Relative Ratings and Platoon Splits: Batters
Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 5:49 pm
I've suspected for awhile now that OOTP's relative ratings do not handle big platoon splits well. What I wondered is, "Is it weighing the likelihood of a player with a big split to not face the weak half of their split heavy enough when giving overall scores?" This would be hard to do, but I think it probably isn't done much at all. There's also the question of whether it should be, or if that is something to be left up to users. For a long time, I think OOTP has not done a good job in the way it handles platoon advantage. It basically leaves it up to us understand that a left handed batter 6 is better against a right handed pitcher than a right handed batter 6. The problem is the degree to which that player is better. It is a LOT. I've felt this should be baked into the ratings somewhat. But unless you hold the ratio of RHP to LHP perfectly constant, that gets really tricky.
I also wonder, how much is my perception that it's dragging down it's overall grade too much on any player with a split related to my understanding that the player won't be facing their weak side much, or does the game really over do it. Here's the player who is my inspiration.
http://montybrewster.net/BBA/HTML/news/ ... 26218.html
Anyway, that got me wondering if the overall ratings are wholly inadequate to evaluate players with big splits. I started with batters, and here is what I did. In a default MLB league with our settings for seeing ratings (1-10, show ratings above 10, relative ratings, etc) I made a left handed second baseman who is the middle of 50 for his overall rating. He's a 7 defender at 2B with 7 speed. I feel that's fairly "meh" to not throw the calculations off much. Being a 2B will make his batting ability to get to 50 a bit lower than say a 1B, but I don't think it will affect the data much. I'll check.
To be a middle of the road 50, all his internal ratings for BABIP*/GAP/POW/EYE/AVK were set to 107 and 108 (see table below).
(* For those of you that don't know, THERE IS NO INTERNAL CON RATING. CON is a function of BABIP and AVK, and to a lesser degree POW. To maintain any given CON, if you hold power steady, increasing AVK means you HAVE to decrease BABIP, and vice versa. This is critically important when evaluating players and everyone needs to understand it. It's also not how baseball actually works and it a pet peeve of mine.)
All 100 was 35
All 106 was 45
All 107 to 108 was 50
All 109 was 55
All 112 was 60
So I settled on 107 to 108 (108 for pow and gap). This gave me a 6/5/6/6/6 left handed 50 rated 2B.
The first thing I note is that there is NO CHANGE when you make the batter right handed, confirming that OOTP does not take handedness into account much if at all when assigning overall scores. You just have to know that left handed players are "better", in that if you use them to their platoon advantage, they will massively outperform RHB versus RHP. But that's not baked into the game at all. (FYI there was no change with switch hitters either).
Okay, so now I started making splits. In the next three cases, I only changed the versus left splits. The versus right splits stayed 107 and 108 and the player stayed 6/5/6/6/6 versus right handed major league hitting.
Case 1: a little worse against LHP (Player is 6/5/6/6/6 against AAA LHP), change all LH splits to 101 -> vsl becomes 5/4/5/5/6 in bigs-> Overall to 45.
- This seems reasonable. Slight detraction from my "middle 50" player makes him just below a 50.
Case 2: a lot worse against LHP (player is 6/5/6/6/6 versus AA pitching), change all LH splits to 85 ->vsl becomes 4/3/4/5/5 in bigs-> Overall to 35
- Seems drastic, right? This is where OOTP not taking into account that players platoon is a real problem. This guy is essentially the same player as the original version. The game is basically saying he is a"worse player" because he has to be platooned, which is true, but I think it this system discounts the understanding of uses that LHB won't play against their weak side as much.
Case 3: abysmal versus LHP (player is 6/5/6/6/6 versus LHP at low A level) change all LH splits to 63 -> vsl becomes 2/2/3/3/4 in bigs, overall to 25.
- This is kind of nuts. The player's utility is basically the same as case 2. He's NOT going to face LHP in either case.
Okay, so here's where it gets wacky. In each of the preceding cases, when I change the better handedness from a left handed bat to a right handed one, the overall rating DOESN'T CHANGE. That's right. A left handed bat with 6/5/6/6/6 splits against RHP is rated the same as a right handed bat with 2/2/3/3/4 splits against left handed pitching. Notably, that right handed bat is still 6/5/6/6/6 against RHP, but these are VASTLY different players and the batting handedness is not taken into account at all.
