Moneyball

[Cheesehead1964]

We all know that OBP was the undervalued player attribute in Moneyball.


What in your opinion is the undervalued player rating in Perfect Team?


For pitching, I've heard Movement. Batting, maybe Contact or Eye/Discipline? I've had success focusing on exceptional defense.


I also tend to build teams that hit for high average, but don't score enough dang runs. But that's another issue...


I know it depends on what type of team you are trying to build, but what player rating in the game do you feel maybe gets overlooked? There seem to be a number of teams that have success at higher levels with a number of lower value cards, like Lava or Maddox.



What's the secret sauce?

[X3NEIZE]

Power is very underwhelming, what works for me is:

Contact, base-running, OBP and Defense... come October, I would focus more on defense more than anything, I find that great defensive teams are very very hard to beat.

[Cheesehead1964]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

Power is very underwhelming, what works for me is:

Contact, Speed, OBP and Defense... come October, I would focus more on defense more than anything, I find that great defensive teams are very very hard to beat.

Yeah, I love building great D teams. I'm focusing more on theme teams lately so it's harder to do that, but my Brewers theme team has a reserve roster of great defensive players. They won diamond league recently.

[<Pion>]

I have a hard time thinking of movement as being overlooked due to the number of people who hold it up as the most important rating even going back to PT19. In fact, all of the major 3 ratings for pitchers are talked about quite a bit on the forums and amongst users. So if it is truly an "overlooked" rating, I'd have to go for something that hardly anyone discusses. It's possible the Hold rating could fit that description (at least when the major 3 categories are similar in overall value). Defense was very overlooked in PT19, but that hasn't been the case in PT20. For hitting... Oh wait, would it be a secret sauce if the secret is discussed?

[OMGPuppies]

I think maybe defense plays too big a part in PT. Seems that many of the best players in history according to PT were horrible defensively. So, if you want a good defensive team you are left to pick from a tiny pool of players.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

I have a hard time thinking of movement as being overlooked due to the number of people who hold it up as the most important rating even going back to PT19. In fact, all of the major 3 ratings for pitchers are talked about quite a bit on the forums and amongst users. So if it is truly an "overlooked" rating, I'd have to go for something that hardly anyone discusses. It's possible the Hold rating could fit that description (at least when the major 3 categories are similar in overall value). Defense was very overlooked in PT19, but that hasn't been the case in PT20. For hitting... Oh wait, would it be a secret sauce if the secret is discussed?

I take back what I said about Hold Runner until further simulations. Though it made a seemingly significant dent in SB success, it only showed an insignificant difference in runs allowed.

[PocketsAintFull]

Power. Because it seems quite good to me at levels below Perfect *

*Disclaimer: my best power team is my bronze team, but they do rake homers

[justpatrick]

Originally Posted by OMGPuppies

I think maybe defense plays too big a part in PT. Seems that many of the best players in history according to PT were horrible defensively. So, if you want a good defensive team you are left to pick from a tiny pool of players.

I know I may sound like a broken record on this, but I really feel like the game does not value historical players´defense properly. George Sisler for example was universally recognized by contemporaries as one of the finest fielding firstbasemen in the game and yet he´s a 53, which I find quite unrealistic. And in what universe is Tris Speaker a 44 in CF? I realize it was towards the end of his career but that cannot possibly be accurate. There´s tons of more examples, these are just the tip of an Everest of an iceberg.

[moalkha]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

Power is very underwhelming, what works for me is:

Contact, base-running, OBP and Defense... come October, I would focus more on defense more than anything, I find that great defensive teams are very very hard to beat.

I totally agree. My experience is that great defensive teams are very hard to beat in the playoffs, especially on 5 games series.

[Sharkn20]

Originally Posted by justpatrick

I know I may sound like a broken record on this, but I really feel like the game does not value historical players´defense properly. George Sisler for example was universally recognized by contemporaries as one of the finest fielding firstbasemen in the game and yet he´s a 53, which I find quite unrealistic. And in what universe is Tris Speaker a 44 in CF? I realize it was towards the end of his career but that cannot possibly be accurate. There´s tons of more examples, these are just the tip of an Everest of an iceberg.

The thing is that historical players were a lot less athletic that mostly nowadays players, therefore you can't rate them as high as contemporary players...

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[neugey]

Right-handed batters who actually hit righties well.

[Cheesehead1964]

Originally Posted by justpatrick

I know I may sound like a broken record on this, but I really feel like the game does not value historical players´defense properly. George Sisler for example was universally recognized by contemporaries as one of the finest fielding firstbasemen in the game and yet he´s a 53, which I find quite unrealistic. And in what universe is Tris Speaker a 44 in CF? I realize it was towards the end of his career but that cannot possibly be accurate. There´s tons of more examples, these are just the tip of an Everest of an iceberg.

Originally Posted by Sharkn20

The thing is that historical players were a lot less athletic that mostly nowadays players, therefore you can't rate them as high as contemporary players...

I've noticed this a lot too and not just the old school historical players.


Torii Hunter 52 DEF?

