My OOTP Cheatsheet for Player Evaluation

[ALB123]

UPDATE: July 3 2020

Cheat Sheet v1.2

The changes I've made are:

• Removed Green Color from the middle column labeled Average.
• Changed Font Color on some columns to White
• Applied BOLD to all letters and numbers inside the chart

I think this updated Cheat Sheet looks better if you are going to print it out. The average and below-average column colors looked fine on screen and even printed by some printers. Many printers produced a page where the two columns were almost indistinguishable. If you don't print the Cheat Sheet, but rather leave it on screen in your web browser, I personally think the original Cheat Sheet looks a little better. But now, you all have a choice. Enjoy!



************************************************** ********************************* BELOW THIS LINE IS THE ORIGINAL POST *************

Download link for the cheatsheet Excel 2007 file: CLICK ME

Feel free to right-click and save this image if you don't need the Excel file posted above.



The actual image link: https://i.imgur.com/9NzzkIZ.png

Here is the link to the original post where I began collecting information for the Cheat Sheet. I suggest reading through that because there is a wealth of information posted throughout the thread. CLICK ME

A while back, I knew I wasn't evaluating players properly, so I asked for help. I asked the veteran OOTP players to give me suggestions on only a couple of stats they personally considered to be top of the list when looking to trade a player, pick up an MLB free agent, promoting players in the minors... you get the deal. I didn't want every known statistic for my cheat sheet. My goal was to make a chart that I could quickly refer to when I was in one of the previously mentioned situations, analyzing a player.

The vast majority of data was obtained from Fangraphs.com or Baseball-Reference.com

Please, feel free to edit this cheat sheet to best suit your needs. That is precisely why I included the Excel file. Also, remember that this data is meant to show a range that can be interpreted differently... it's your GM job...evaluate how you see fit.

I hope this is useful for a few people. Finally, a big 'Thank You' to all of the members here (and Reddit) who gave me suggestions & advice.

[Scipio Africanus]

Thanks! This is great.

Thanks also for including the Excel sheet. I don't like modern baseball much and tend to play with historical settings (1950, 1980, etc.). Hopefully I can use FanGraphs, etc. to change the numbers for historical play.

[CBeisbol]

I'd urge you to include the link to the original thread as there's a lot of good discussion there of how and why those stats are important and should be used

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...ighlight=Cheat

[jpeters1734]

wonderful post. this is very helpful

[ALB123]

Originally Posted by CBeisbol

I'd urge you to include the link to the original thread as there's a lot of good discussion there of how and why those stats are important and should be used

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...ighlight=Cheat

Thank you! I intended to and somehow it slipped my mind. You are absolutely correct when saying there is some darn good information in it.

[Sweed]

Thanks for doing this, very cool. I both d'loaded the file (it opens in "open office" for those that don't have MS Office) and did a "save as" of the image.

For others that may try to print I had to do it in grey scale to have it readable. The black numbers in the green rows was hard to read, at least with my printer printing from the saved image. In any case very nice to have a printout of this sheet next to the computer

thanks again.

[ALB123]

Small update in the OP.

There are no changes to the format or the data. I made some cosmetic changes to provide a cleaner print out from some people's printers. If using Cheat Sheet on screen only, I personally prefer the original, but now you have a choice.

[tts0]

Originally Posted by ALB123

Small update in the OP.

There are no changes to the format or the data. I made some cosmetic changes to provide a cleaner print out from some people's printers. If using Cheat Sheet on screen only, I personally prefer the original, but now you have a choice.

Actually, you should make the colors in line with those of in-game player ratings. The scale is the same(2-8), so it should be 2=awful=red color, 5=average=green color, =excellent=blue color etc. This way you can quickly project/assume the statistical outcome of a player rating. Eg. If players contatct is rated 7(or 70), it means he is great contact hitter. you look up in the cheatsheet, what a "great contact" actually means in terms of stats and there you go - you can assume he might hit around .290.

Fun, kinda related fact - average OBP is ~.60 higher than AVG, so you can project that stat easly using contact and eye ratings..and doing the maths. .

[pfholden]

This is a cool graphic.


But what MLB season are you basing this off of? Things like K%, BB%, slugging % etc can vary greatly, even in just a short 5-10 year period. I do think this guide can be helpful, but those using it should be mindful of era adjustments. Another reason I really value stats like OPS+, wRC_+, ERA+ etc

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by pfholden

This is a cool graphic.


But what MLB season are you basing this off of? Things like K%, BB%, slugging % etc can vary greatly, even in just a short 5-10 year period. I do think this guide can be helpful, but those using it should be mindful of era adjustments. Another reason I really value stats like OPS+, wRC_+, ERA+ etc

Every stat should be a + stat
Nothing has meaning without context

[ALB123]

Originally Posted by tts0

Actually, you should make the colors in line with those of in-game player ratings. The scale is the same(2-8), so it should be 2=awful=red color, 5=average=green color, =excellent=blue color etc. This way you can quickly project/assume the statistical outcome of a player rating. Eg. If players contatct is rated 7(or 70), it means he is great contact hitter. you look up in the cheatsheet, what a "great contact" actually means in terms of stats and there you go - you can assume he might hit around .290.

Fun, kinda related fact - average OBP is ~.60 higher than AVG, so you can project that stat easly using contact and eye ratings..and doing the maths. .

That's a good idea about the colors. I did post the Excel 2007 file, if anyone wants to make their own edits. But, I'll probably use that color scheme at some point. Thx.

Originally Posted by pfholden

This is a cool graphic.


But what MLB season are you basing this off of? Things like K%, BB%, slugging % etc can vary greatly, even in just a short 5-10 year period. I do think this guide can be helpful, but those using it should be mindful of era adjustments. Another reason I really value stats like OPS+, wRC_+, ERA+ etc

All data has been taken from Fan Graphs. So, I'd say it's more reflective of current MLB statistics.

[tts0]

And my two cents on the topic, as ive recently revisited my approach to stats, mainly thanks to this thread.

I figured that a cool way to go about stats is to start with the most general ones and break them down into smaller peaces.

For batters I go with:

WAR ->
wRC+ = [OBP(AVG+BB%), ISO(2B, 3B, HR), SO%]
BsR = wSB(SB, CS), UBR
UZR and some simple positional adjustment(dont care for defense at 1B, really look at it at SS etc.)

For pitchers I go with:

WAR ->
ERA+
FIP-
HR/9
H/9
BB/9
K/9

And of course I use BABIP as my reference point for all of this.

[84Cubs]

This is wonderful. Thank you!

For individual fielding, have you considered including Individual Defensive Efficiency.

[84Cubs]

Why do you prefer UZR/ZR over ZR? Is UZR even OOTP or is ZR basically UZR?