181 rating seems fair, especially given its less impressive (but still good!) run value of -2, good for 30th overall. As Pitcher List notes, while it gets a lot of swinging strikes, it also gives up a lot of line drives (40.9%!) which he seems to have gotten away with. Nonetheless, the pitch is a strong offering and I think the plus plus value seems to model relatively well an elite breaking ball that gets smashed a little too often.

Finally, Bauer's changeup is really overrated in OOTP. It is by no means a 65 grade pitch IRL and was basically abandoned last season. It was poor in 2019 and, while it gave a -2 run value in 2018, his movement on it was less than inspiring. Pitcher List credits the 2018 performance due to velocity drop and its effectiveness seems to be more related to how it plays off other pitches, more so than its 'ability.' I think we can fairly rate this one as an average offering, possibly with potential to bump up?


Revision:

SP Trevor Bauer
v:93-95
FB: 75/75 (250/250)
CT: 60/60 (145/145)
CB: 70/70 (181/191)
SL: 65/65 (160/160)
CH: 50/50 (100/110)

So, you'll notice I conservatively dropped Bauer's velocity down to 93-95 to reflect his 93.5 average in 2020. Depending on whether it drops or rises this year, we can either move it to 92-94 or back to 94-96 --- either seems totally reasonable and valid! I beefed up his fastball obviously to 250 in the editor which might seem high, but honestly I've seen higher ratings than that before and I think here it is justified in order to give him a 75 grade FB in game at his current velocity. It also probably means it will age reasonably well, which makes him more likely to last in game (I've noticed Bauer often regresses pretty dramatically in OOTP sims in 20 and 21, not sure how he would in 22). His cutter remained where it was, but I did bump the slider up a bit to reflect its increased value (but not too much). The curve remained where it is, but I did increase its potential by 10 to reflect the positive impact of improving his location with it over a longer season in 2021 (Pitcher List noted he experimented with it in 2020 higher in the zone, so it's possible this pitch could improve even more in the future). Finally I nerfed the changeup into an average offering with some room to grow to simulate possible velocity tinkering Bauer might (and has previously) engage in to make it more effective.

Disclaimer/Room for Improvement: So, I put that in and found that his k/9 projects at 11.91 (I see your post Lukas, thank you for clearing up that this is not necessarily exact!) --- this would be a very bullish projection given that projections put him between 10.32-10.73. However, this projection is also a median between his best seasons 2018 and 2020, at 11.34 and 12.33 respectively. So, while this projection does seem high, it also reflects his 2020 ability more so than do projection systems. Make of that what you will. I think a lot of people would like his ability to look like his dominant CY Young self, but if you want his ratings to be closer to the projections, I would recommend simply bumping the fastball down to 220/220 or 220/250 to lower his strikeouts down to 11.03 k/9, a much safer estimate, though it doesn't feel quite right given his 2020 performance imo. I found tinkering with the secondary stuff really doesn't make much of a difference so basically choose how much pine tar you think Bauer's going to be using in 2021 (220 = a little/sloppy mix, 250 = a lot/holy grail mix ). Otherwise, you can just decide whether you love him or hate him to pick between the two options (I hate his guts but omg he's such a fun pitcher to watch )


Anyway, let me know what y'all think and if you have any other suggestions or thoughts about these or other players' ratings!

---Mae

[MaeNekoChan]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

So, first off, I have to mention that this is an excellent analysis and one of the best examples of well-thought out constructive criticism I've ever seen on the forums here!

One big thing to be aware of here is that we only have so much control over the specific ratings of individual pitches in-game.

The editor we use doesn't give us the option to specifically rate individual pitches, only to set a target rating for stuff and then to set what each individual pitch is and to set their ability in proportion to each other.

So what's basically going on here is that since Gausman is being rated on three pitches rather than four, the game increases the ability of each of those pitches to reach his targeted stuff rating. Adding in a fourth pitch (the change) drops the ratings of each of the other three.

Now, the original thought behind this was that I was/am not sure that the change is truly a different pitch from the splitter given the overlap between the two pitches in many cases and the difficulty in telling them apart.

