Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

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Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Ted » Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:44 pm

So, thinking about whether or not Aki Kondo has had a late career motion bump has gotten me thinking about other parts of the pitcher dev curve. I feel like we see a good number of late career control bumps. Sometimes we see both motion and control bumps in tandem with velo drop and loss of stuff. Obviously the more common path is loss of all ratings.

But lets talk about early career. I feel like Ive seen a ton of loss of movement with velo bumps. Like a LOT. Usually this is in legit prospects who start at say 90-92 and end up 98-100. Say they go from 7/6/6 to 9/4/6 or 9/4/5. The pitchers I've seen get motion bumps with velo bumps tend to be non prospects that the game has selected for the "bumper track". The 6/5/5 guy that ends up 10/7/7.

So, when we take out the "bumper track players" and look at velo bumps in isolation for prospects, it seems the devs think that throwing harder reduces motion. And there is a typical baseball narrative of "Throws too hard and it straightens out."

I also realize that OOTP's movement rating isn't really movement, but is "prevent HR". We'll use those terms interchangeably from here on out.

Back to the development curve I've seen so many times of "gain velo, lose mov rating". That just doesn't make any sense. Recent looks at velo and spin rates seem to indicate throwing harder comes with more spin. At the very least, you shouldn't lose movement. And pitchers that throw harder generally yield fewer home runs. Guys that struggle with break when throwing harder seem to be suffering more from overthrowing and bad mechanics.* Those aren't real strength and velocity gains.

*So, increasing spin rate alone isn't enough to increase break. It's the increase in spin rate relative the increase in velocity. A faster moving baseball has more momentum, so the harder you throw a spinless ball, the less it will break. Spinning makes the "sides" of the ball have a relative pressure difference, and it will break towards the low pressure side. Still, simply because of how throwing a ball with a certain grip and movement makes it spin, if you throw harder, the ball tends to spin more. So overwhelmingly throwing harder tends to lend itself to similar break or improved break, as long as you don't jack up your mechanics doing it.

Bottom line, real life pitchers that throw harder give up fewer home runs. Whether it's increasing relative spin rate, or just being harder to catch up to, or whatever, increases in velocity should not come with decreases in movement.



Thoughts?
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Jwalk100 » Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:48 pm

I agree. I have seen plenty of pitchers throw at high velocity with a pitch that has a "tail" on it. We see it every game on TV from guys that throw a 2 seamer that is a riding fastball. Plenty of movement just up in the zone.

We have all also seen high spin rate on pitches. A fastball that looks like a "pill" is one that has a high spin rate.

I don't know how the game calculates this or if the developers even attempt it.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:02 pm

I think it's a mistake to equate ootp movement with real movement.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by recte44 » Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:15 pm

OOTP movement is nothing at all like real movement. IT's completely different and actually mislabeled. But anyways...

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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Ted » Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:31 pm

RonCo wrote:
Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:02 pm
I think it's a mistake to equate ootp movement with real movement.
I covered this. It doesn't really change my argument. OOTP movement is HR prevention (maybe also XBH?). Higher velocity pitchers allow fewer homers IRL. Velo increases shouldn't be associated with decreased in the HR prevention rating (movement). That's not how it works. Real life velo increased are associated with HR prevention. Real life velocity losses are associated with more homers given up, because you more or less have to throw fastballs, and not as fast fastballs get smoked. They also tend to move less and get crushed for that reason.

The spin and movement stuff was to explain how velocity and pitch movement are associated in real life, to help make the argument that increasing velocity shouldn't be associated with more homers allowed. It probably could have been omitted.
Last edited by Ted on Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Ted » Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:33 pm

recte44 wrote:
Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:15 pm
OOTP movement is nothing at all like real movement. IT's completely different and actually mislabeled. But anyways...
Yeah, I confused everyone by talking about them as though they were the same. When I say OOTP movement, I mean home run prevention. I kind of figure everyone knows this is what I mean. I confused myself and started talking about spin rate and such, because well, that's how actual life works, but it was unnecessary.

If I'm right that OOTP's model associates developing velo in prospects with decreases in MOV (its homer allowed rating) it's model is wrong. I could simply be biased in my memory of how my prospects have developed, but I don't think I am.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Jwalk100 » Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:20 pm

recte44 wrote:
Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:15 pm
OOTP movement is nothing at all like real movement. IT's completely different and actually mislabeled. But anyways...
Yes. It should be called HR Allowed rating or some shit.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:58 pm

In very old versions it was called HR. :)

I can do some actual data crunching to try to ascertain how Movement and Velocity changes are correlated. I don't know that I've really seen it, but I haven't been looking for it.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:01 pm

Ted wrote:
Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:31 pm
Higher velocity pitchers allow fewer homers IRL. Velo increases shouldn't be associated with decreased in the HR prevention rating (movement). That's not how it works. Real life velo increased are associated with HR prevention.
Is that actually true? I'm not saying it isn't but I've never really seen that as a fact. So I'd be interested.

I mean, yes, as an individual pitcher loses his velocity over a game, he can get his harder. But I don't know that across all pitchers high velocity pitchers give up fewer HR than lower velocity pitchers.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:08 pm

My quick googling says "yes" _really_ hard throwers probably do retard HR, but not very much.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/do-hard-thr ... -fly-ball/
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by jleddy » Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:31 am

Nice work, @Ted. Yes, OOTP has it ass-backwards.

Here is BBA pitchers with 150+ IP in 2043, charting HR/9 vs velo and MOV vs velo:

Image

As you can see, the HR rate rises with more velo while movement rating slightly decreases.

