How would you rate the ratings?

[mgoetze]

Originally Posted by injury log

Individual pitch ratings - are an important factor in a pitcher's Stuff rating, but have many other effects. Along with Stamina, they determine if a pitcher is capable of being an effective SP (a pitcher needs a fairly deep repertoire).

I've always wondered how this is actually modelled in the game. Can you exploit the game just by setting all of your pitchers' positions to MR, thus enhancing their stuff rating? Or can you exploit the game by having one starting pitcher who always plays the first inning of each game, and then a 5-man rotation of long relievers with high stamina and only 2 pitches? Do hitters improve in consecutive at-bats against limited-repertoire pitchers?

I am currently playing a fantasy league with inaugural draft, and the AI basically refused to draft any relief pitchers in the first 10 rounds or so; there were still 76/80 relievers left by the time all SPs better than 20/80 were gone. So what I did was grab some young relievers with say 13/20 fastball, 12/20 curveball, 2/20 changeup and high stamina hoping they can eventually develop their changeup and turn into quality starters. Seems they are putting up pretty good numbers in the minors despite only 2 quality pitches, but I do wonder what will happen when I eventually call them up...

[ezpkns34]

Originally Posted by mgoetze

So you are saying that these two players have identical value:

Player A: Contact 50, Avoid K 25
Player B: Contact 50, Avoid K 75

I'm going to put up a counterhypothesis in hopes that someone will enhance my understanding by refuting it: Player B is more valuable because he gets the same result while driving up the opposing team's pitch count.

I'm under the impression that Player B's higher Avoid K rating is inflating his Contact rating, thus meaning Player A is more likely to have a higher batting average

[Neolithic]

Originally Posted by ezpkns34

I'm under the impression that Player B's higher Avoid K rating is inflating his Contact rating, thus meaning Player A is more likely to have a higher batting average

They will have the same/close to the same batting ave. That's what contact is, batting ave.

Where they will differ, is one will have more strikeouts, while the other more GB/FB outs.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Neolithic

They will have the same/close to the same batting ave. That's what contact is, batting ave.

Where they will differ, is one will have more strikeouts, while the other more GB/FB outs.

Yup

[snepp]

Originally Posted by mgoetze

So you are saying that these two players have identical value:

Player A: Contact 50, Avoid K 25
Player B: Contact 50, Avoid K 75

I'm going to put up a counterhypothesis in hopes that someone will enhance my understanding by refuting it: Player B is more valuable because he gets the same result while driving up the opposing team's pitch count.

Snepp, could you perchance repeat your experiment with good-but-low-stamina starters and horrible relievers?

Here you go. Exact same setup as the original high/low K teams. The position players were untouched in any way.

The starting pitchers had their core ratings bumped from 100 to 125 (stuff/move/con), while their stamina was reduced from 150 to 100.

Relievers cores reduced from 100 to 90, stamina left at 50.

I ran it three times. Screenshots are wide so I'll just link to them.

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/8726/testal.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img37/2153/testbj.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img600/3010/testcj.jpg

[injury log]

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Can you exploit the game just by setting all of your pitchers' positions to MR, thus enhancing their stuff rating?

No, the Stuff bonus comes from how a pitcher is actually used, not how is role is set.

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Or can you exploit the game by having one starting pitcher who always plays the first inning of each game, and then a 5-man rotation of long relievers with high stamina and only 2 pitches?

Very probably. While I think the game is getting better in this respect, relievers are really just too damn good in OOTP. If they were a bit worse, this kind of exploit wouldn't be worthwhile.

You'd also need a lot more than 5 RPs because they'd all get tired really quickly. The Stamina rating is not role-independent, and it means a lot less for relievers than for starters. If a guy is set as an SP, he'll be able to pitch longer outings, but he'll recover very slowly from his outings. If a guy is set to MR, he'll pitch much shorter outings (his Stamina matters, but not much), and he'll recover more quickly.

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Do hitters improve in consecutive at-bats against limited-repertoire pitchers?

Not that I know of, but you'll never get a reliever to face the whole lineup more than twice without getting completely exhausted.

Originally Posted by mgoetze

the AI basically refused to draft any relief pitchers in the first 10 rounds or so; there were still 76/80 relievers left by the time all SPs better than 20/80 were gone.

In beta, I've been getting on Markus to fix AI evaluation of reliever and 2.5 pitch starters. He said it was fixed, but I think he just meant it was improved - it used to be worse!

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Can you exploit the game just by setting all of your pitchers' positions to MR, thus enhancing their stuff rating?

No, the Stuff bonus comes from how a pitcher is actually used, not how is role is set.

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Or can you exploit the game by having one starting pitcher who always plays the first inning of each game, and then a 5-man rotation of long relievers with high stamina and only 2 pitches?

Very probably. While I think the game is getting better in this respect, relievers are really just too damn good in OOTP. If they were a bit worse, this kind of exploit wouldn't be worthwhile. You'd also need a lot more than 5 RPs because they'd all get tired really quickly.

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Do hitters improve in consecutive at-bats against limited-repertoire pitchers?

Not that I know of, but you'll never get a reliever to face the whole lineup more than twice without getting completely exhausted.

