Player Ratings Constructive Criticism (Running List) - Page 2

Lukas Berger · 03-24-2021, 08:04 AM

Just a couple other points as I look over your comments more closely.

Work ethic and leadership and intelligence are generally entirely random and we'll usually only change those with some really compelling evidence (though as an aside I would agree Meyer was likely too low, so he did get a slight boost there).

This is the sort of thing it's realistically impossible to model objectively, as all the information here is anecdotal and it's often very hard to separate out what is realistic and what is just propaganda from teams, coaches, agents and other folks close to the players pushing 'their' guys. Thus, we pretty much just let the randomization algorithm determine it in most cases, especially for young players, unless the reports are genuinely overwhelming.

That plays into another important point that is definitely worth mentioning. Even for guys like Lacy or Meyer, we don't necessarily want them to develop into studs in many or even most sims, as you mentioned was the goal of some of your changes when discussing them.

If you look at the real life hit rates of top prospect pitchers in the 20-30 overall range on the prospect lists, these are often a 50-50 proposition at best. Probably even more like a 25% hit rate of guys actually becoming impact pitchers either in the rotation or bullpen and not just generic back of the rotation starters or good pitchers in Japan.

Go back 10 years and look at those top prospect lists and the guys who fall into the 15-35 ish range where Lacy and Meyer fall. It's not especially pretty. Sure you have Chris Sale and Carlos Carrasco, but you also have Casey Kelly and Kyle Drabek and Brian Matusz and Christian Friedrich. More misses than hits, frankly.

https://www.mlb.com/news/2011-top-50...ist-c301611016
https://www.mlb.com/news/2010-top-50...ist-c301611480
https://www.mlb.com/news/2009-top-50...ist-c301611616

So modelling guys in that range to miss more often than to hit at the default settings is actually what we are aiming for, and not something that we would be looking to change.

Now that being said, one of the beauties of OOTP is how customizable it is. If you would like a higher hit rate for these types of guys, it's easily achieved without overly boosting individual player ratings. Just change the 'talent change randomness' setting under game settings > players and facegens. It's at 100 by default. Moving it lower will ensure that more top prospects pan out and less lower rated guys get unexpected boosts. Moving it higher will create the opposite effect.

Shake Appeal · 03-24-2021, 08:56 AM

It's a shame that OOTP relies so much on ZiPS, which has consistently been one of the least accurate projection systems for years:

https://www.fantasypros.com/2021/03/...jections-2020/

https://www.fantasypros.com/2020/03/...jections-2019/

https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/03/...jections-2018/

OutS|der · 03-24-2021, 11:53 AM

Really need to bring backing thanking posts as this thread deserves a whole bunch of them. Please keep this up as this has been a great insight into how ratings are determined

MaeNekoChan · 03-24-2021, 01:58 PM

Lukas thank you so much for the responses and feedback! (I'm so sorry if I'm distracting you, this was not at all meant to be like a call-out, pay attention to me thread --- well aside from maybe the first couple revisions haha --- but like this is not at all meant to be like a sophisticated 'look at how dumb the OOTP guys are with ratings' thread

I haven't been able to mention it as much, but there are several players/prospects that I saw that blew me away with how accurate I thought they were, so please know I heckin stan your work on this stuff).

So let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly here: when you model players you basically have a 'stuff' goal set and then you to some degree prioritize pitch rankings which then get automatically generated into ratings. Do I kinda have this right? And going further, and I might be reading into this, but are you saying that the system is not necessarily built to work for certain individual pitch mixes in the same way that the generated target stuff mixes do?

You're totally right about the prospects and I'm so sorry, this isn't meant at all to be a diss on your guys' work and research! There were certain things/players that I wanted to tweak --- I think the main thing I'm concerned with here is that I rarely have seen guys like Meyer develop into anything useful in-game, let alone hit a solid floor as a reliever. On the other hand, prospects like Matt Manning almost always become 60 fv or higher studs in game with their vanilla pitch mix and I wanted to at least play around with them to see what happens when I bring their pitch mix down or otherwise adjust to make more of their irl pitches reflected. I'm sure you agree that in general there are modeling limitations, since it's hard to reflect someone like Vladdy Jr.'s prospect ratings in the engine fairly without also guaranteeing he'll be a future hall of famer --- which is definitely far from certain irl

My goal for prospects is to find ways to model their potential (which I determine, as you rightly point out, somewhere between pure intuition and strict methodology

) while also toying with things to make future studs more missable as well.