Now that being said, all the good points you've made here very clearly make the case that given the OOTP engine, Gausman needs to have 4 pitches in-game.

So whether the change and split are truly different pitches or not becomes pretty much irrelevant. For our purposes, it totally makes sense to classify them as different. So I've done so now and this will be reflected in the next patch.

Now as to the control rating etc, don't take the in-game editor overly seriously in its projections. They're static and do not change based on the overall ratings of the league as a whole, or of the league modifiers.

So they do not really completely reflect what you can expect a specific player in the roster set to do. They're a really rough ballpark estimate at best.

And it's also worth nothing that they are based on ZIPS (which is the base for all our ratings of MLB players), which is by far the most bullish of all the projections systems on Fangraphs on Gausman's control, so is what's reflected in the ratings.

Ahhh thank you Lukas! :3

That makes so much sense! I kinda suspected this was the case with how you determine ratings, which means I guess it's good to go through and edit them to be more accurate!

You bring up a great point about Gausman's change --- it's kinda hard to tell whether his 'change' is just a poorly thrown/variation of his splitter (especially given the velocity similarities)? But like you said, it's significant enough that it looks like it makes more sense to model it as two separate pitches which is what I went with too to be safe. I'm excited to see how it looks in the patch! ^_^

I'm probably going to keep adding in info to this thread, with or without long explanations, so feel free to use any of my adjustments in your patches for pitch ratings---I did this a lot last year with the editor and am happy to share my updates to anyone here who wants them! (tho seriously I will work for you haha)

[Lordofbrewtown]

Wow. Great Analysis, and also a great example of why we love this game - the insight & response provided by the OOTP developers and staff.

[MaeNekoChan]

Quick Revisions (Weird Relievers Edition):


RP Jake McGee
v:94-96
FB:70/70 (220/180)
SL: 50/50 (90/90)

McGee's the first of two weird relievers on the Giants, coming off a 2.66/167 FIP/ERA season in LA last year. He basically only throws his fastball, which doesn't appear to be a spectacular pitch aside from horizontal movement. It looks more plus-ish, but nonetheless, I bumped it up to 220 in order to abstractly account for his pitch mix/pitchability or whatever black magic he uses to make this good pitch play up so well irl. His slider has been around average over the past few years when he has used it, so I made it a 50 value pitch. He doesn't throw a curve so I took that off his pitch list. He is liable to give up hard contact --- a lot of it actually, so much so he's in the 1st percentile --- but somehow he manages it so I bumped his movement only down to 120/90/110 which actually ended up giving him about 1.25 HR/9, right around where projections systems have him. The FIP now is 3.81 (right in the middle of systems). I don't actually know how a 1-pitch guy like McGee could really be modeled in game as it stands (I don't know if there's a threshhold where pitch mix becomes one-dimensional or if the stuff rating reflects this inversely at some point of disparity --- seen some evidence before but never systematically understood it). Nonetheless, this should give this weirdo pitcher a baseline for modeling that can make him a fun guy to use --- let me know if you use this and find the real performance is totally off!



RP Matt Wisler
v:91-93
FB: 55/55 (120/120)
SL: 70/70 (200/200)


The other weird reliever in MLB who also happens to play for the Giants! Wisler is a former starter who has transitioned to throwing his slider over 80% of the time as reliever, which he rode to an incredible 1.07 ERA and respectable 3.35 FIP in 2020 with the Twins. So obviously I had to fix him since the game gives him pitches which, as of this current moment, he appears to have abandoned (CB and CH as per in-game currently). His fastball seems to be an average-above average offering so I nerfed it down to 120/120, which in combination with lowering his velo a tick to 91-93 from 92-94 (reflecting his average 2020 velo), gives him a 55 grade FB, which seems reasonable and useful for modeling purposes. His slider, naturally, has been great for the past couple of years so I bumped it up from 155 to 200/200 to give him a plus plus offering. Now, does this pitch grade out plus plus irl? I don't get the sense that it does, however the way he uses it makes it play up like one, which is what we are trying to model. I also messed around with his movement and control to give him ratings closer to past performance/projection (115/128/121 movement reflecting his really low barrel% / hard contact % ; and 115/130/120 to reflect his higher walk rate projected by every system I could find. I didn't dive too much into splits here honestly, so basically just scaled them up and down together with a couple adjustments to lefties --- not super scientific tbh but let me know how it plays!). The FIP projection comes out at 3.57 which is slightly lower than irl systems, but closer to his 2020 FIP. I suspect he'll underperform in real gameplay anyway, but we'll have to see!



