The New Pitching Ratings/Talent

[xvagrantxchristx]

I'm really not a big fan of the pitchers only being rated on "stuff" "control" and "movement". I know this probably has to do with the introduction of DIPS and trying to make the game as realistic as possible, but what exactly is the difference between "stuff" and "movement". I was always under the impression that if a pitcher had good "stuff" that meant he had good movement on his pitches. Maybe one of the categories should be changed to something like "mental toughness", which is another really important aspect of pitching.

~~Christopher Martin (NOT THE LEADSINGER OF COLDPLAY!)

[IatricSB]

Somebody did a study to show the differences but I don't have the link handy. Somebody will probably post it. If not do a search.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Poise! Bring back Poise!

[darrylr]

Here is the results of my testing on these:

http://members.rogers.com/darrylr976...tp-ratings.htm

Here is a thread where we discussed it:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=62558

Stuff Affects the rate of K's and 1B's. It has no effect on 2B's, 3B's, HR's. It has a very slight effect on BB's.

Movement affects HR's and also slightly effects K's.

Control affects almost everything including 1B's, 2B's, 3B's, and K's. Higher control actually increases the rate of all these. This is most likely due to more balls in play. It has no effect on HR's but has a huge effect on BB's.

Velocity has no effect at all.

-Darryl

[kcork51]

I always thought that "stuff" and "movement" were close to the same thing also, but I guess not, a clarification would be nice.

I also remember reading somewhere on here that "velocity" doesn't even hardly factor in to how good your pitcher is. That just seem ridiculous to me. I know guy's that throw slow can still be effective, but it never hurt any pitcher to throw a 95+ heater. Believe me, nobody here would have ever heard of Billy Wagner if he couldn't hum it.

Just my opinion,
KC

[Henry]

The issue of velocity, I believe, was an oversite. There is a question into Markus about this.

Henry

[xvagrantxchristx]

Hey darryl man, thanks for the links, that is some insane testing you have done. Its good to know the difference between the two in the game's eyes, but I think coming from a casual fan's point of view the wording should really be changed because "stuff" and "movement", when referring to pitchers, mean basically the same thing.

The only way I think that velocity should ever be factored into how good a pitcher is, is if the game ever evolves to recognize the difference between pitches. Right now a pitcher's pitch selection means nothing, but if different pitches ever start to produce different results, then I think velocity should be recognized. Because if you have a pitcher that can throw a fastball 95+ and then break off a changeup or curveball at around 75 he is going to be much more effective than a fastball/curveball/changeup guy whose fastball only reaches the mid-to-upper 80s.

Christopher Martin (not the leadsinger of coldplay!)

[nestajones]

Originally posted by xvagrantxchristx
I'm really not a big fan of the pitchers only being rated on "stuff" "control" and "movement". I know this probably has to do with the introduction of DIPS and trying to make the game as realistic as possible, but what exactly is the difference between "stuff" and "movement". I was always under the impression that if a pitcher had good "stuff" that meant he had good movement on his pitches.

I agree with you. As said, in OOTP "stuff" is the primary influence on strikeouts, and "movement" is the primary influence on HR allowed.

but in reality, what is the difference? I consider these to be ratings from my scouts. Like the man said, if a scout, or anyone, told me a guy has great stuff, I take it to mean his pitches have movement. And vice versa. Can you think of a real pitcher who you would describe as having great stuff but poor movement? They're not synonymous, but they overlap a great deal.

Within the game, I understand how it works. I'm just not sure these are the terms that make most sense. Maybe velocity (as apparently was intended) and groundball % could have more effect? A combination of stuff and groundball % could affect the pitcher's HR rate.

In real life, what do you rate when watching a pitcher? "Stuff," control, velocity. What else?

[xvagrantxchristx]

Originally posted by nestajones

In real life, what do you rate when watching a pitcher? "Stuff," control, velocity. What else?

As I stated before, I think that the mental make-up of a pitcher has a lot to do with his success. Look at what happened to Rick Ankiel a few years ago. He had great "stuff" but suffered a mental breakdown and couldn't find the strike zone. And I'm an Anaheim guy so I'll give you a local example, Ramon Ortiz, has wonderful "stuff", good velocity, good control, but he gets too emotional and starts overthrowing everything when something goes wrong.