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

All that being said, I'm going to play test Patrick Bailey and one of the pitcher prospects now to see how his careers pan out. Will be aiming for the variations you mention Lukas and adjust floors/ceilings/personalities accordingly if unsatisfied. (For Bailey, I admit I've never seen him turn into anything more than like a #2 catcher or AAAA type in game, so I wanted to bump his ratings around to reflect some of the higher variations he could hit).

Also, as a PSA here: you are 100% right Lukas about the prospect hit rates! Some solid reading material can be found on this here if anyone is interested! I can guarantee that you and the team have thought about balance here more than I am capable of with my current understanding of the game, but I have spent a ton of time in 21 modding countless prospects and have had good results in the past (i.e. some turn into all-stars, some peak as a AAAA type fringe player, some disappear eventually)

--- Mae

Lukas Berger · 03-24-2021, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaeNekoChan

Lukas thank you so much for the responses and feedback! (I'm so sorry if I'm distracting you, this was not at all meant to be like a call-out, pay attention to me thread --- well aside from maybe the first couple revisions haha --- but like this is not at all meant to be like a sophisticated 'look at how dumb the OOTP guys are with ratings' thread

I haven't been able to mention it as much, but there are several players/prospects that I saw that blew me away with how accurate I thought they were, so please know I heckin stan your work on this stuff).

No worries Mae, I didn't think this was the goal at all

If I thought that, I wouldn't spend the time to respond I have, and certainly not in anywhere near the depth I have!

Like I mentioned, I you have a very keen eye for this and passion for it which is really impressive. So I wanted to give you (and the other folks who are interested as well) some more info to help you understand the game engine and our methodology a little more and give you even more knowledge than the impressive amount you already have, and some encouragement too

Honestly, there's even more I want to reply to in each of your posts, and to answer your questions as well, but it will probably have to wait a while until things slow down a bit here before I reply too much more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaeNekoChan

So let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly here: when you model players you basically have a 'stuff' goal set and then you to some degree prioritize pitch rankings which then get automatically generated into ratings. Do I kinda have this right? And going further, and I might be reading into this, but are you saying that the system is not necessarily built to work for certain individual pitch mixes in the same way that the generated target stuff mixes do?

Yeah, I'd say you basically have it right on here. It might not be perfectly ideal that it works this way, but like I kind of alluded to, there are some technical and practical reasons for it working that way for now.

As far as individual pitch mixes, OOTP is a bit quirky that way and the engine is not necessarily super well adapted to recreating outliers like one-pitch pitchers like McGee (or Mariano Rivera, more famously). Basically, to be any good in OOTP, even as a RP, a guy needs two pitches at a minimum. To be any good as an SP, three. The one exception to this is knuckleballers.

Anyway, there's a lot more I'd love to get into, but I'll have to save it for another day now.

Shake Appeal · 03-24-2021, 02:36 PM

I'm sure it's on the long-term horizon, but it would be cool to build "stuff" up from the component pitches and their quality. That would also open the door to being able to tweak/coach pitchers' mixes...

Lukas Berger · 03-24-2021, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shake Appeal

I'm sure it's on the long-term horizon, but it would be cool to build "stuff" up from the component pitches and their quality. That would also open the door to being able to tweak/coach pitchers' mixes...

Yeah, for sure. Like I mentioned above though, there are actually some practical roadblocks in the way of making this happen.

It's nothing that can't be resolved, and it's definitely on our radar to at least discuss, but there would be more involved here than you'd ever think looking from the outside in, so it would not be a trivial thing to do.

It would take some resources and effort on our part to make it happen, and like with everything with the game, it's always a question of prioritizing. If something is less than ideal but is 'good enough' for now, is that worth putting time and energy into over another problem or improvement that might be more pressing? It's always a tough call to make.

MaeNekoChan · 03-24-2021, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

No worries Mae, I didn't think this was the goal at all

If I thought that, I wouldn't spend the time to respond I have, and certainly not in anywhere near the depth I have!

Like I mentioned, I you have a very keen eye for this and passion for it which is really impressive. So I wanted to give you (and the other folks who are interested as well) some more info to help you understand the game engine and our methodology a little more and give you even more knowledge than the impressive amount you already have, and some encouragement too

Honestly, there's even more I want to reply to in each of your posts, and to answer your questions as well, but it will probably have to wait a while until things slow down a bit here before I reply too much more.