(side note: I don't know how weird relievers like this could be modeled with the progression system in game, but maybe there could be a news story event that triggers for some veteran starters when they fall below 45ish value that basically cuts out their worst pitches and just leaves them with a hyped up version of whatever their best pitch is plus a second okay offering? Idk, otherwise you can roll dice and RP or something if you're not in challenge mode and want a fun career makeover!)

Oh and both of these guys are discussed in Jolly Olive's video on this subject, so if you want some film to get in the mood to use these guys, here ya go

[MaeNekoChan]

Originally Posted by Lordofbrewtown

Wow. Great Analysis, and also a great example of why we love this game - the insight & response provided by the OOTP developers and staff.

Thank you! And absolutely haha we love that ^_^

[Rain King]

Yes. Very much enjoying this thread!

[MaeNekoChan]

Prospect Revision:

SP MacKenzie Gore
v:93-95 (down from 94-96)
FB: 60/60 (140/150; down from 65/65, 178/168)
CB: 50/60 (100/130; down from 70/70, 178/168)
SL: 55/65 (110/150; down from 60/65, 142/168)
CH: 55/65 (110/150; down from 65/70, 142/168)
control: 50/70 (110/105/170; up from 45/55, 99/95/125)

One of the things that always kinda bugs me about OOTP's pitcher ratings, especially for prospects, is they often seem to overrate pitches by a grade. This is the case here with Gore, who is a consensus top 5 prospect in baseball. However, the ratings seemed to have been quite misleading about the kind of pitcher he is. Whereas OOTP gave him a plus plus curveball right now, the reality is this is his worst projected pitch and is projected by most as above average (i.e. 50-55ish). One of the 'knocks' on Gore is he does not really have a true plus-plus pitch and it's unclear if he ever will develop one. What he has going for him is elite command/control and several above average-plus offerings which "rely on deception and location to miss bats" per fangraphs. So, given that last part, I slightly overvalued his pitches' future value projections to incorporate this aspect of his delivery/command that isn't otherwise modelable in game (hence why all of the offspeed pitches are half a grade above what Fangraphs and other sites tend to have). Nonetheless, I was very bullish on his control itself and projected it as a 70 FV trait like Fangraphs does (other places like MLB.com only put it at 60, but that's no fun for the top pitching prospect who already has no plus plus pitches ). Originally, as you can see, it wasn't even a plus projection trait in OOTP which seems off --- I think it should at least be 60 (140-150ish) whenever OOTP patches it next imho

Anyways, the new ratings should better reflect Gore's true prospect profile. The game now gives him a 70 FV rating with these ratings, which is in line with Fangraph's FV at basically these same (lower) pitch projections. Hopefully this new model for Gore will help you appreciate exactly what type of pitcher he really is and lead to more accurate simulations of his progression going forward!

[Dave Stieb II]

This is a great thread. Never mind working for OOTP for minimum wage. You need to be aiming for a position in an MLB analytics department.

[MaeNekoChan]

Prospect Revision:

SP Matt Manning
v:95-97 (up from 94-96)
FB: 65/70 (140/180 down from 65/70, 164/187)
CB: 65/65 (150/160 down from 70/75, 164/187)
CH: 55/60 (110/130 down from 70/70, 164/149)
SL: 40/55 (40/110; added)

