2044: Who Would You Take?

[RonCo]

Let’s play a game of “Who would you take?” all right?

Here are five pitchers, all starters, ratings = current. I want you to stare at them, and then rank them top to bottom. If you were drafting a team to play tomorrow, who would you take first, second, third, fourth, and fifth (special note—none of these guys are either fragile or wrecked as an injury proneness):

T	STU	MOV	CON	STU vL	MOV vL	CON vL	STU vR	MOV vR	CON vR	PIT	G/F	VELO	STAM	Slot	Type
R	9	5	6	9	5	6	8	4	6	3	NEU	95-97	8	Normal	Pow
L	9	5	5	9	6	5	9	5	5	3	NEU	99-101	7	Normal	Pow
R	9	6	6	9	6	5	9	7	6	4	NEU	97-99	10	Normal	Pow
R	10	6	7	10	6	7	10	6	7	3	GB	96-98	6	Normal	Pow
R	7	8	8	8	8	7	7	8	8	3	GB	93-95	6	Normal	GB

It’s s fun little game, right? I mean. Do you like the leftiness of candidate #2? Or maybe the big 10 stuff of #4? Are you a MOV/CON guy and plan to live and die with #5? The third and first guy look pretty good, too, #3 might be especially tempting if your bullpen is gassed and you need the guy to go deep into the game.

Seriously …

Take a few moments and jot down a ranked order of which of these guys you consider to be best to worst.

I’ll wait …

When you’re done, use scouts’ honor and post how you rank them in a response below. I’m interested to see what you think. I say “use scouts’ honor because in a moment I’m going to reveal who these guys are



I'm waiting ...




Yes, I am ...




Still waiting ...





Getting close?





One last wait for the stragglers among us ...





My point here is to talk about overall ratings. I’ve been thinking about this since Ted and I chatted about the draft yesterday. I think overall ratings are wonky. Not wrong. Not right. Not really anything except wonky. On the one hand, other than hitters with odd splits (yes, Ted, I remember that study/game you played), you don’t usually find great players rated 40 or 45, and vice versa. You don’t find crappy players rated 55 or 60 or whatever.

But the scales still seem off.

Here, for example, are those five pitchers.

Pitcher	Team	OVR	POT
Jesús González	HAW	55	70
Manuel Andrés	SAC	55	55
Arthur Dempster	RCK	70	70
Ernesto Ramos	YS9	65	65
Ernesto Delgado	LBC	60	65

Note that I’m using “current overall” to help avoid age differences in the conversation

Anyway using current, overall ratings if you match the game’s rating system you’d pick #3, #4, #5, and then either #1 or #2.

So, how did you do? Or how did the game do?

Personally, I’d probably go Delgado, Ramos, Dempster, Andres, Gonzalez, but I could see arguing Ramos would be better than Delgado. I just like Delgado’s splits better. If you follow my logic, in this case the game gets the two “55” ratings “right,” but doesn’t do the rest so well. Dempster gets a big bump that I don’t totally understand.

Maybe it’s that he has four solid pitches while Delgado has only three okay pitches—but Ramos has three absolutely elite offerings, which makes it odd that Dempster is higher. Then there’s Dempster’s Iron Man injury rating vs. Ramos’s Normal. Does that matter in current rating? That seems odd if it is. Current is current. Potential is Tomorrow. But then, it’s injuries we’re talking about. Dunno.


There are four 80-rated pitchers in the league today:

Name	TM	OVR	POT	T	STU	MOV	CON	STU vL	MOV vL	CON vL	STU vR	MOV vR	CON vR	PIT	G/F	VELO	STM	Slot	Type	Prone
Jim Armstrong	NO	80	80	R	13	6	5	14	5	4	13	6	5	3	GB	99-101	6	Norm	Pow	Normal
Carlos Pineda	YS9	80	80	L	9	5	7	10	6	8	9	5	7	5	NEU	98-100	11	Norm	Norm	Normal
Ricardo Rivera	SA	80	80	R	9	10	7	8	9	7	9	10	7	6	EX GB	98-100	8	Norm	GB	Fragile
Alaric Wullenweber	HAW	80	80	R	11	6	9	11	6	9	11	7	9	4	NEU	98-100	11	Norm	Pow	Durable

While I’m flattered that Carlos Pineda is in there, I ponder how that happens with that 5 MOV and a bit of a rugged split against RHB. On the other hand, I suppose Armstrong fits that profile, too. Maybe take a compare of him and 75-rated San Antonio #2 man Rubén Vázquez and tell me what you think.

Rivera and Wullenweber look pretty danged dazzling, so there’s not really an argument against them to be made, but the other two…well, my tastes says Armstrong is a 70-75, and Pineda more of a 65—I mean, he wasn’t our opening day starter. That was “65” rated, two-time Nebraska winner Carlos Valle.


What does it mean?

Of course, I’m going to say “I don’t know” to that question. It’s interesting, though. And for weird folks like me it’s kind of fun to play this little game. Thinking about that game leads me to wonder how the situation be different if we were rating 45, 50, and 55 level players, but that is a conversation for another time.

Mostly now, I’m interested in what you guys say.

How wrong am I in my own rankings? Do you think the game is better at this than I do?

[Jwalk100]

This is how they would be ranked by the spreadsheet.

With that info I would have picked:

1 Ernesto Ramos

2 Jesus Gonzalez

3 Ernesto Delgado

4 Arthur Dempster

5 Manuel Andres

[Lane]

4,5,3,2,1

[jleddy]

4,5,3,2,1

Same.

[Lane]

Ramos/Delgado very close, but the 6 MOV is enough for me to prefer the extra STU.

I'd take them both over Pineda and they're not far behind Armstrong and Wullenweber.

[JimBob2232]

5,4,3,1,2

[shoeless.db]

5,4,3,2,1

[GoldenOne]

I also factor in actual and potential for the pitches as well. Ashton Brooks is a 55/55 at 9/7/4 (no split differences). He's a lefty also.

But his pitches are a 10/10 fastball, 11/11 change, and a 9/9 splitter.

I'll take guys with those high-blue pitches (and it does depend on the mix too) over someone that might have better stuff and control but straight-7s and -8s for their actual pitches that might be a 60 or 65 OVR/POT too.

[HoosierVic]

I would have gone 5, 4, 3, 1, 2

[GoldenOne]

4,5,3,2,1 by the way.

[bcslouck]

4,5,3,2,1 by the way.

I think I'd take the same.

[Dington]

45312

[Ted]

I'm another 45321, but 4-5 was a toss up.

[crobillard]

I liked 4 5 3 2 1 too. It surprises me that so many of us agree or are right in the ballpark. It just shows how good this league is.

[CTBrewCrew]

45321

[aaronweiner]

4, 5, 3, 1, 2. But the thing about the ratings is I think they definitely incorporate two things: stamina and results.