Yeah, I'd say you basically have it right on here. It might not be perfectly ideal that it works this way, but like I kind of alluded to, there are some technical and practical reasons for it working that way for now.

As far as individual pitch mixes, OOTP is a bit quirky that way and the engine is not necessarily super well adapted to recreating outliers like one-pitch pitchers like McGee (or Mariano Rivera, more famously). Basically, to be any good in OOTP, even as a RP, a guy needs two pitches at a minimum. To be any good as an SP, three. The one exception to this is knuckleballers.

Anyway, there's a lot more I'd love to get into, but I'll have to save it for another day now.

Thanks for the clarifications! Do you think one way to get around the 1-pitch modeling problem would be, for example, if we're talking McGee, instead of giving him a fastball we give him a fastball and a sinker? The sinker pitch we'll say is a practical abstraction for the pitchability he demonstrates with the 1 pitch irl? I'll probably go ahead and test this in the meantijme.

Oh and simmed to 2029 with Patrick Bailey's updated ratings! He flamed out in 2022 and retired!! And with no injury problems either! He just straight up did not develop and actually kinda catastrophically melted down as a prospect despite the high potential and high work ethic. So only one sample, but we love to see the possibility in there for a low deviation! I mean, unless you're a Giants fan

^Oh and with the vanilla ratings for Max Meyer he never reached the majors and is sitting in the high minors with a 45 grade slider in 2029 (pretty typical from what I've seen). Literally no injuries which is wild! But yeah that slider just doesn't develop with the vanilla work ethic at all, so I'm looking forward to see how he plays in the patch Lukas! Vanilla Lacy was better and topped out at 1.2 WAR in 2024 and is sticking around as an average reliever. Vanilla Matt Manning has a cy young and 3 all-star games and is sitting at 55 value which is all kinda typical from what I've seen? Idk just weird that Manning always seems to 'hit' to some degree as a prospect vs the other 2 guys. So I can't wait to see how they're affected in further vanilla sims and with my updated models. Will post results later! ^_^

Lukas Berger · 03-24-2021, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaeNekoChan

Thanks for the clarifications! Do you think one way to get around the 1-pitch modeling problem would be, for example, if we're talking McGee, instead of giving him a fastball we give him a fastball and a sinker? The sinker pitch we'll say is a practical abstraction for the pitchability he demonstrates with the 1 pitch irl? I'll probably go ahead and test this in the meantijme.

This is one of those things I wanted to talk about since you touched on it in your Casey Mize evaluation, but don't have the time for

So, cliff notes version. A sinker in OOTP is kind of special. Long story short, it's not just a generic 2-seamer. It's only for genuine gb pitchers. This would be guys with a minimum (preferably even a touch higher) gb% of 50% on Fangraphs and 55% or so in OOTP (we calculate the GB% differently than Fangraphs, so you will typically see this around 2-5% higher in OOTP than on Fangraphs). You might see some guys in the roster set lower than this with a sinker, but it shouldn't be many and they're mostly probably on the verge of having it removed next time we review them.

So McGee would not really qualify at all (nor would Mize for that matter), as he's a 41% GB on Fangraphs and 48% in OOTP (might need to knock that down a % or 2...).

So no, I wouldn't recommend giving him a sinker. And also, the OOTP engine will not typically really treat a sinker and a regular fb as different pitches. In most cases, pitchers will have one or the other, but not both. There are exceptions, but they're the exception, not the rule and they would typically always have an offspeed pitch or two as well.

So that's not something I'd recommend doing. It will likely get weird results. Of course there's no reason not to try it out and see what happens, just for kicks, but don't go into the test with any expectations. Just treat it as an experiment if you do try it.

MaeNekoChan · 03-24-2021, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

This is one of those things I wanted to talk about since you touched on it in your Casey Mize evaluation, but don't have the time for

So, cliff notes version. A sinker in OOTP is kind of special. Long story short, it's not just a generic 2-seamer. It's only for genuine gb pitchers. This would be guys with a minimum (preferably even a touch higher) gb% of 50% on Fangraphs and 55% or so in OOTP (we calculate the GB% differently than Fangraphs, so you will typically see this around 2-5% higher in OOTP than on Fangraphs). You might see some guys in the roster set lower than this with a sinker, but it shouldn't be many and they're mostly probably on the verge of having it removed next time we review them.

So McGee would not really qualify at all (nor would Mize for that matter), as he's a 41% GB on Fangraphs and 48% in OOTP (might need to knock that down a % or 2...).