This one's tricky because I get the sense that part of the reason OOTP overvalues pitches in their players is because their 20-80 scale overrates modern pitches (i.e. a 70 pitch acts much more like a plus irl, but I'd need confirmation of this :3). Manning is a top 15-30 prospect in baseball depending on who you ask, with a 60 FB, 60 CB, and 55 CH projected with 55 command, good for 60 FV overall. Following this literally, however, these ratings come out to like a 50 FV and 50 stuff which doesn't really seem right. However, Manning's fastball and curveball play off of each other exceptionally well according to reports (I assume this means he's able to tunnel them well), so I bumped their grades up to reflect this. I also gave his changeup a +10 boost to bump it up to 60 fv in order to get his overall fv up to 60, as well as give an abstraction of how this pitch might further develop/play off his others as he continues to grow, independently of him adding movement to it. I gave his velocity a bump also to help his ratings and because his spring training numbers seem to justify a tick up at least. Likewise, he has begun developing a second breaking ball which I've classified here as a slider and gave it a fairly low floor with the potential to become an above average pitch at 55.

Would love feedback on this one. Do you guys think I modeled it right? Would love clarification on how OOTP's 20-80 scale for pitches compare to pitch values given by scouting reports irl --- will happily edit to reflect that relationship either way

[MaeNekoChan]

Originally Posted by Dave Stieb II

This is a great thread. Never mind working for OOTP for minimum wage. You need to be aiming for a position in an MLB analytics department.

Aw thank you! Yessss, Farhan Zaidi hire me please

[MaeNekoChan]

Prospect Revision:

SP Max Meyer
v: 96-98 (down from 97-99)
FB: 65//70 (120/180 up from 65/70, 117/174)
SL: 65/70 (140/175 up from 55/70, 88/174)
CH: 45/55 (80/120 from 35/60, 58/138)
con: 35/55 (66/70/126 from 40/50, 76/80/116)
(bump work ethic/intelligence up to 100 and 120 respectively)

Some small but impactful changes for the top pitcher from the 2020 draft. The vanilla rating actually gives me confidence that OOTP does basically model pitch ratings after IRL reports, given that Meyer's 70/70//60 fv on his 3 pitches is almost identical to the 70/70/55 fv you'll see across various outlets. So this is a very strong model right off the bat. However, what OOTP does not quite model right is the floor that Meyer has, which in my experience means he almost never develops into a legit starting pitcher in game, let alone flash top of the rotation potential. Per MLB.com, "Meyer had the best pitch in the 2020 Draft, a wipeout slider that reaches the low 90s and with which he can add and subtract depth." So given that, his floor of 88/174 on the pitch is way too low and is probably part of the reason he develops poorly (my last game in 21 he's like 24 or 25 and it still hasn't developed into even a plus pitch yet which shouldn't happen when it's today already at least that good). So we'll bump that up. The fastball seems to be perfectly fine, though I slightly bumped it up so the potential aligns with the 180ish you'll see from other plus plus fastballers in game. The changeup is underdeveloped at start (fangraphs puts it at 45 which in game will also give it better development potential), but the potential is slightly high so I moved the floor higher while reducing the ceiling at start. Velocity slightly overestimated (though reasonable), but we could change it back in short order here if he throws well this summer. Finally I messed with the control so it more reflects the 30 floor given on Fangraphs, but I also gave it a more optimistic ceiling of 55 per MLB.com than OOTP or Fangraphs do to make up for the development variability. So now the idea with Meyer's revision is that he is an elite 2 pitch guy with a high floor changeup that should make him startable at least at some point, give him future frontline potential, but also, due to his lower control ceiling the new model will reflect a guy with reliever risk who nonetheless should be a high leverage option even if the control never totally pans out --- a reasonable consolation prize!

As an aside, I highly recommend adjusting his work ethic/intelligence which is extremely low, especially given that he's a smaller guy who has nonetheless developed an extremely advanced arsenal and quietly and quickly added an effective changeup despite little game usage --- I think we owe the top pitcher selected in 2020 at least an average developmental boost in these categories (100-120 seems safe ).