~~Christopher Martin (not the lead singer of COLDPLAY!)

[Henry]

Guys,

The issue about "how" to calculate the DIPS result is done. The system works as designed. I will agree that the terminology of the ratings may be confusing, but there are no "standard" definitions of movement or stuff, so I wouldn't suspect changing them would make it any clearer.

Henry

[NoxiousDog]

Originally posted by xvagrantxchristx
As I stated before, I think that the mental make-up of a pitcher has a lot to do with his success. Look at what happened to Rick Ankiel a few years ago. He had great "stuff" but suffered a mental breakdown and couldn't find the strike zone. And I'm an Anaheim guy so I'll give you a local example, Ramon Ortiz, has wonderful "stuff", good velocity, good control, but he gets too emotional and starts overthrowing everything when something goes wrong.

~~Christopher Martin (not the lead singer of COLDPLAY!)

Or Tim Redding. Great Stuff, poor concentration.

[nestajones]

[

Originally posted by xvagrantxchristx
As I stated before, I think that the mental make-up of a pitcher has a lot to do with his success. Look at what happened to Rick Ankiel a few years ago. He had great "stuff" but suffered a mental breakdown and couldn't find the strike zone.

I don't think Ankiel is a great example. He's such an extreme case. I mean, he got to the point where he literally couldn't throw a strike, which many average amateur athletes could do. That's not "mental makeup" or "poise," that's a psychosis. If we put him in the game, he'd a get a Control of 0, lots of WP and HBP, and he'd perform just like he should/does - poorly.

I won't discount that some pitchers probably are more poised than others and get less agitated by tough situations than others. But how do you measure it? I think anyone who is able to reach the majors is pretty good at handling pressure. You brought up Ramon Ortiz. I certainly haven't seen him pitch enough to make any conclusions myself. But how do you know he gets emotional? Does he make faces and yell at himself? When Roger Clemens is "emotional" he's being "competitive," but when Ortiz does it he's falling apart? Does he pitch worse when he's in trouble? Well over the past 3 seasons, his OPS against with runners on base is 70 points less than with bases empty. So how do you make the judgement that it's his mental makeup which hurts him? Maybe he's just exactly what the stats say he is - a mediocre pitcher who's slipping quickly.

And how would you include a mental makeup rating in historical leagues? Would it be randomly generated? That's not good.

If a player branded a malcontent goes to a new team and new situation with a manager who can handle him, is his mental makeup suddenly better? Should his rating improve?

I won't completely disregard the concept, as some probably will. But I don't think we know how to measure it or account for it in a game like this, and I think it's not nearly as important as a pitcher's ability in K, HR, and BB - like we already have.

[nestajones]

Originally posted by Henry
The issue about "how" to calculate the DIPS result is done. The system works as designed. I will agree that the terminology of the ratings may be confusing, but there are no "standard" definitions of movement or stuff, so I wouldn't suspect changing them would make it any clearer.

You're probably right, I guess it's just semantics, and I understand what the ratings mean as they are. It will probably be one of these things that just keeps bothering me, but if most don't care, i can certainly live w/ it.

What about something like "Command"? Another vague term...I kind of take it to mean "control within the strikezone." A pitcher may have great control - too good, he never walks anyone but keeps catching too much of the plate. Command could be ability to move the ball around and catch corners. Someone like Tom Glavine might have average "stuff" and average control (in terms of BB/IP), but excellent command.

Now, is that what directly (or mostly) prevents HR? Well, maybe not, but it can't hurt. To me, that would make more sense as a third major rating for pitchers.

[crackpott]

Originally posted by nestajones
but in reality, what is the difference? I consider these to be ratings from my scouts. Like the man said, if a scout, or anyone, told me a guy has great stuff, I take it to mean his pitches have movement. And vice versa. Can you think of a real pitcher who you would describe as having great stuff but poor movement? They're not synonymous, but they overlap a great deal.

I always thought them to be synonymous. If not, stuff is a little more broad, but still encompases all of movement, so...

Simple answer... Markus wanted to make 3 different categories. Control was obvious, he had to come up with names for the other two. The categories are different, just unfortunately named so that they have the same name.

