LOL At Ratings

[Ted]

Okay so Ron or I will have a more comprehensive, detailed post out about the shift from relative ratings to real and how you might want to adjust your thinking, but here are some early thoughts.

One, I'm kind of reeling. These ratings are crazy nuts, but not outside of what I expected. Actually, they are dead on. It's just so much that it still stuns the mind a bit.

The big thing we can see now is the answer to all of us going, "Why can't my 6 or 7 contact guy hit for average at all?" With relative ratings on, that 6 or 7 contact was facing 7 to 10 stuff. A mismatch, but not one that should make they hit .210. Sure, the 10 stuff guy has them overmatched, but they should be okay against the 7 stuff guy. And there were a LOT of 7 stuff guys.

With the curtain of relative ratings pulled back, we now see that that was a 7 to 8 contact guy facing guys with stuff in the 9 to 12 range. The entire range is a giant mismatch. Look at Fernando Cruz, he's 7/6/10/8/9 and can't hit for shit. He had 6 con (relative) and has 7 (real). My 7 stuff pitchers from before now have 9 stuff. Even a guy like Luis Gracia, who had 4 stuff before we turned off relative stuff, now has 6. One of the lowest usable stuff guys in the league doesn't give Fernando Cruz's 7 Con much of an advantage.

Remembering how relative ratings worked, we expected the 5-7 ratings to move the most, so these next few guidelines are about those players. Also, this isn't that accurate, just a rough estimate for anyone asking "what the hell do my ratings mean now"? Again, Ron or I will have something more definitive out later.

*** Above and below, I'll talk about con vs stuff, but that's not really what happens. It's actually AVK vs stuff. Con is a function of AVK/BABIP/Power. But that gets confusing, so we'll stick to CON vs Stuff. Note that AVK is NEVER higher than CON. This is the real reason for the mismatch we have being so bad. Our Stuff ratings are somewhat higher than our CON. There is some overlap. But STUFF generally exceeds AVK across the board, so this is the real reason our guys who seemingly should have better contact hitting don't. They can't overcome the STUFF/AVK mismatch. If you were setting up a league to be even, STUFF and AVK should balanced. Not CON and AVK. CON should probably run higher than AVK.

STUFF: 5-7 is now 7-9. Our stuff is stupid crazy high. 7 stuff is about the low end of usable and their other ratings better be good.

MOTION: 4-6 is now 5-7. This isn't much of a change from when we went to relative ratings a decade ago. Just adjust your thinking upward by a point.

CONTROL: Not as sure here. Seems like 4-7 is now 5 to 8. Just a single point increase or so, but now it's more obvious how it's a big mismatch with EYE and this is one reason our walk rates are so bad.

CONTACT: 4-7 is now 5-9. There's a lot of variability here. Some 4's became 6. Some became 5. Some 7's went to 8. Some to 9. I'd say this is about a 1.5 point increase. Just not the TWO points of Stuff everyone gained. Again, this is why we can't seem to hit for average.

POWER: 5-7 is 6-8. Pretty much just went up a point.

EYE: 4-7 is now 4.5 to 7.5. Most didn't really change, some went up a point.

Anywho, don't take this for gospel, again, just a rough guide for people who haven't been through this before or people who don't want to spend hours looking at players to figure out what happened. And we'll have something more definitive at some point.

[jleddy]

Good stuff

[aaronweiner]

I have a 10-7-6 reliever who's a 45 rating.

I also have a 10-6-6 who's a 40.

I'm starting to see the value in relative ratings.

[usnspecialist]

I have a 10-7-6 reliever who's a 45 rating.

I also have a 10-6-6 who's a 40.

I'm starting to see the value in relative ratings.

the simplest answer (and i cant imagine it is that hard to do), is for GMs to be able to toggle between relative and absolute at their leisure. We do it with switching ratings between legs, so i know something like that is possible...

[Ted]

I have a 10-7-6 reliever who's a 45 rating.

I also have a 10-6-6 who's a 40.

I'm starting to see the value in relative ratings.

So, don't fall for this.

You only see value because your brain naturally wants 10 to be good and 5 to be bad. But to get that, you have to lose perspective. Relative ratings don't shift the numbers. They scale them. There's a huge problem there.

You can create a league that has real ratings where the average contact is 2 and the average stuff is 7. You can then turn relative ratings on and it will look like a bunch of 5 contacts versus a bunch of 6 or 7 stuff. And everyone will hit .020. Because relative ratings only scales what you see. It doesn't change what's going on under the hood.

Having real ratings lets us better understand the talent distribution of our league. The very problem you are complaining about, having a 10-6-6, 40 POT reliever, happened BECAUSE we had relative ratings on. We turned them on during a time when we had a bunch of explosively more talented drafts, continue to have those drafts, and didn't see everything getting out of whack under the hood. Now we lift the hood, and everything is jacked up. Turning relative ratings back on won't fix this or make it better. It will just cause the engine to further break down out of sight.