[MaeNekoChan]

Prospect Revision:

SP Asa Lacy
v:94-96
FB: 65/65 (141/168, no change)
SN: 55/60 (120/140, added)
CB: 50/55 (90/110 down from 55/60, 105/135)
SL: 65/70 (120/168 down from 65/70 141/168)
CH: 45/60 (90/135 down from 50/60 105/135)
con: 35/50 (59/56/110 from 40/50 84/82/103)
(bump up leadership and work ethic to 140)


The 2nd pitcher taken in the 2020 draft has received Blake Snell comps and I've tried to reflect that variation with these ratings. OOTP quietly edited Lacy's pitch mix to reflect 2 breaking pitches instead of one (I believe he only had a CB in 21) --- so we love this! Strangely though, his slider floor was already at 141 (we love the confidence to be clear!) which is significantly higher than Max Meyer's slider, which is unanimously considered to be the stronger pitch at the moment as far as I know. So I bumped its floor down slightly to reflect the 60 current rating Fangraphs gives it and to respect Meyer's pitch as currently rated. I lowered his changeup floor to 45 per Fangraphs, but to make up for this I gave him the higher ceiling of a plus pitch that MLB.com offer, rather than the average projection for the pitch that Fangraphs gives. Like Meyer, Lacy carries some reliever risk (probably more so due to control than Meyer), so I bumped his current control down to 30 reflect this, but kept his 50 ceiling (and gave it a small boost within the 50 range). One last thing, Fangraphs notes that Lacy throws a '2-seamer to set up his changeup' so I added a plus sinker to his mix.

With these adjustments, Lacy sits at a lower 60 FV in game, which basically reflects the 55 FV that Fangraphs gives him. He's obviously young enough to see this projection improve significantly in higher variation games. At worst, he should be a really intriguing reliever if he fails to develop good control; at best, he's a Snell type frontliner who can be the ace on an average team or be a very strong 2 or 3 on a playoff team if all his pitches develop right. He has a higher ceiling than Meyer, which I think reflects IRL, but his lower control and having only one plus plus pitch (on the lower end) to Meyer's solidly 2 plus plus offerings I think gives a fair sense of the relative floors and ceilings between the two.

Final note: Lacy for some reason was given a randomized work ethic well below average and average leadership which probably all leads to his generally mediocre development in most saves I've seen him in. I did some digging on this and according to his college coach and predraft research:

Work ethic and leadership – “Every day he wakes up and his feet hit the floor, his whole focus is, what can I do today to be the best pitcher or best player in the country? And that guy works incredibly hard, he’s as prepared as any pitcher in America,” said Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress. Teammates respect the hell out of his work ethic. Not only does he work hard, but he shares with his team his thought process behind it and gets the most out of his teammates. He respects and loves the process, and when your best player does that, the rest of the team jumps on board. Whichever organization drafts him, they will love that aspect of him.

So given this, bump that leadership and work ethic way up. You'll suddenly start to see a player who develops far more often in games and has legit ace potential when everything goes right and at least good reliever material if things go wrong.

[MaeNekoChan]

Prospect Revision:

SP Casey Mize
v:93-95 (down from 96-98)
FB: 55/60 (110/150 down from 65/70, 120/163)
CT: 55/55 (110/130 from 55/60, 90/130)
SL: 60/60 (130/140 up from 55/60, 90/130)
SPL: 60/70 (170/220 up from 60/65,120/163)
SN: 50/55 (80/130, added)
CB: 40/65 (50/150, added)
con: 55/60 (121/125/141 down from 60/65, 141/145/149)

Mize's stock is still high with a load of quality pitches and his two newest ones - a sinker and a curve or "slurve" - have been added. They were his hardest hit pitches in 2020, though his sinker did show an impressive amount of movement despite the poor command, hence I gave it the same ceiling as his cutter. The curveball had a poor showing too, but Fangraphs thinks it has the potential to "emerge as the finishing weapon" above the good but won't be great slider he's had. The curve starts with a very low floor to reflect its newness and poor 2020 showing, but has the slight potential to leapfrog the slider and become an excellent plus pitch. Finally, the elephant in the room: the splitter. It was his worst pitch in 2020, despite it receiving unanimous 70 grades and even 80 grades from scouts previously. I went with the more bullish crowd that still expects it to be a great pitch and gave it a ceiling above Kevin Gausman's splitter and raised its floor to 170, which puts it at high 60 current value, but still lower than Fangraphs' ranking of it as a 70/70 right now. This gives it some room to develop and should encourage the player to consider a AAA stint to maximize his development rather than rushing him up to the Majors and potentially compromising his long-term development.