[xvagrantxchristx]

Originally posted by nestajones
[



I won't discount that some pitchers probably are more poised than others and get less agitated by tough situations than others. But how do you measure it? I think anyone who is able to reach the majors is pretty good at handling pressure. You brought up Ramon Ortiz. I certainly haven't seen him pitch enough to make any conclusions myself. But how do you know he gets emotional? Does he make faces and yell at himself? When Roger Clemens is "emotional" he's being "competitive," but when Ortiz does it he's falling apart? Does he pitch worse when he's in trouble? Well over the past 3 seasons, his OPS against with runners on base is 70 points less than with bases empty. So how do you make the judgement that it's his mental makeup which hurts him? Maybe he's just exactly what the stats say he is - a mediocre pitcher who's slipping quickly.

When you watch Ortiz pitch, you can see it in his facial expressions, when he is going good he is calm and collected, then when he gives up a couple hits in a row, or a fielder makes an error, or an umpire squeezes a strike; you can see him start to make different facial expressions and his overall physical presence is like a child being repremanded. You also can see him trying to throw the ball too hard, causing the breaking balls to hang and lose control of the fastball. The point I'm trying to make is that some pitchers handle pressure very poorly, while others (such as your example of Clemens) use it to their advantage to pump them up.

[nestajones]

Originally posted by xvagrantxchristx
When you watch Ortiz pitch, you can see it in his facial expressions, when he is going good he is calm and collected, then when he gives up a couple hits in a row, or a fielder makes an error, or an umpire squeezes a strike; you can see him start to make different facial expressions and his overall physical presence is like a child being repremanded. You also can see him trying to throw the ball too hard, causing the breaking balls to hang and lose control of the fastball. The point I'm trying to make is that some pitchers handle pressure very poorly, while others (such as your example of Clemens) use it to their advantage to pump them up.

But if this is so, why doesn't it show up in his stats?

You seem to be defining a pressure situation as "when he gives up a couple hits in a row, or a fielder makes an error." This makes sense; there's now men on base.

However, as I said in my last post, over the past three seasons he's performed notably better with men on base than with bases empty.

for the hell of it, i'm taking a closer look. over 2001-3, he has faced about 1500 batters w/ bases empty, and 1000 batters w/ runners on. That's a pretty good sample size.

Bases empty: He has struck out 14.2% of batters, walked 7.8%, given up homers to 4.5% (.799 OPS)
Runners on: K's up to 18.1%, walks the same, 8.2%, homers halved to just 2.3%. (.729 OPS)

So apparently all these hanging curves are being missed

There's certainly other ways you could define "pressure," but then you start getting into small sample size issues.

I won't argue with your observations - maybe Ortiz does get bothered by tough situations. But there is no apparent dropoff in his performance. Maybe you've seen some games where he seemed to fall apart. But if his performance is truly affected by tough situations, it has to show up in the results.


Furthermore, as far as Clemens...people used to say he didn't handle pressure well, he got too pumped up. Then he had a couple brilliant playoff games and that talk mostly stopped. Had Clemens' "makeup" improved? Or had he just had a few average games in the past, as every player does?

[xvagrantxchristx]

You know, the more I think about it, you're right. Most of Ortiz's problems come with no one on...he gets himself into trouble and then somehow finds a way to get out of it. So maybe that was a bad example. My biggest frustration is the naming of the categories, I just have a hard time seeing stuff and movement as two different categories and was trying to think of another category name that would make more sense.

[nestajones]

Originally posted by xvagrantxchristx
My biggest frustration is the naming of the categories, I just have a hard time seeing stuff and movement as two different categories and was trying to think of another category name that would make more sense.

like i said, I agree with you on that.

What do you think of my suggestion of "Command"? (Scroll up a few posts.)

[JDOldSchool]

Perhaps Command can replace Stuff.

When I think of a guy who has command, I think of someone that can control a game (mostly through Ks, not walking, etc). That would leave Stuff/Movement for the homers category. Either term works for me.

At the same time, I do see a difference between stuff and movement. A guy with a 100mph fastball can be said to have good stuff, even if the ball is straight (sure, he'd need another pitcher or something to truly be effective).

My example: The real life Billy Koch has good stuff. His fastball is back around 94-95 and he has a nice breaking ball. His fastball, however, is almost entirely straight. Poor movement. He also has poor control.

Of course, with all the other things involved with this game, I've got no problem if this minor thing is never changed.

[Skipaway]

I think we should just call them rating A, rating B, and rating C.