[Cheesehead1964]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

I have a hard time thinking of movement as being overlooked due to the number of people who hold it up as the most important rating even going back to PT19. In fact, all of the major 3 ratings for pitchers are talked about quite a bit on the forums and amongst users. So if it is truly an "overlooked" rating, I'd have to go for something that hardly anyone discusses. It's possible the Hold rating could fit that description (at least when the major 3 categories are similar in overall value). Defense was very overlooked in PT19, but that hasn't been the case in PT20. For hitting... Oh wait, would it be a secret sauce if the secret is discussed?

True about MOV. For hitting... C'mon! Do tell! LOL!

[Cheesehead1964]

Originally Posted by neugey

Right-handed batters who actually hit righties well.

Good example of undervalued attribute.

[Cheesehead1964]

Aside...

Has anyone read Astroball? Great book! I wish I could apply what I learn in books like that to this game!

LOL!

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by justpatrick

I know I may sound like a broken record on this, but I really feel like the game does not value historical players´defense properly. George Sisler for example was universally recognized by contemporaries as one of the finest fielding firstbasemen in the game and yet he´s a 53, which I find quite unrealistic. And in what universe is Tris Speaker a 44 in CF? I realize it was towards the end of his career but that cannot possibly be accurate. There´s tons of more examples, these are just the tip of an Everest of an iceberg.

ootp ratings are based on stats not waxing poetically (as much as we have stats from back then). Not saying that they are all perfect but I'm more likely to trust the ootp team's research into real analysis than some 100 year old anecdote people heard in a documentary.

Sisler was a massively negative defender according to baseball reference and fangraphs. Speaker was about average

What sources are you using to show otherwise?

[Sharkn20]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead1964

I've noticed this a lot too and not just the old school historical players.


Torii Hunter 52 DEF?

PT also has some players in specific years, maybe he wasn't as good defensively, but please compare him with other players with higher ratings, and share statistic evidence to provide the team with more insight, rather than just moan.

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[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Sharkn20

The thing is that historical players were a lot less athletic that mostly nowadays players, therefore you can't rate them as high as contemporary players...

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playing devil's advocate here.... not sure it's really fair to compare players from 100 years ago to modern day players and use that as a basis to downgrade the old timer's defensive ratings.... that's not how it's done with other ratings in the game (example: Ty Cobb only hit 117 home runs in his entire 24 year career and a max single season mark of 12, yet his peak card has a 86 power rating; which is the same rating as Albert Belle-1995 card when he hit 50 home runs)...

I will say the defensive ratings on the pre-ww2 players is greatly improved from v19, so it's a step in the right direction... but it never hurts to revisit how all the ratings are decided to see if it can be tweaked a bit for improvement.

(side note: if we're going to advocate for the re-examination of ratings, I'll be the advocate for the correction of Jack Stivetts offensive ratings... see the post on my dynasty thread for a comparison with two contemporaries of his time)

Originally Posted by dkgo

ootp ratings are based on stats not waxing poetically (as much as we have stats from back then). Not saying that they are all perfect but I'm more likely to trust the ootp team's research into real analysis than some 100 year old anecdote people heard in a documentary.

Sisler was a massively negative defender according to baseball reference and fangraphs. Speaker was about average

What sources are you using to show otherwise?

and that's a good point... I can recall watching documentaries / reading accounts from contemporaries regarding players like Tris Speaker (i.e. - he'd play so shallow he'd be almost a 5th infielder, but still could read the pitch/swing of the bat to race back into position in CF to catch the ball, etc).... but when you go to the stats, he had a career fielding pct of .970, which isn't the greatest if you compare to modern day players (like Trout with a career fielding pct of .995).... of course, if you dig deeper there, you can see some big differences in numbers where Speaker shows superior stats... comparing Trout's 9 years of stats in CF to Speaker's first 9 years, Trout blows him away in fielding pct, but Speaker's assists and double play numbers are off the charts... kinda fun to look at the differences

Speaker first 9 years: 1200 games / 3257 chances / 2909 putouts / 230 assists / 118 errors / 76 dp / .964 pct

Trout 9 years: 1003 games / 2510 chances / 2462 putouts / 35 assists / 13 errors / 9 dp / .995 pct

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead1964

True about MOV. For hitting... C'mon! Do tell! LOL!

I like the BABIP rating in helping to find the high average guys though it should be used with respect to other ratings to get a more complete picture. I'm always amazed at the consistency and quality of numbers Willie Keeler puts up for example and would rather have him than some of the power hitting guys that hit for a much lower average than expected (TWilliams). With so many concentrating on pitcher movement, it seems the power guys get penalized. Though I don't know, I would think their HRs are ending up as outs rather than singles/doubles.

[atabakin]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

I like the BABIP rating in helping to find the high average guys though it should be used with respect to other ratings to get a more complete picture. I'm always amazed at the consistency and quality of numbers Willie Keeler puts up for example and would rather have him than some of the power hitting guys that hit for a much lower average than expected (TWilliams). With so many concentrating on pitcher movement, it seems the power guys get penalized. Though I don't know, I would think their HRs are ending up as outs rather than singles/doubles.

Keeler disappointed for me when I tried him out for a season or two, though I don't remember his exact numbers. He was decent, don't get me wrong, but his batting line was not in line with what I'd seen on other teams. Williams (Perfect version) has been pretty great out of the DH spot the last 4+ seasons: .295/.407/.519. I was hoping for a *little* higher average, but I think the slight DH penalty has something to do with that.