Some of this is about scarcity, right? How many guys of various ratings are we playing is the right answer, but the caveat here is to wonder if that’s because there are no other guys available.
THE PROCESS
I say that because in answering the questions, I’m going to take a snapshot that looks like this: give me a list of all players listed as SP and who have started a baseball game for a BBA team. This sounds good, but in practice it means I’ll miss a couple things. First, any player on the DL (like my own Hiroyasu Osaragi) doesn’t count right now. In addition, guys who are RP and starting don’t make it either. Both Madison and Brooklyn are working in this way, and I don’t want to include them because a player’s RP 20/80 rating will be different than his SP 20/80 rating. I’d rather not mess up the data.
So, yeah.
Bottom line is this…the charts below are essentially a histogram of the relative ratings of players we’re using. If they matched the concept, they’d be perfectly “normal” and focused around “50.” Of course, they are not. Instead, in practice today they are focused on 55, and jagged.
HEREs THE DATA
Code: Select all
POT 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 Total
Pitchers 3 10 11 11 25 24 22 8 12 4 9 139
HERE’s THE DATA BY TEAM
Sorted by average 20/80 potential.
A FEW COMMENTS
I think it’s important to understand that, by the usage (And assuming you trust the OOTP ratings…which is a different topic all-together), a “50” starting pitcher is NOT average. 55 is average. I’ll admit I’m deeply interested in how this will manifest itself in actual performance. How far of a drop is there in the FIP or ERA of a 55 vs. a 50? I have no real idea. It could well be that the OOTP algorithm for these calculations is so weird that it won’t really matter. Only time will tell.
I also think it’s interesting to see the team-by-team breakout—particularly how the scatter spreads across the chart, as well as noting that Madison and Brooklyn’s experimental approach is bending the concept a bit. Which is interesting, eh?
Anyway…there’s the data. What do you see? Feel free to educate me!