So no, I wouldn't recommend giving him a sinker. And also, the OOTP engine will not typically really treat a sinker and a regular fb as different pitches. In most cases, pitchers will have one or the other, but not both. There are exceptions, but they're the exception, not the rule and they would typically always have an offspeed pitch or two as well.

So that's not something I'd recommend doing. It will likely get weird results. Of course there's no reason not to try it out and see what happens, just for kicks, but don't go into the test with any expectations. Just treat it as an experiment if you do try it.

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the clarification! I'll test for fun maybe, but I can try to work around other ways. Maybe the right option then is to give someone like McGee a real solid secondary pitch as an abstraction then ... Do cutters have a similar problem or are those usable for fastballers?

MaeNekoChan · 03-24-2021, 04:07 PM

Sim 2: revised Patrick Bailey is a 45/40/50/45/70 AAAA catcher in 2027. Best season is 0.5 WAR in 2023, catcher arm developed slightly to 60 grade. Batting splits seem to have developed logically.

Vanilla Max Meyer is the best I've ever seen as a 70 grade reliever in 2027 --- a super reasonable outcome. His slider is a low plus plus at 169. His short starting career was below average.

Vanilla Matt Manning again developed into an all-star in 2022, though he regressed drastically after an arm injury in 2023 --- a very realistic development arc! Still concerned about the automatic all-star development he seems to get though.

Vanilla Asa Lacy had a catastrophic injury after a 2021 September callup and never played again. Good stuff.

Lukas Berger · 03-24-2021, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaeNekoChan

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the clarification! I'll test for fun maybe, but I can try to work around other ways. Maybe the right option then is to give someone like McGee a real solid secondary pitch as an abstraction then ... Do cutters have a similar problem or are those usable for fastballers?

Similar. Basically the game sees fastball, sinker and cutters all as fastballs. Need an offspeed pitch in the mix too really.

I do not actually know if a change or a splitter would work or if it needs to be a breaking pitch.

I think needs a breaking pitch but might be interesting to try modelling a fb-change only type guy just to see what happens.

MaeNekoChan · 03-24-2021, 04:44 PM

Sim 3: In 2025 revised Patrick Bailey has developed into just the kind of high variance player we hope for with a 60/45/55/60/65 ability slash and 55/60 catcher traits. He is '70' overall but has that lower-high 60 hit tool that Fangraphs pegs him at. His real performance isn't ridiculous as he's hitting between 15-20% above average in his season and a half of big league play. His editor slash gives him a 295/388/491 slash w/25 homeruns projected. I really love this high development arc and his developed splits also reflect the difference between his right and left handed swings (i.e. more gap & lower contact vs LHP, higher contact and power with lower gap against RHP)

Vanilla Max Meyer is again a reliever with no quality mlb seasons. His slider is a 65 at 151.

Vanilla Asa Lacy has again flamed out due to control issues and arm injuries and despite good pitch development has no MLB future.

Vanilla Matt Manning has again been the star of our vanilla prospects and has 3 all-star appearances again! He also has two 6 war seasons as a starter.

Again, I love seeing the Matt Manning upside, but I see a pattern here where vanilla Matt Manning is a lock for all-star ability barring injury and the other two guys (who are rated similarly or even higher than him depending on the prospect source) have nowhere near his floor/ceiling. I will now move on to adjusting their ratings to see how they respond to the new pitch mixes I gave them ^_^

MaeNekoChan · 03-24-2021, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Similar. Basically the game sees fastball, sinker and cutters all as fastballs. Need an offspeed pitch in the mix too really.

I do not actually know if a change or a splitter would work or if it needs to be a breaking pitch.

I think needs a breaking pitch but might be interesting to try modelling a fb-change only type guy just to see what happens.

Yeah I was thinking a FB-CH mix could be a workaround here! I'll give it a try!

Shake Appeal · 03-24-2021, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

It's always a tough call to make.

I hear you, and thanks for being honest about it. Your games are fantastic.

MikeS21 · 03-24-2021, 07:42 PM

I have noticed that many two pitch relievers with the fastball and slider/curve combination, tend to gain “Stuff”, especially if they can get some “Movement” in their ratings.

In previous versions, I have drafted a lot of arms in late rounds, who have a lot of velocity (96+ mph), at least a 50 rated fastball, average movement, and “raw” control. I have had some success developing them into serviceable relievers with decent Stuff, as control and movement improve in the minors.

