Batter Contact and Pitcher Movement Ratings useless?

[Herolover12]

Am I wrong?

Since OOTP 25 has come out I have stopped looking at the Batter Contact Rating and look at their Babip and Avoid K's. Similarly for the Pitchers Movement Rating I instead look at their HRA and Babip.

Should I be still looking at the Contact and Movement ratings? Am I wrong for not looking at it? I know there are probably more things that go into the Contact and Movement rating, but are that worthwhile to consider?

[kq76]

I don't think you're wrong, I try to do the same. Out of habit, however, I do still look at them.

EDIT: I'm particularly concerned over the Movement rating as I can't get it out of my head that HRA and pBABIP are usually opposing forces. That is, if you're not good HRA, then you're probably good at pBABIP, and vice versa. So it seems to me that it's more difficult to get a very high or very low Movement as while one component might bring it up, the other will bring it down.

[mytreds]

Unless something has changed in recent versions, ratings are telling you the future and stats are telling you the past and present.At least that’s how I understood it. But I could be wrong.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by kq76

I don't think you're wrong, I try to do the same. Out of habit, however, I do still look at them.

EDIT: I'm particularly concerned over the Movement rating as I can't get it out of my head that HRA and pBABIP are usually opposing forces. That is, if you're not good HRA, then you're probably good at pBABIP, and vice versa. So it seems to me that it's more difficult to get a very high or very low Movement as while one component might bring it up, the other will bring it down.

They're not really opposing forces. Yes, BABIP explicitly excludes HRs, but there's plenty of players who are either great at both, or terrible at both, and everything in the middle. Like if you take everyone in MLB this year and graph BABIP vs HR/9, it's roughly a flat line. Basically, your elite pitchers like Clase, Mason Miller, etc are often great at both. Generally speaking, though, BABIP tends to be clustered around the middle, while HR rate tends to be a wider spread. Like among pitchers with 100+ innings this year, all but a handful fall within a .240-.330 BABIP spread, but outside of the extreme few, HR/9 varies from roughly 0.5 up to 1.75.

[kq76]

Cool. I'm glad the extremes are still there then. I'll have to look more into those pitchers who excel at both.

Does Movement affect XBH and FBs? I ask b/c, as I'm sure you know, HR/FB rates don't typically vary that much from 10% over a lot of FBs, while if someone gives up a lot of FBs then they'll naturally be more likely to give up more HRs. That is, is HRA more FBAgainst rather than HRAgainst? Otherwise it would seem that Movement ignores the outfield while focussing on the infield and outside the park. And I just can't imagine that being true.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by kq76

Cool. I'm glad the extremes are still there then. I'll have to look more into those pitchers who excel at both.

Does Movement affect XBH and FBs? I ask b/c, as I'm sure you know, HR/FB rates don't typically vary that much from 10% over a lot of FBs, while if someone gives up a lot of FBs then they'll naturally be more likely to give up more HRs. That is, is HRA more FBAgainst rather than HRAgainst? Otherwise it would seem that Movement ignores the outfield while focussing on the infield and outside the park. And I just can't imagine that being true.

HRA in-game counts FB rate. But HR/FB does vary a little more than you think, though. This season, for example, among qualified SP, HR/FB is anywhere from 6% to 16%. Even over a larger sample, like everyone with 300 innings between 2021 and 2024, the range is still 8% (Verlander) to 17.6% (Kikuchi).