Partial results from 1 season with all 3 new roster sets

[jrdoa]

I've run 1 season of each new roster set. I'm trying to figure out which roster I would continue to use to get the most accurate stats possible. After running these, I'm still not satisfied which to use. Very interesting how Halofan and Toadfreak had the same results in the WS. Any, here are some of the results:

Cubbyfan's rosters:
Best team -- StL 103-59
World Series -- Texas beats Florida 4-1

Interesting Race -- Boston beats Toronto by 1 game to win AL East

Strange, or not so strange, stats:
AL had 9 relievers with 100+ appearances; NL had no one over 100 and had 10 over 73.
A-Rod leads league with 67 HR; next closest was Thome, Ramirez, & Ortiz (50)
Cy Young winner -- Ryan Drese with 21-7, 4.38 ERA, and 220k's in 242 innings

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Halofan rosters:
Best team -- New York Yankees 102-60
World Series -- Minnesota sweeps StL

Interesting Race -- Tampa takes 2nd in AL East with 77-85 record. BoSox finish 3rd at 77-85. Detroit wins Central Division and WSox finish last at 71-91.

Stats:
Suzuki wins batting title easily by .029. Also wins SB (89) by 33. Only 2 players had 40 or more home runs (Sosa and A. Rod). 9 relievers in the NL had over 92 appearances while only 1 in the AL had 90.

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Toadfreak Rosters:
Best Team -- LA Angels 99-63
World Series -- Minnesota beats StL 4-1

Nothing exciting with races

Stats:
10 players (AL) over .320 Batting Ave.; only 5 in NL
3 players over 40 HR in AL; 5 in NL
1 reliever over 90 appearances in AL while NL has 10 over 90 innings and 3 over 100 inn.

Rookie of Year: Jorge "Steroids" Piedra with .305, 22 HR, and 81 RBI

[jaydh]

at least one thing is consistent.... the cardinals dominating the national league. i believe there are only minor changes between halofan and toadfreak, and i really wouldnt expect a much different result between the two.

[Jonzard]

The Twins own the Cards!

[Cardinal Rule]

Originally Posted by Jonzard

The Twins own the Cards!

Arggh! Stupid 1987!

[rcbuss]

I'm curious as to how roster makers in general come up with defensive range ratings. They seem to be among the most difficult skills to quantify, and generate a lot of controversy, to say the least.

Taking the Yankees, for example, from the three roster sets:

Womack, Jeter, Rodriguez, Williams
2b/ss ss 3b/ss l/c/r

65/53, 77, 64/67, 48/61/50
62/25, 77, 64/67, 45/41/45
65/53, 77, 64/67, 48/61/50

Fr/Pr, Fr, Vg/Vg, Av/Pr/-- (DMB 2005 home-brew)

Baseball Prospectus-whipping boy Jeter gets a very good range rating, while Rodriguez, who has historically been a superior shortstop, gets inferior ratings. Contrast these ratings to those from a DMB 2005 prediction disk (can't remember who made it, but I downloaded it from the Baseball Primer website).

By the way, my intention was not to start a "Jeter is great/no he's not" flame war.

[dougaiton]

It's interesting. In my roster set, I used a formula I got from dh/hr based around quantifying BP's rate stats. Now, we can argue all we like about how good a defensive metric that is, but I kinda like it.

[dougaiton]

Dola,

By using that formula, which IMO works pretty well at least judging by the results (PWBL, and maybe the LoB too?), I'd be tempted to go somewhere near:

Tony Womack: 15/8 (he really is that bad)
Jeter: 40 (considering he was excellent last year defensively, before last year, I would put him at about 20)
A-Rod: 60/68
Bernie Williams: Somewhere around 35

Now, I in no way want to suggest that this is CORRECT, or better than anything out there. Everyone evaluates in their own way, and I choose to take a consistent base and apply it using a formula that created a few peak 5-star players, a lot of mediocre ones and some really bad ones. Obviously, the important thing is the results, and in most modern rosters ratings are higher than in mine.

Other people rate defense with their eyes, and that makes perfect sense for a modern league.

[andymac]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

It's interesting. In my roster set, I used a formula I got from dh/hr based around quantifying BP's rate stats. Now, we can argue all we like about how good a defensive metric that is, but I kinda like it.

Do you still have this forumula? I am working on a roster set and the defensive ratings are what I am having the most trouble with.

[dougaiton]

Originally Posted by andymac

Do you still have this forumula? I am working on a roster set and the defensive ratings are what I am having the most trouble with.

I certainly do, andy. I'm hesitant to post it because it wasn't mine, but I'll PM you it at the OTBL with it (my PMs here have been disabled).

[f.montoya]

I'd reccommend running the experiment with each roster set at least 20 times. Then average out your results for better comparison before choosing the set you want to use. Running the experiment only once per roster set is like giving Hank Aaron, Mario Mendoza and Dave Kingman only one at-bat to decide who's the best hitter.

Just my $.02

[Mike D]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

I certainly do, andy. I'm hesitant to post it because it wasn't mine, but I'll PM you it at the OTBL with it (my PMs here have been disabled).