So that's a big flaw with the rating system. And with relative ratings, where the increase or falloff once you get outside the big "median cluster" is pretty dramatic, the misleading nature of the overall rating of players with huge splits is rather impressive.
Let's try a couple increases. We're back to left handed batters.
Case 6: Increase all LH splits to 109 - > overall still 50. Ratings 6/5/6/6/7 versus LHP
- not a big change. Makes some sense. All ratings 109 barely made the guy a 55 if you remember from above.
Case 7: increase all LH splits to 112 -> overall to 55. Ratings 7/5/6/6/7 versus LHP.
- Still seems reasonable.
Case 8, swap these LH and RH splits from case 7, that is, 107 and 108 versus lhp, 112 versus RHP. - > player is a 60 and 7/5/6/6/7 versus RHP
- Okay, so here's where we start to see what the game does. It doesn't take batter handedness into account. What is does is rate a player better for hitting RHP well more than it does for hitting LHP well. That's part of the problem with the overall rating. It kind of makes sense because there are more RHP's, but it's a secondary way of rating platoon advantage. It approximates the effect, rather than explicitly define it.
And again, there was no difference in making the batter LH versus RH for these. This means there is more to be gleaned here. Case 7 for a left handed batter is an LHB with reverse splits, but who is not worse against RHB, just slightly better against LHB. (These players are very rare and frankly can perform kind of strangely because the reverse split of a batter tends to get overpowered by the pitcher's platoon advantage).
The RIGHT HANDED version of case 7 is the typical OOTP RHB with a slight positive split against LHP.
So, the next logical question is what happens with lower RH splits?
Case 9: back to 107 and 108 versus LHP and AAA level versus RHP (101). This is the reverse of case 1. Player become 5/4/5/6/6 versus big league righties. Overall goes to 40.
So what we've confirmed here is that the game changes the overall potential MORE for changes in versus right splits than versus left splits. The exact opposite splits from case 1 (i.e. worse against LHP) made a 45, not a 40.
I reversed the splits from case 2, and the game called the batter a 20.
Study results for an MLB league:
1) Batter handedness is not factored into the overall rating.
2) The ability to hit right handed pitching is weighted more heavily than the ability to hit left handed pitching. The amount is significant!
3) For hitting LHP like a lower level player (bigs to AAA to AA, etc) the game removes points from the overall rating that is something like 5 for the first level, 10 for the second, etc. The increase "demerit" with each level makes sense in a relative ratings environment where the game is concerned how CLOSE you are to the median.
4) For hitting RHP like a lower level player (bigs to AAA, etc etc) the effect on the overall ratings seems about double that of the verus LHP. I.E something like 10, then another 20, etc
Takeaways:
The overall ratings for platoon players is misleading in that it expects them to play against all players. In some ways, this is right. However, it causes the overall ratings for players with big splits to be of little value, as those players will overwhelmingly be in platoons. Or at least they should. But what we have now is a way to estimate how good a batter with a platoon split could be. There is the problem of this being an MLB league versus our league, but I can't edit players in our league. Just messing around shows our AAA is really talented. Half the players don't change from AAA to AA, and the half that do don't change from AA to A. And only half the A players change from A to short A. So while the concept is the same, the scale is different. I'll basically add/sub 5 points for each level on the LH side, and 10 for each level on the RH side. This needs some testing but I don't have time right now.
Let's look at an example of my player above to see how you can use this. You change the relative ratings until the weak side looks like an average ish hitter at that level. I'm going to use kind of "mostly 5's" to have a save/conservative estimate.
http://montybrewster.net/BBA/HTML/news/ ... 26218.html
Julio Medina is 6/7/6/5/6 against RHP and 4/4/4/3/5 against LHP. That's a big split, and probably explains why the game is only calling him a 30, which seems really low. At ratings relative to AAA he's 5/5/5/4/5 on his weak side. At ratings relative to AA he's 6/5/5/4/5, which is probably about an average AA bat. At ratings relative to single A he's 6/5/5/4/6. That's still a pretty average A bat, just like a 6/5/5/4/6 bat would be pretty mediocre to average at our level. When you change him relative to short A, he becomes 6/5/6/4/6 against LHP. Now we're starting to get maybe a bit better than average.
What I think this means is that the game is saying while Medina's 6/7/6/5/6 bat is decent against RHP, his versus LHP bat is A level. So looking above, we had to move four levels down before his bat was better than average. It was average at three levels down. So that's 15 points, making his platoon only ability overall rating 45, and that seems about right.