Depending on his showing this year, that 93-95 velo can very easily drop to 92-94 or lower --- we will edit as we go here.

Note: This new Casey Mize shows him as an 80 grade potential --- which is certainly possible if he can stay healthy. His work ethic and intelligence are just average though so don't expect him to max out these ratings every playthrough. He only has one likely plus plus pitch and only one other pitch starts out as plush (slider) so his high stuff potential is still a ways away --- he will likely be somewhere between a Cueto and a Darvish type pitcher who relies on a large variety of above average pitches to excel, which gives him both a sky high ceiling at the highest variations, but most likely a more modest #2 type development with fringy high leverage relief potential. Also, the injury rating already seems to be set well for his injury concerns (good job OOTP! ) so users beware: Mize could be a future Cy Young, he could underdevelop and be mid rotation piece or he could flame out due to injuries --- all very realistic possibilities for him IRL

[MaeNekoChan]

Prospect Revision:

C Patrick Bailey

BABIP 67/77/99 (from 67/72/99)
Avoid Ks' 59/60/120 (from 39/40/72)
Gap 105/86/121 (from 75/76/131)
Power 61/78/117 (from 81/83/117)
Eye/Patience 77/79/123 (same)
(Bump spd/stl/br down to 60 across the board to give 40 ratings)
(Bump his catcher ability up to 115 and his catcher arm down to 121 --- this gives him 55/55 at 200 exp).

I'm a Giants homer of course, but Bailey was also the top catcher from the 2020 draft. Quick note about batting splits: he walked more than he struck out in college - i didn't give him quite that potential a la Tommy La Stella, but I did move up his avoid k's quite a bit to reflect this hitting profile. He has a gap approach when batting righty vs his pull/lift approach from the left (he also has a better lefty swing in general), thus the strange gap/power splits and the higher BABIP against RHPs. The 117 power projection is excellent from OOTP, as it reflects the 22-25 power that more bullish outlets put on him, but I lowered the floor slightly to make that ceiling harder to reach.

There are reports that are really high on his defense and we have good reports out of Giants camp that he could be much better ability-wise than this, but we'll go with the higher 'field' rating between Fangraphs and MLB.com who both lowball him here, along with the more modest arm rating of 55 that both have him at to reflect his average pop times

The 65 FV that is generated here is just an OOTP oddity, but he definitely has that kind of potential in him if the hit tool plays up. Fangraphs projects him really high at a 60 which is higher than what I've given him here. They also say a 70 hit tool is in play, which I haven't modeled in the potential, but his sky-high work ethic and above average intelligence I suspect will put that high variation in play. Worst case, I think he's an average catcher bat and receiver in game, which I think is precisely what made him the top catcher in the draft. He has strong regular or all-star potential and arguably has a nicer overall hitting profile than his prospect-mate Joey Bart, due to Bailey's strong approach and Bart's iffy hit tool hindering his plus power tool --- will be fun to sim their careers with this model!

[Mat]

Great analysis here. OOTP would be wasting your ability, send Zaidi your resume!

[Lukas Berger]

Definitely more great analysis here and I'll look it over and incorporate some of it where possible, as I have the chance.

A few things to note though.

One, you're really focused on individual pitch ratings, but as I tried to explain in my initial post, this is something that it is basically impossible to get exact in OOTP using the pitching system and editing tools we have currently.

The editor basically works like this:

We assign the target stuff. For each pitch, we have the option to set both current and potential ratings but not specific values there. We can set them using a scale that looks like this:

Excellent
Good
Average
Poor
Fair

This is proportional, but not exact. So all we can do is delineate the individual pitches relative ability in comparison to each other and the game itself will set them as it likes, using that as guidance.

So the very fine gradients of pitch ability you're discussing in some of these cases are quite simply not possible at the moment. We can make tweaks and get things closer to a specific target, but we can't hit exact targets. And to even make those tweaks is an extremely time consuming process of trial and error and seeing how the game engine responds to the changes made.