“Stuff” for starters is a little more mysterious to me. Higher velocity and higher fastball/sinker rating seems to be a given, but I can’t seem to find consistency in other pitching ratings. I tend to draft by leadership, intelligence, and how hard the player works. Hopefully they improve.

03-24-2021, 08:04 AM	#21
Lukas Berger OOTP Developments Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Nice, Côte d'Azur, France Posts: 21,964	Just a couple other points as I look over your comments more closely. Work ethic and leadership and intelligence are generally entirely random and we'll usually only change those with some really compelling evidence (though as an aside I would agree Meyer was likely too low, so he did get a slight boost there). This is the sort of thing it's realistically impossible to model objectively, as all the information here is anecdotal and it's often very hard to separate out what is realistic and what is just propaganda from teams, coaches, agents and other folks close to the players pushing 'their' guys. Thus, we pretty much just let the randomization algorithm determine it in most cases, especially for young players, unless the reports are genuinely overwhelming. That plays into another important point that is definitely worth mentioning. Even for guys like Lacy or Meyer, we don't necessarily want them to develop into studs in many or even most sims, as you mentioned was the goal of some of your changes when discussing them. If you look at the real life hit rates of top prospect pitchers in the 20-30 overall range on the prospect lists, these are often a 50-50 proposition at best. Probably even more like a 25% hit rate of guys actually becoming impact pitchers either in the rotation or bullpen and not just generic back of the rotation starters or good pitchers in Japan. Go back 10 years and look at those top prospect lists and the guys who fall into the 15-35 ish range where Lacy and Meyer fall. It's not especially pretty. Sure you have Chris Sale and Carlos Carrasco, but you also have Casey Kelly and Kyle Drabek and Brian Matusz and Christian Friedrich. More misses than hits, frankly. https://www.mlb.com/news/2011-top-50...ist-c301611016 https://www.mlb.com/news/2010-top-50...ist-c301611480 https://www.mlb.com/news/2009-top-50...ist-c301611616 So modelling guys in that range to miss more often than to hit at the default settings is actually what we are aiming for, and not something that we would be looking to change. Now that being said, one of the beauties of OOTP is how customizable it is. If you would like a higher hit rate for these types of guys, it's easily achieved without overly boosting individual player ratings. Just change the 'talent change randomness' setting under game settings > players and facegens. It's at 100 by default. Moving it lower will ensure that more top prospects pan out and less lower rated guys get unexpected boosts. Moving it higher will create the opposite effect. __________________ lukas@ootpdevelopments.com Pre-Order Out of the Park Baseball 27! Need to upload files for us to check out? Instructions can be found here Last edited by Lukas Berger; 03-24-2021 at 08:23 AM.

03-24-2021, 01:58 PM	#24
MaeNekoChan Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 66	Lukas thank you so much for the responses and feedback! (I'm so sorry if I'm distracting you, this was not at all meant to be like a call-out, pay attention to me thread --- well aside from maybe the first couple revisions haha --- but like this is not at all meant to be like a sophisticated 'look at how dumb the OOTP guys are with ratings' thread I haven't been able to mention it as much, but there are several players/prospects that I saw that blew me away with how accurate I thought they were, so please know I heckin stan your work on this stuff). So let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly here: when you model players you basically have a 'stuff' goal set and then you to some degree prioritize pitch rankings which then get automatically generated into ratings. Do I kinda have this right? And going further, and I might be reading into this, but are you saying that the system is not necessarily built to work for certain individual pitch mixes in the same way that the generated target stuff mixes do? You're totally right about the prospects and I'm so sorry, this isn't meant at all to be a diss on your guys' work and research! There were certain things/players that I wanted to tweak --- I think the main thing I'm concerned with here is that I rarely have seen guys like Meyer develop into anything useful in-game, let alone hit a solid floor as a reliever. On the other hand, prospects like Matt Manning almost always become 60 fv or higher studs in game with their vanilla pitch mix and I wanted to at least play around with them to see what happens when I bring their pitch mix down or otherwise adjust to make more of their irl pitches reflected. I'm sure you agree that in general there are modeling limitations, since it's hard to reflect someone like Vladdy Jr.'s prospect ratings in the engine fairly without also guaranteeing he'll be a future hall of famer --- which is definitely far from certain irl My goal for prospects is to find ways to model their potential (which I determine, as you rightly point out, somewhere between pure intuition and strict methodology ) while also toying with things to make future studs more missable as well. ---------------------- All that being said, I'm going to play test Patrick Bailey and one of the pitcher prospects now to see how his careers pan out. Will be aiming for the variations you mention Lukas and adjust floors/ceilings/personalities accordingly if unsatisfied. (For Bailey, I admit I've never seen him turn into anything more than like a #2 catcher or AAAA type in game, so I wanted to bump his ratings around to reflect some of the higher variations he could hit). Also, as a PSA here: you are 100% right Lukas about the prospect hit rates! Some solid reading material can be found on this here if anyone is interested! I can guarantee that you and the team have thought about balance here more than I am capable of with my current understanding of the game, but I have spent a ton of time in 21 modding countless prospects and have had good results in the past (i.e. some turn into all-stars, some peak as a AAAA type fringe player, some disappear eventually) --- Mae Last edited by MaeNekoChan; 03-24-2021 at 02:04 PM.