[GoldenOne]

Another potential problem now is people going crazy in their valuations in trade talks. You've got to make sure you arent just seeing the bumps in your guys but also how much did the other team's guys bump as well.

[Ted]

I have a 10-7-6 reliever who's a 45 rating.

I also have a 10-6-6 who's a 40.

I'm starting to see the value in relative ratings.

The other part of this is that OOTP 21 did something funky to reliever POT. With the version switch from 20 to 21, reliever POTs all dropped a ton. So this isn't all relative vs real ratings.

[Dington]

I have a 10-7-6 reliever who's a 45 rating.

I also have a 10-6-6 who's a 40.

I'm starting to see the value in relative ratings.

the simplest answer (and i cant imagine it is that hard to do), is for GMs to be able to toggle between relative and absolute at their leisure. We do it with switching ratings between legs, so i know something like that is possible...

I don't believe we can toggle between relative ratings or else this wouldn't be an issue. Not sure it's an option, I think it's just not built into the league like toggling between leagues, unfortunately.

[usnspecialist]

I have a 10-7-6 reliever who's a 45 rating.

I also have a 10-6-6 who's a 40.

I'm starting to see the value in relative ratings.

the simplest answer (and i cant imagine it is that hard to do), is for GMs to be able to toggle between relative and absolute at their leisure. We do it with switching ratings between legs, so i know something like that is possible...

I don't believe we can toggle between relative ratings or else this wouldn't be an issue. Not sure it's an option, I think it's just not built into the league like toggling between leagues, unfortunately.

i know we cant, im saying i cant believe that markus and those guys have not built one in.

[recte44]

Gotta say I am missing the relative ratings already/

[JimBob2232]

Armstrong - 16 stuff. wowzers.

[Ted]

Gotta say I am missing the relative ratings already/

I mean, if you don't like knowing how good your players are or aren't.

[7teen]

For me, the challenge is just getting re-adjusted to these ratings. As Lane mentioned, seeing a guy with good ratings only be a 40 or 45 rated player is confusing to the eye and mind right now.

Convincing myself these are still the same players when my eyes are telling me they are studs will just take some adjustment time.

[jiminyhopkins]

Huh. Shouldn't have traded Mitchell Purssell and his 17 stuff LOL

[HoosierVic]

Huh. Shouldn't have traded Mitchell Purssell and his 17 stuff LOL

Mitch sends his love ...

[crobillard]

The other thing to consider is that every year after the Landis I remember players always receiving that weird bump that then goes away at Spring Training. Maybe what we're seeing is not just relative vs. actual ratings but it's also that weird bump actually happening under the hood. Not a great situation if that's happening, but it could explain away some of what we're seeing.

We've adjusted to rating changes before. I think we'll be okay here. Looking at this now though, maybe another ratings change should be considered. I like actual ratings better, but perhaps a larger scale is the answer. Some more knowledgeable OOTP vets might know whether this would help or not. If we changed 1-20 would we see Armstrong move to something like a 24 Stuff instead of 16 or would it change in a different way? A similar question would be 1-100, not that I love that solution either, just brainstorming whether additional changes would actually help us in evaluating players better or if we would have the same issue.

Regardless, if we change nothing, I'm confident we can adjust accordingly. Maybe stuff of 10+ is essential for a good SP for example. The colors just are not as reliable as we're used to.

[Ted]

The other thing to consider is that every year after the Landis I remember players always receiving that weird bump that then goes away at Spring Training. Maybe what we're seeing is not just relative vs. actual ratings but it's also that weird bump actually happening under the hood. Not a great situation if that's happening, but it could explain away some of what we're seeing.

We've adjusted to rating changes before. I think we'll be okay here. Looking at this now though, maybe another ratings change should be considered. I like actual ratings better, but perhaps a larger scale is the answer. Some more knowledgeable OOTP vets might know whether this would help or not. If we changed 1-20 would we see Armstrong move to something like a 24 Stuff instead of 16 or would it change in a different way? A similar question would be 1-100, not that I love that solution either, just brainstorming whether additional changes would actually help us in evaluating players better or if we would have the same issue.

Regardless, if we change nothing, I'm confident we can adjust accordingly. Maybe stuff of 10+ is essential for a good SP for example. The colors just are not as reliable as we're used to.

Changing the scale won't matter. Armstrong would be like 32 on 1-20. The 2-8, 1-10, 2-10, 1-100 would all appear to be distributed the same. We'd be at/over the top or any of them.

It's just an adjustment period for us, as you say . And if we stick to it with thet "unexciting drafts" eventually the ratings bloat will go away. It'll be 5-6 seasons, but we'll get there.

[sjshaw]

Relative ratings are the devil

[sjshaw]

The change also seems to be affecting FA requests, as several players in the pool have increased their demands after the switch. Can't say for sure whether the change is the cause, but it's certainly interesting.

[Lane]

What are you comparing with to determine that??