The editor changes that would be needed to actually get this specific with each pitch are not trivial and would certainly present some challenges. As with a lot of things in the game, even when something seems suboptimal, there is usually a very practical reason behind the scenes that it is the way it is.

Long-term I would guess that's something we'll want to look at reviewing and making some changes to both the editor itself and even more potentially to the engine as it handles individual pitches and incorporates that into the whole. But that's definitely a long-term project

[Lukas Berger]

Another thing to be aware of in regard to prospect ratings, is that these especially need to fit into the matrix of how prospects are rated as a whole in-game. So if we make changes that push Bailey or Lacey f.e. up or down a significant amount, then we also potentially have to change another 50 prospects ratings as well, to keep where everyone falls on the top prospect lists correct and keep the individual guy we changed from going too high or too low in potential in relation to their peers. Then, we risk getting into a situation of ratings bloat, where very quickly the entire prospect pool in-game can get badly overrated.

So this is a pretty delicate balance, of getting individual players to look like themselves in-game but of keeping them from going too high or too low in comparison to the other players in their talent tiers and keeping the overall talent levels in the roster set reasonable.

You also have to take into account the differences in opinion of scouts and industry sources as to how good a specific tool or grade actually is for a player, which can be something like 2-3 grades off from each other in certain cases. So, is the 'right' call when you have differencing views to pick one source or the other, or to split the difference, or to go with your own gut feeling? Again, this is a pretty delicate balance.

Then, when you start revising current ratings, you get into another factor, that of which minor league level the ai will want to assign a player to initially and how close this will put them to the majors. So any changes here have to be viewed through the lens of the org as a whole and the level of other player's current talents and the org depth.

You can make a convincing case here for your take on specific ratings that is persuasive enough to take into account, but then we also read what Longenhagen writes at Fangraphs, or Callis at BA or some other compelling sources write, plus maybe I even have an opinion myself! So then we have to blend all these divergent opinions together to get a rating that makes sense for that player, but also fits in the overall matrix of all the ratings in-game and also takes into account the realities of how the OOTP engine actually works.

So just to take a specific example, and show some of the factors involved in this in practice, let's take Bailey. Now, if I go ahead and just make your suggested changes to him, here's some of what happens...

He moves from being the 3 prospect on the Giants list, to the 2 prospect. (For reference, he's arguably already too high at 3, as he's rated as 6 by Pipeline and Fangraphs and 7 by BA, though their lists include Joey Bart and ours doesn't as for us he's graduated of the prospect lists due to service time issues).

He moves from being 85 on the overall prospects list in game (not in the top 100 of Fangraphs, BA or Pipeline. The difference is mostly due to service time and less guys qualifying for our lists than for most media outlets), to being 18th overall!

So, while those changes sound great in a vacuum, now just by making them for Bailey, we now have to adjust and raise the ratings for something like 60-90 other prospects, to keep him from being overrated compared to his peers by the game.

If you then repeat that process by wanting to raise the ratings for a bunch of other guys on the top prospect lists, well you can see where things can very quickly spiral totally out of control

We spend countless hours working on the ratings of the players in-game and use numerous sources to get things as close to 'right' as possible. So often, if you see something that feels off, there's actually a reason for it, usually because of a quirk of the game engine and its analysis of players or as a result of how a player falls into the overall picture of the player pool as a whole in-game.

Now please don't take this the wrong way, as a criticism of what you're doing here.

I wouldn't take this much time and effort discussing player ratings with just anyone, as we don't really encourage ratings related arguments, given that they are typically so 'opinion' based. Its impossible to satisfy everyone when everyone has a different opinion on each player. But you've shown a real talent here, a good eye and keen interest, so I'm spending a bit more time than I really have during our busiest week of the year to help you understand a bit more of what goes into the process and what goes into what you see in-game.

So please do feel free to continue your analysis and know I'll follow it as possible and even use parts of it in-game, even if I don't reply regularly. But try to take the factors I mention above into account as well, as they're vital to any analysis of the ratings in-game.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by Dave Stieb II

This is a great thread. Never mind working for OOTP for minimum wage. You need to be aiming for a position in an MLB analytics department.

I agree 100%.