03-24-2021, 04:44 PM	#33
MaeNekoChan Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 66	Sim 3: In 2025 revised Patrick Bailey has developed into just the kind of high variance player we hope for with a 60/45/55/60/65 ability slash and 55/60 catcher traits. He is '70' overall but has that lower-high 60 hit tool that Fangraphs pegs him at. His real performance isn't ridiculous as he's hitting between 15-20% above average in his season and a half of big league play. His editor slash gives him a 295/388/491 slash w/25 homeruns projected. I really love this high development arc and his developed splits also reflect the difference between his right and left handed swings (i.e. more gap & lower contact vs LHP, higher contact and power with lower gap against RHP) Vanilla Max Meyer is again a reliever with no quality mlb seasons. His slider is a 65 at 151. Vanilla Asa Lacy has again flamed out due to control issues and arm injuries and despite good pitch development has no MLB future. Vanilla Matt Manning has again been the star of our vanilla prospects and has 3 all-star appearances again! He also has two 6 war seasons as a starter. Again, I love seeing the Matt Manning upside, but I see a pattern here where vanilla Matt Manning is a lock for all-star ability barring injury and the other two guys (who are rated similarly or even higher than him depending on the prospect source) have nowhere near his floor/ceiling. I will now move on to adjusting their ratings to see how they respond to the new pitch mixes I gave them ^_^ Last edited by MaeNekoChan; 03-24-2021 at 04:46 PM.

03-24-2021, 08:56 AM	#22
Shake Appeal Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 104	It's a shame that OOTP relies so much on ZiPS, which has consistently been one of the least accurate projection systems for years: https://www.fantasypros.com/2021/03/...jections-2020/ https://www.fantasypros.com/2020/03/...jections-2019/ https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/03/...jections-2018/

03-24-2021, 11:53 AM	#23
OutS\|der Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: In A Van Down By The River Posts: 2,747 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Really need to bring backing thanking posts as this thread deserves a whole bunch of them. Please keep this up as this has been a great insight into how ratings are determined

03-24-2021, 02:36 PM	#26
Shake Appeal Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 104	I'm sure it's on the long-term horizon, but it would be cool to build "stuff" up from the component pitches and their quality. That would also open the door to being able to tweak/coach pitchers' mixes...

03-24-2021, 04:07 PM	#31
MaeNekoChan Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 66	Sim 2: revised Patrick Bailey is a 45/40/50/45/70 AAAA catcher in 2027. Best season is 0.5 WAR in 2023, catcher arm developed slightly to 60 grade. Batting splits seem to have developed logically. Vanilla Max Meyer is the best I've ever seen as a 70 grade reliever in 2027 --- a super reasonable outcome. His slider is a low plus plus at 169. His short starting career was below average. Vanilla Matt Manning again developed into an all-star in 2022, though he regressed drastically after an arm injury in 2023 --- a very realistic development arc! Still concerned about the automatic all-star development he seems to get though. Vanilla Asa Lacy had a catastrophic injury after a 2021 September callup and never played again. Good stuff.

03-24-2021, 07:42 PM	#36
MikeS21 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 279	I have noticed that many two pitch relievers with the fastball and slider/curve combination, tend to gain “Stuff”, especially if they can get some “Movement” in their ratings. In previous versions, I have drafted a lot of arms in late rounds, who have a lot of velocity (96+ mph), at least a 50 rated fastball, average movement, and “raw” control. I have had some success developing them into serviceable relievers with decent Stuff, as control and movement improve in the minors. “Stuff” for starters is a little more mysterious to me. Higher velocity and higher fastball/sinker rating seems to be a given, but I can’t seem to find consistency in other pitching ratings. I tend to draft by leadership, intelligence, and how hard the player works. Hopefully they improve.