This kind of analysis will be fuzzy. But it can give you an ideal how much the game might be killing you overall rating of you guy with a big platoon split.
I'll try to do some more testing later on players in our league and come up with a more reliable model, but it's time to chase kids ten years younger than me around a basketball court for two hours in a attempt to continue doing something I love despite the inevitability of aging.
I also wonder, how much is my perception that it's dragging down it's overall grade too much on any player with a split related to my understanding that the player won't be facing their weak side much, or does the game really over do it. Here's the player who is my inspiration.
http://montybrewster.net/BBA/HTML/news/ ... 26218.html
Anyway, that got me wondering if the overall ratings are wholly inadequate to evaluate players with big splits. I started with batters, and here is what I did. In a default MLB league with our settings for seeing ratings (1-10, show ratings above 10, relative ratings, etc) I made a left handed second baseman who is the middle of 50 for his overall rating. He's a 7 defender at 2B with 7 speed. I feel that's fairly "meh" to not throw the calculations off much. Being a 2B will make his batting ability to get to 50 a bit lower than say a 1B, but I don't think it will affect the data much. I'll check.
To be a middle of the road 50, all his internal ratings for BABIP*/GAP/POW/EYE/AVK were set to 107 and 108 (see table below).
(* For those of you that don't know, THERE IS NO INTERNAL CON RATING. CON is a function of BABIP and AVK, and to a lesser degree POW. To maintain any given CON, if you hold power steady, increasing AVK means you HAVE to decrease BABIP, and vice versa. This is critically important when evaluating players and everyone needs to understand it. It's also not how baseball actually works and it a pet peeve of mine.)
All 100 was 35
All 106 was 45
All 107 to 108 was 50
All 109 was 55
All 112 was 60
So I settled on 107 to 108 (108 for pow and gap). This gave me a 6/5/6/6/6 left handed 50 rated 2B.
The first thing I note is that there is NO CHANGE when you make the batter right handed, confirming that OOTP does not take handedness into account much if at all when assigning overall scores. You just have to know that left handed players are "better", in that if you use them to their platoon advantage, they will massively outperform RHB versus RHP. But that's not baked into the game at all. (FYI there was no change with switch hitters either).
Okay, so now I started making splits. In the next three cases, I only changed the versus left splits. The versus right splits stayed 107 and 108 and the player stayed 6/5/6/6/6 versus right handed major league hitting.
Case 1: a little worse against LHP (Player is 6/5/6/6/6 against AAA LHP), change all LH splits to 101 -> vsl becomes 5/4/5/5/6 in bigs-> Overall to 45.
- This seems reasonable. Slight detraction from my "middle 50" player makes him just below a 50.
Case 2: a lot worse against LHP (player is 6/5/6/6/6 versus AA pitching), change all LH splits to 85 ->vsl becomes 4/3/4/5/5 in bigs-> Overall to 35
- Seems drastic, right? This is where OOTP not taking into account that players platoon is a real problem. This guy is essentially the same player as the original version. The game is basically saying he is a"worse player" because he has to be platooned, which is true, but I think it this system discounts the understanding of uses that LHB won't play against their weak side as much.
Case 3: abysmal versus LHP (player is 6/5/6/6/6 versus LHP at low A level) change all LH splits to 63 -> vsl becomes 2/2/3/3/4 in bigs, overall to 25.
- This is kind of nuts. The player's utility is basically the same as case 2. He's NOT going to face LHP in either case.
Okay, so here's where it gets wacky. In each of the preceding cases, when I change the better handedness from a left handed bat to a right handed one, the overall rating DOESN'T CHANGE. That's right. A left handed bat with 6/5/6/6/6 splits against RHP is rated the same as a right handed bat with 2/2/3/3/4 splits against left handed pitching. Notably, that right handed bat is still 6/5/6/6/6 against RHP, but these are VASTLY different players and the batting handedness is not taken into account at all.
So that's a big flaw with the rating system. And with relative ratings, where the increase or falloff once you get outside the big "median cluster" is pretty dramatic, the misleading nature of the overall rating of players with huge splits is rather impressive.
Let's try a couple increases. We're back to left handed batters.
Case 6: Increase all LH splits to 109 - > overall still 50. Ratings 6/5/6/6/7 versus LHP
- not a big change. Makes some sense. All ratings 109 barely made the guy a 55 if you remember from above.