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Seems they are putting up pretty good numbers in the minors despite only 2 quality pitches, but I do wonder what will happen when I eventually call them up...

They'll suffer a pretty bad ratings penalty if used as starters, unless they improve their changeups (or whatever their weakest pitch is).

[VanillaGorilla]

Originally Posted by mgoetze

So you are saying that these two players have identical value:

Player A: Contact 50, Avoid K 25
Player B: Contact 50, Avoid K 75

I'm going to put up a counterhypothesis in hopes that someone will enhance my understanding by refuting it: Player B is more valuable because he gets the same result while driving up the opposing team's pitch count.

Snepp, could you perchance repeat your experiment with good-but-low-stamina starters and horrible relievers?

All things being equal, yes. However. in snepp's environment it is clear the lower avoid K player is more valuable. I offer that if you put the players to test in a high error environment (pick a 19th century year) the avoid K player would be more valuable as he would generate more chances for errors.

Runner at third 1 out down a run, I think I want the better avoid K 50 contact guy at the plate.

Runner at first 1 out down a run, I think I want the batter BABIP contact 50 player up, at least in snepp's test environment.

[snepp]

In that last test with the better starting pitchers. the high avoid K hitters fared quite a bit better than the low avoid K team did.

I don't think there's one specific reason, and given the disproportionate talent between hitters and pitchers I don't know how useful the results are, but it's certainly an interesting exercise.


I haven't seen anything yet that would make me change my original opinion. I wouldn't take a higher avoid K if it meant sacrificing any gap, power, or eye.

[mgoetze]

Originally Posted by injury log

Very probably. While I think the game is getting better in this respect, relievers are really just too damn good in OOTP. If they were a bit worse, this kind of exploit wouldn't be worthwhile.

You'd also need a lot more than 5 RPs because they'd all get tired really quickly. The Stamina rating is not role-independent, and it means a lot less for relievers than for starters. If a guy is set as an SP, he'll be able to pitch longer outings, but he'll recover very slowly from his outings. If a guy is set to MR, he'll pitch much shorter outings (his Stamina matters, but not much), and he'll recover more quickly.

Right, I've noticed a pitcher's rest status changing when changing his position.

So what this means that if your SP gets injured in the first inning, and you decide to put in the next guy in your rotation because you know you have a day off coming up, he will not perform anything like he would have had he started the game. Doubront can throw 105 pitches in relief in real life, but not in OOTP...

[Leo_The_Lip]

Great discussion. Right after finishing reading this, I wandered over to Baseball Prospectus and found this thread, which is great expansion of this topic:

The Ideal Groundball Rate for Hitters, Featuring the Royals | FanGraphs Baseball

Are there 'ideal' GB rates for Power ratings in OOTP? That is, ones that produce the 'best' combination of non-HR hits and HRs? I don't know what 'best' should mean, other than 'the most runs.'

[RchW]

Originally Posted by mgoetze

Right, I've noticed a pitcher's rest status changing when changing his position.

So what this means that if your SP gets injured in the first inning, and you decide to put in the next guy in your rotation because you know you have a day off coming up, he will not perform anything like he would have had he started the game. Doubront can throw 105 pitches in relief in real life, but not in OOTP...

I checked the game notes for Doubront. The game in question was his start. He was to be skipped and the start given to prospect Webster. He was on full rest and I submit might have been told to be ready should the game get out of hand. That's not the same as what you claim above.

I guarantee that if any real life SP expected to start "tomorrow" and was asked with no warning to warm up from his 4th day of rest coldness he would not perform anything like expected. Starting pitchers by definition and by consensus are creatures of habit and preparation. That's why you just don't see this. Teams will burn one or two relief pitchers and make roster moves before messing with SP in between starts. Note that Doubront went 7days after this appearance before his next start.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by mgoetze

So what this means that if your SP gets injured in the first inning, and you decide to put in the next guy in your rotation because you know you have a day off coming up, he will not perform anything like he would have had he started the game. Doubront can throw 105 pitches in relief in real life, but not in OOTP...

Actually there's one change new to OOTP14 that makes me question my response to you earlier. If you have a pitcher's role set to "emergency SP", that pitcher is supposed to be used either to start a game if you have no SP available, or to enter a game if your SP gets injured in one of the first couple of innings. I haven't tested how those kinds of pitchers perform, but it's possible they're treated as SPs as far as fatigue goes, and not as RPs.

That said, if you were to make a list of things that can happen in real life but not in OOTP, that list would run on for a thousand pages. It's just a simulation, after all.

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

Great discussion. Right after finishing reading this, I wandered over to Baseball Prospectus and found this thread, which is great expansion of this topic:

The Ideal Groundball Rate for Hitters, Featuring the Royals | FanGraphs Baseball

Are there 'ideal' GB rates for Power ratings in OOTP? That is, ones that produce the 'best' combination of non-HR hits and HRs? I don't know what 'best' should mean, other than 'the most runs.'

That was a cool article. Never thought much about GB/FB ratio before

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by snepp

Yes, effectively.


Here's that first Avoid K test again, this time over 300 games instead of 100.

Geez!

The least you could have done was to get some good logos made before you ran that test. I submit that your experminent is flawed.