Do the three primary ratings for pitchers tell the whole story?

[junebug41]

I am in my first league, a historical sim, and like many people, I am drawn to real-life WHIP as a first-glance method of evaluating how good pitchers will be. However, I'm not sure if this is leading me astray... since the three ratings, Stuff, Movement, and Control are only based on the real-life Strikeout, Home run, and Walk rates... Are these the only real-life stats that matter? Does the game have a way of "seeing" that even though two guys might have similar K, HR, and BB rates, Pitcher A only allowed opponents to hit .215, while Pitcher B was knocked around at a .280 clip?

I had assumed that the game had to have a way of making this distinction, since great pitchers usually allow a very low BA, while crappy ones allow a high one. However, conversations with other owners have got me a little worried.

Here's an example to help illustrate my question: Dennis Martinez (prime 9-year stretch) vs. Kevin Millwood.

- Millwood will have much better stuff, since he struck out a lot more batters
- Both men gave up fairly average homer totals, probably will have 15-ish movement
- Both men's walk rates were generally in the mid-2 range per 9 innings

So it seems reasonable to guess that Millwood might be around a 14-15-13 guy, while Martinez maybe a 9-15-14

Martinez during his good years usually allowed opponents to hit .210 - .245, while Millwood, with a couple of exceptions, allowed .245 - .275. Predictably, Martinez had consistently better ERA and WHIP numbers. Is the game going to "know" that Martinez was the much better pitcher, owing largely to the fact that he allowed far fewer hits?

[Leo_The_Lip]

Don't forget the defense behind the pitcher has a huge impact on the BA he allows. That is how the game "knows" who will allow fewer hits.

In an historical league, you would necessarily have to have the same defenders behind the pitchers in order to replicate the hits he allowed.

[ptwarr18]

The place where I disagree is with how you're reasoning that Stuff, Movement, Control is generated. It seems like you're assuming Stuff = K's, Movement = HR's, and Control = BB's.

I have a slightly different impression of how this works - it's just not as straight forward as what you are thinking. I'm going of my personal experience playing the game, and I have a good bit of it. I've never read the manual so I'm not sure what it states. I'll just throw out pitching stats and what I think drives them.



K's - Stuff and Movement Equally Drive this
Great stuff will rack up solid K totals as will a guy with good movement on his pitches. But you'll start to see K totasl that approach and are higher than 1 K per IP when you have a good combination of the 2


Average - Stuff is primary while movement is secondary
If a guy has good stuff it will tend to keep batting averages lower. Makes sense right, a guy has a good fastball and arsenal of pitches so you're going to be more off balance and not making contact as much. Good movement makes it even more difficult because often even if you pick up the pitch right out of the pitchers hand it's still hard to put good wood on it since if there's late movement on the pitch. You'll bash it into the ground or pop out more so you're average will be lower.


HR's (And all other XBH's) - Primary = Movement, Secondary = Stuff
Much like hitting for average it's a combo of stuff and movement. For avoiding extra base hits and homers, I think movement is the most important thing. I've seen plenty of guys with poor stuff be successful because they don't walk batters and they have great movement on their pitches. Why is that? Well because the movement makes it difficult for hitters to drive the ball so they're hitting singles rather than doubles, triples and homers. For me, I make it a general rule that my pitchers have high movement ratings. I've been successful because teams aren't bashing homers off me or hitting gaps all over the place. Stuff obviously still has an impact because if you can't catch up to the heat, then it doesn't matter if it's moving because you aren't hitting it anyway. I think that GB% has some impact but I'm still trying to figure out how much.


BB's - Obviously control is the #1 key. Stuff and movement still help though because if they are off balance or the ball is moving around, then bad pitches will be swung at. But clearly, control is clutch. If you've got it, you're not going to walk many guys.




Any questions, please ask. Any conflicting opinions, great lets ramp up this debate!

[Leo_The_Lip]

>>I've never read the manual<<

The first post is essentially what the manual says:

Stuff
Stuff is a measure of the quality of a pitcher's pitch repertoire. Think of it as essentially how a pitcher "puts it all together." Stuff directly affects the number of strikeouts a pitcher throws.

Movement
Movement is a measure of the movement on a pitcher's pitches. It is harder for batters to make good contact with pitches that have good movement. As a result, pitchers with high Movement ratings tend to give up fewer home runs.

Control
Control is a measure of a pitcher's accuracy. Pitchers with good Control ratings tend to walk fewer batters.

So your comment about what drives strikeouts is wrong. Stuff is the primary driver, movement a distant second.

You are completely wrong about hits allowed/batting average. OOTP uses the 'Balls in play' model and so fielding has much more impact on the BA allowed of a pitcher than any combination of his stuff, movement and control. My experience through many versions of OOTP is that getting great fielders will improve your pitching staff's hits allowed far more so than getting pitchers with better ratings.

Stuff, Movement and Control are very closely related to the 'Three True Outcomes' -- Strikeout, Walk and Home Runs. The rest is random defense on batted balls in play, just like real baseball. Looking beyond this is not worthwhile.