Case 7: increase all LH splits to 112 -> overall to 55. Ratings 7/5/6/6/7 versus LHP.
- Still seems reasonable.
Case 8, swap these LH and RH splits from case 7, that is, 107 and 108 versus lhp, 112 versus RHP. - > player is a 60 and 7/5/6/6/7 versus RHP
- Okay, so here's where we start to see what the game does. It doesn't take batter handedness into account. What is does is rate a player better for hitting RHP well more than it does for hitting LHP well. That's part of the problem with the overall rating. It kind of makes sense because there are more RHP's, but it's a secondary way of rating platoon advantage. It approximates the effect, rather than explicitly define it.
And again, there was no difference in making the batter LH versus RH for these. This means there is more to be gleaned here. Case 7 for a left handed batter is an LHB with reverse splits, but who is not worse against RHB, just slightly better against LHB. (These players are very rare and frankly can perform kind of strangely because the reverse split of a batter tends to get overpowered by the pitcher's platoon advantage).
The RIGHT HANDED version of case 7 is the typical OOTP RHB with a slight positive split against LHP.
So, the next logical question is what happens with lower RH splits?
Case 9: back to 107 and 108 versus LHP and AAA level versus RHP (101). This is the reverse of case 1. Player become 5/4/5/6/6 versus big league righties. Overall goes to 40.
So what we've confirmed here is that the game changes the overall potential MORE for changes in versus right splits than versus left splits. The exact opposite splits from case 1 (i.e. worse against LHP) made a 45, not a 40.
I reversed the splits from case 2, and the game called the batter a 20.
Study results for an MLB league:
1) Batter handedness is not factored into the overall rating.
2) The ability to hit right handed pitching is weighted more heavily than the ability to hit left handed pitching. The amount is significant!
3) For hitting LHP like a lower level player (bigs to AAA to AA, etc) the game removes points from the overall rating that is something like 5 for the first level, 10 for the second, etc. The increase "demerit" with each level makes sense in a relative ratings environment where the game is concerned how CLOSE you are to the median.
4) For hitting RHP like a lower level player (bigs to AAA, etc etc) the effect on the overall ratings seems about double that of the verus LHP. I.E something like 10, then another 20, etc
Takeaways:
The overall ratings for platoon players is misleading in that it expects them to play against all players. In some ways, this is right. However, it causes the overall ratings for players with big splits to be of little value, as those players will overwhelmingly be in platoons. Or at least they should. But what we have now is a way to estimate how good a batter with a platoon split could be. There is the problem of this being an MLB league versus our league, but I can't edit players in our league. Just messing around shows our AAA is really talented. Half the players don't change from AAA to AA, and the half that do don't change from AA to A. And only half the A players change from A to short A. So while the concept is the same, the scale is different. I'll basically add/sub 5 points for each level on the LH side, and 10 for each level on the RH side. This needs some testing but I don't have time right now.
Let's look at an example of my player above to see how you can use this. You change the relative ratings until the weak side looks like an average ish hitter at that level. I'm going to use kind of "mostly 5's" to have a save/conservative estimate.
http://montybrewster.net/BBA/HTML/news/ ... 26218.html
Julio Medina is 6/7/6/5/6 against RHP and 4/4/4/3/5 against LHP. That's a big split, and probably explains why the game is only calling him a 30, which seems really low. At ratings relative to AAA he's 5/5/5/4/5 on his weak side. At ratings relative to AA he's 6/5/5/4/5, which is probably about an average AA bat. At ratings relative to single A he's 6/5/5/4/6. That's still a pretty average A bat, just like a 6/5/5/4/6 bat would be pretty mediocre to average at our level. When you change him relative to short A, he becomes 6/5/6/4/6 against LHP. Now we're starting to get maybe a bit better than average.
What I think this means is that the game is saying while Medina's 6/7/6/5/6 bat is decent against RHP, his versus LHP bat is A level. So looking above, we had to move four levels down before his bat was better than average. It was average at three levels down. So that's 15 points, making his platoon only ability overall rating 45, and that seems about right.
This kind of analysis will be fuzzy. But it can give you an ideal how much the game might be killing you overall rating of you guy with a big platoon split.
I'll try to do some more testing later on players in our league and come up with a more reliable model, but it's time to chase kids ten years younger than me around a basketball court for two hours in a attempt to continue doing something I love despite the inevitability of aging.