Pitching Rating Question - MOVEMENT, PBABIP, and HR

[eygabma]

I thought I read this somewhere and need some clarification. For PT, they added PBABIP and HR for pitchers and these are now the basis for MOVEMENT. My understanding is for franchise play these values don't mean anything and MOVEMENT is still standalone and the key. Am I missing something? Did I misunderstand something? If I start a live franchise I thought only MOVEMENT mattered and the PBABIP/HR values weren't used.

Please let me know if I'm right/wrong and how this works.

Thanks!

[Syd Thrift]

Movement as you see it on the screen is an amalgamation of the actual movement rating, the pitcher’s flyball rating (because it used to be more or less just about seeing what a guy’s HR rate was at a glance), and the PBABIP rating. If you’re doing a current year or fictional league, nobody gets generated with their own PBABIP so Movement is basically just the first two (although even at the defaults BABIP can be affected by certain pitches as well as velocity).

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Movement as you see it on the screen is an amalgamation of the actual movement rating, the pitcher’s flyball rating (because it used to be more or less just about seeing what a guy’s HR rate was at a glance), and the PBABIP rating. If you’re doing a current year or fictional league, nobody gets generated with their own PBABIP so Movement is basically just the first two (although even at the defaults BABIP can be affected by certain pitches as well as velocity).

As far as I understand it, that's not exactly true. Yes, most players have 0 for PBABIP (and if they do, then they default to .291), but some don't. Look at Alek Manoah's ratings in the editor for example. His PBABIP is 160, which equals .267, so he gets an above average rating / below average stat.

I'm not sure of the first sentence either, but I think it's correct. In the editor there are multiple movement ratings including Raw, Old, and New. I believe some process was used to modify the Raw rating to get the Old rating and now a different or additional process is used to get the New rating.

There's a "groundout %" in the editor, which, I guess, acts as a flyball/groundball modifier. Although calling it "groundout %" makes me think it might mean something slightly different (the % of outs that are groundouts as opposed to the % of balls hit being groundballs), my guess is it is meant as a groundball/flyball modifier.

Now Framber Valdez is known for giving up a lot of groundballs so let's look at his GO%. It's 75 (it says the average is 54). Manoah is known as a flyball pitcher and his GO% is 44. Looks good, makes sense. (Framber doesn't have 0 for his PBABIP either.)

Now just by looking at Manoah's ratings in the editor, it looks like his Raw Movement starts high, but because his "groundout %" is low (he gives up more flyballs), his Movement rating gets decreased (he gives up more HRs and flyballs). But once you factor in his above average PBABIP rating, his Movement rating goes up again, but not to where it started.

Here's a year old video on pitching ratings by OOTP's AZAxle. What he says seems to jive with the above too.

The more I play PT, the more I wish the BABIP ratings were displayed in regular OOTP. They can really make you think of the game of baseball in a different way, a way I appreciate.

[eygabma]

It's all clear as mud - thanks guys. Seriously, I appreciate the feedback. It truly is most appreciated. The deeper I dig the further down the rabbit hole I fall. Thanks for the info.

[kq76]

I'll try to make it simpler. Movement is often very important, regardless of whether you're playing PT or regular OOTP. What determines how important it is is the run environment of the league. If the league gives up a lot of home runs then Movement is even more important than it is in a deadball league. But Movement isn't just about HRs, it's also about other extra base hits and even singles hit hard enough to get past the defense. So if you're playing in a league that doesn't give up a lot of home runs, you might not want to care so much about the overall Movement rating or the HR rating, but you still might want to care about the PBABIP rating. And if your league gives up a lot of HRs, then you really should care a lot about all the Movement ratings.

[eygabma]

I get MOVEMENT. The questions were truly around GB/FB tendency and how it relates to HRs and how the new PBABIP and PHR ratings were tied to current sims in franchise mode. My belief, based on what was said here and conversations I’ve had elsewhere is that GB/FB has very little impact on HR rate and current sims with current players still primarily focus on just pure movement. There is PT data to correlate PHR and HR rate, which makes perfect sense, it just also says GB/FB has no empirical evidence of correlation. GB/FB is really something used to tell more where hit balls go - into the ground or into the air.

Always learning. Always listening and asking more questions.

Thanks.

[kq76]

I'm pretty sure they're using the same engine (different environment, but same engine), it's just that BABIP was considered too much, at least at the time, for regular OOTP and so it was hidden. As I pointed out, you can see PBABIP for some players in regular OOTP and why bother doing that if they're not being used.

As far as correlation, if A (GB%), B, and C determine D, and D, E, F, and who knows what else determine Z (HRs), then it's going to be difficult to tie A to Z because it's impact was already through D. Whatever its impact, it's probably small enough that you can instead focus on D (Movement) however.

And I'd be suspicious of someone saying something has "no empirical evidence of correlation". It could simply mean that the person who ran the regression didn't model it very well. Did they only run one model and accepted what they saw? Or did they tweak it and run multiple different models? Did they include all the variables they could think of, even variables that are dependent on other variables, or did they only include variables that are truly independent? There are plenty of things they could have done wrong. I'm no regression expert, but even I know not to fully trust the regressions I do.

[eygabma]

Thanks so much for all the feedback. It's great to continue to learn. I truly appreciate the help.

[Pelican]

I realize that it can be frustrating to try to wrap you arms around the various ratings and how they are derived and what they mean. To me - still grappling with it - it is fascinating how complex it can be. Never easy, but then IRL so much of performance can be unpredictable or inconsistent. I wouldn't want to define characteristics to the point they were too predictive. But then, I'm a recent convert to a high TCR setting, which can create some surprises.

[OutS|der]

The BABIP rating was brought in to help "fix" some historical pitchers who weren't performing up to thier historical standards. It was a well know flaw in the historical game but only became a concern when the money maker PT started having the same issues.

It's a good thing since it means the stand alone game will be better for, it's not so good when you realize this clearly shows the priority is PT.