Borderline Starter Loophole?

[Cobby]

So I was wondering why Jay Slagel was listed as a borderline starter when he has 3 pitches above 50. But he also has one lousy pitch. I thought it might have something to do with the poor pitch, so I thought I'd do an experiment and temporarily eliminate this pitch to see if he was then listed as a non-borderline starter.

What I discovered is that he actually has two poor pitches and my scout just hasn't caught onto that yet. So that makes me think that this is a loophole - that the designation of starter, borderline starter or bullpen only is based upon actual ratings and not on scouted ratings. If this is the case, it's giving me information I'm not supposed to have and bypassing the scouting model. Or, I suppose you can put a positive spin on it and think of it as managerial intuition. "It looks like he's a viable starter, but something in the back of my mind tells me he's just borderline...."

Anyway. If this is confirmed, I'd say it's something that needs to be addressed in a future release.

Or if it isn't deemed to be a problem that needs fixing, then at least it's information beyond your scout's opinion that needs to be considered when making pitching decisions. My guess is that the AI is already using this information, since my pitching coach assigns Slagel to the bullpen even though his scouted ratings say he should be an effective starter.

[BIG17EASY]

At a quick glance, I'd bet that the borderline starter evaluation comes from his stamina and only having two above-average pitches. His sinker is basically league average (53 out of 100), so your scout could be using that and his stamina (54 out of 100) and thinks Slagel can give you some starts, but you shouldn't count on him for 30-plus starts per year.

ETA: Just looked at his stats. He's been a pretty serviceable starter throughout his career, so I'm surprised to see those pitch ratings in the editor. What is his stamina rating in the editor?

[Cobby]

OK. I played around in the editor a bit and learned something. If a pitch rating in the editor is 100 out of 200, what shows up on the profile screen won't necessarily be a pitch rated at 50 (on the 1-100 scale). What shows up on the profile screen will depend upon the GB/FB percentage and the velocity (and possibly other things?)

So, in Slagel's case - it turns out that my scout was pretty accurate. At 100% accuracy a 30 out of 200 sinker in the editor shows up as a 52 quality pitch in the profile page. (or close to it - I didn't want to mess things up in my current game, so I am playing around in another save and I don't have Slagel's exact GB/FB % - I just know it was showing up as "Groundball").

And the values are different for each type of pitch. So, the requirement that a starter have at least 3 decent pitches remains in force, but each pitch type is different as to the rating level at which it qualifies as decent and depends at least upon velocity and GB%, if not other things.

In Slagel's case, he goes from "Borderline Starter" to "Starter" when I increase the Sinker rating above 63 in the editor. This shows up as 58 Sinker on the profile page. When I put the Sinker back down to 30 in the editor and increase his curveball above 63, he also changes from "Borderline Starter" to "Starter", but the curveball rating is only 38 on the profile page. So for a pitcher with Slagel's velocity and GB%, a sinker needs to be 58 of so to be considered a decent pitch, but a curveball only needs to be 38 or so to be considered a decent pitch.

But wait! There's more. If I decrease the quality of the best two pitches in the editor, say to 100 each, then the quality of the 3rd pitch only needs to be 39 in this case for the status to change from "Borderline Starter" to "Starter". So, it's something about the ratio of the top pitches to the 3rd pitch and not the absolute values that determine the transition point. My guess is that this is so pitchers can somewhat maintain their designations as they develop though the minors...

Anyway. This is just a long way of saying "never mind" to my original post....

[NoOne]

i think you hit on it..

not all pitches are the same at the most base level (e.g. 2 100/200 pitches in editor are not the same)

not all pitches are affected by gb%, velo, et al. in the same way

the aggregate of various pitches can be different. (even if same 3 pitches in different variations of how each is rated relative to each other (spoke of ratio above in OP))

how well rated AND ratio will determin frequency of use -- which won't be accurately represented by any aggregate rating in the game. too much influences its repercussions and scale.
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wherever the "baseline" is for all of these thigns, that's where you'd want to start.. 54% says average in editor for GB%, for example. 'probably' 100/200 is best starting point for pitch-stuff, movement and control.

then, change one at a time and learning what it does will be much easier to deduce.

i've seen that 2-pitches cannot work for a sp without great volatility. whereas someone else in teh forums showed data that throroughly showed that a 1-pitch RP with a 200+ pitch can dominate. role will be a big influence too -- obviously op is only talking about SP, but it's relevant to better understanding the forces at play.