Well, hey, that's not fair. I'd like to have it too. I'm not @the OTBL boards.

[dougaiton]

I might ask dh if it's alright to spread it around. I'm sure he won't mind, but it's just courtesy. It is the least difficult formula of all time.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

I might ask dh if it's alright to spread it around. I'm sure he won't mind, but it's just courtesy. It is the least difficult formula of all time.

is the formula for fielding % and for Range?

[dougaiton]

No. It was just for an approximation of Range. I typed in FP%, where I could, by hand, IIRC. Obviously, I don't know what you'd use for Arm! It really was a wee, basic measure for getting approximations of defensive quality. You just take the rate stat, subtract an integer, and then multiply by another integer!

[rcbuss]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

It's interesting. In my roster set, I used a formula I got from dh/hr based around quantifying BP's rate stats. Now, we can argue all we like about how good a defensive metric that is, but I kinda like it.

I'd be interested in that formula, as well, if it isn't too much trouble. The hardest value to get a handle on for a player in OOTP is that for his defense.

[dougaiton]

It's really, really simple - a quick and dirty estimate. Well, I hope darkhorse (the true hero of historical simming!) won't mind me dishing it out, but IIRC it's as simple as subtracting 88 from BP's rate stats and multiplying the remainder by 4.

For example, Andruw Jones has a career rate of 110, so -88, making 22. Multipy 22 by 4 and you get 88. Bernie Williams has a rate of 98, which would be a 40, but then he hasn't broken 92 (or 16) for 3 seasons, so I'd take it down a few points.

Obviously, you need to weight it in your own opinion. Jeter had an excellent year last year, worth something like 56 by this method, but he's only breached 25 once before.

It's still very subjective, and it does result in far fewer 10s (and far more bad defensive players) than subjective reasoning. I like that though, and I built my file around recreating 'proper' numbers with that in mind. Then again, I preferred to have a logical base to work from and adjust for there. I didn't really have the capacity to think about whether Ken Boyer was a better fielder than George Scott: for OOTP, the problem was not just judging who was better, but by 'how much' they were better.

[UngratefulDead]

Does anybody know if CBLCardinals will be making a 2005 set?

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by UngratefulDead

Does anybody know if CBLCardinals will be making a 2005 set?

not sure

Try Halofan Roster for 2005. there great

[<o>]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

not sure

Try Halofan Roster for 2005. there great

jbmagic=Tony the Tiger?

[rcbuss]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

It's really, really simple - a quick and dirty estimate. Well, I hope darkhorse (the true hero of historical simming!) won't mind me dishing it out, but IIRC it's as simple as subtracting 88 from BP's rate stats and multiplying the remainder by 4.

Thanks for the formula, dougaiton. It looks to be as good as any other estimation of defensive range.

After fooling around with darkhorse's formula, I did some playing around with the numbers at the Baseball Prospectus website. By extrapolating from the Rate, FRAR, and FRAA for a number of extremely good defensive players, I was able to deduce the Rate of a replacement player at each defensive position (per BP). I'm assuming that the "88" used by darkhorse in the original formula was meant to represent the replacement level player at a given position. A potential problem with this is that BP appears to have different replacement levels for each position, which appear to be as follows:

• c: 75
• 1b: 90
• 2b: 80
• 3b: 87
• ss: 80
• cf: 85
• lf/rf: 90

For what it's worth, the replacement level used for defense for pitchers is roughly 93.5.

With this one change, I've taken the liberty of modifying the original formula; we now have:

Range rating (/100) = (Rate - positional replacement Rate) * 4

Another question one needs to ask is: What range of ranges would one like to have? Do you want the occasional shortstop with defensive prowess of historic proportions to be reflected by a range in excess of 100 (~120), or would you rather have 100 be the cap? The answer to that question would determine how you set the multiplier (in this case, 4).

If one used the all-time career high for Rate at each position (e.g., SS - Ozzie Smith, 111) as the basis for setting the range rating to 100/100, one could conceivably come up with a formula for SS range such as this:

SS Range rating (/100) = (Rate - SS replacement rate (80)) * 3.225

This would then allow for extreme performances, such as that of SS Orlando Cabrera for Montreal in 2001 (Rate = 120). His OOTP SS Range for that season would be 129, his only season over 100. Ozzie, on the other hand, would have eleven seasons with an OOTP range of 100+.

What follows is a far from all-inclusive list of best Rate at each position, season and career:

season

• C Ivan Rodriguez, 127
• 1B Keith Hernandez 115
• 2B Bill Mazeroski, 121
• 3B Brooks Robinson, 120
• SS Orlando Cabrera, 120
• CF Andruw Jones, 121
• LF/RF Dwight Evans, 116; Barry Bonds, 115

career

• C IRod, Johnny Bench, 112
• 1B Hernandez, 107
• 2B Mazeroski, 113
• 3B Rolen, 108
• SS O.Smith, 111
• CF A.Jones, 111
• LF/RF Evans, Bonds, 104