Now here's MLB pitchers with 300+ IP from 2018-2020, charting HR/9 vs velo:

Image

HR rate dramatically drops with more velo (although HR/Fly% and Fly% are a much smaller correlation as velo increases).

Summary:
1. If you don't come back to BBA/OOTP, Ted, please keep writing.
2. C'mon devs, pull your shit together!
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:34 am

I've got some considerable data chugging still to do, but I took my last 80-season test league, and pulled every 29 year old pitcher had talent changes. The Correlation between velocity drops were:

STU/VEL = .59 (pretty strong--which makes sense)
MOV/VEL = .39 (fairly low)
CON/VEL = .22 (only a little)

There were 53 pitchers in my data sample...here they are, with rating changes that included velocity only:
Player IDPosition29MOV29STU29CON29VEL
278601-7-66-3-6
305221-31-80-51-6
10241-7-56-13-5
77201-13-58-5-5
259471-4-106-5-5
291971-9-73-10-5
11071-8-57-8-4
22221-21-33-20-4
645410-78-1-4
90091-24-153-5-4
110341-11-68-10-4
111641-7-321-4
130321-5-66-3-4
324321-11-59-8-4
5571-19-36-6-3
19441-10-26-15-3
99031-7-26-35-3
1313311-12-6-3
1464512-16-16-3
239081-2-60-8-3
283431-12-76-41-3
317871-15-72-13-3
3259510-76-4-3
7331-5-93-12-2
13611-11-43-10-2
899312-163-2
94761-6-22-3-2
100221-20-261-2
110881-1-24-6-2
139691-4-49-7-2
176321-23-72-7-2
199051-7-331-2
230941-5-24-23-2
287181-15-38-11-2
3103110-532-2
411-1-117-1
54218-60-1
11591-4-126-1
19591-1-17-14-1
247915-12-9-1
25571-8-36-2-1
724910-1-9-1
1434212-3-5-1
1766717-185-1
190751-3-30-7-1
222691-15-54-12-1
266261-16-61-14-1
2755414-121-1
2795811-4-6-1
293441-14-64-53-1
311161-7-143-1
321871-3-9-3-1
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:55 am

HR/9 vs. velocity plots like that are interesting, but I also not that if we're talking about "Reality" OOTP pitchers have a tendency to throw a lot harder than real pitchers. Still, to augment Joe's stuff...here's another BBA take.

I pulled all pitching data from 2043, then calculated the HR/BF and HR/9 rates for pitchers of each movement and velocity.

Obviously, HR changes dramatically for MOV rates. Trend lines suggest a very small slope for velocity...but still a slope.
HR-VEL-MOV.PNG
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 1:11 am

Further supporting Joe's numbers For all BBA pitchers in 2043:

Correlation of Velo - Stuff: .44
Correlation of Velo - Control: -.12
Correlation of Velo - Movement: -.09

So there's little correlation between velocity and control/movement, and what little could be is negative.

I love Ted's questions. :)
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Ted » Wed Aug 26, 2020 1:14 am

RonCo wrote:
Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:34 am
I've got some considerable data chugging still to do, but I took my last 80-season test league, and pulled every 29 year old pitcher had talent changes. The Correlation between velocity drops were:

STU/VEL = .59 (pretty strong--which makes sense)
MOV/VEL = .39 (fairly low)
CON/VEL = .22 (only a little)

The thing I don't know how you would tease out, and maybe your data does, but it didn't seem that way to me, is specifically the MOV change on guys with a velo increase at age 17-21 or something. Those prospects who seem to lose MOV with velo increases. And again, I'm not sure I'm right about it, but I feel strongly that I've noticed prospects losing MOV quite often with velocity increases.

It is very possible that I have a biased memory as I think of all my lovely pitching prospects I watched crumble before my eyes and am forgetting the success stories.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 1:30 am

I've never really tried to match talent changes as relative to others, but my script creates a crap ton of data just waiting to br turned into information. I can, for example, do something like you suggest, I can pull the magnitude of every rating or talent change from year to year (as of Jan 1 of each year). I've just got to think of how to put them together right.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by Jwalk100 » Wed Aug 26, 2020 2:52 pm

I have noticed movement drops with velocity increases in every league I have played in since OOTP15.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:35 pm

I'm 100% sure it happens. The question, I suppose, is whether you think it should ever happen or not, and if it's okay to happen sometimes, how often is that? Player development is a bitch after all. Among the problems is the issue that all we have to really go on are MLB data, so remember that our baseline has both survivor and selection bias.

Anyway, Here's some OOTP data.

It's ugly data, meaning I'm not 100% certain it's source is really clean. I think it's good enough for the "general" discussion, but still take it for what it's worth. In general, here's the process:

1. I took the 80-year sim I did. (Fairly Vanilla league, default development and TCR).
2. For every pitcher's age 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 year, I captured how their movement talent and velocity changed from Jan 1 to Jan 1 of each year.
3. I then added the total changes (example, a pitcher whose velocity went from 6 > 7 > 10 > 11 > 13 was said to have increased 7 points [velocity is on a 20-point scale]).
4. I then plotted each pitcher on the Movement Talent/Velocity chart below.

You can see that the vast majority had increases to both, some regressed in both, and some had +/- kinds of performances.

HR-Velo-16-20.PNG

Is this "good?" Is it bad?

I mean, realize that Movement = HR Rate (not spin rate or "break" or spin efficiency or ...) What exactly is your normal 16 year old's HR-rate Talent/Velocity change? and how many regress in one while dropping in the other? I have not a freaking clue.

Anyway, that "Velocity Improves, HR-Rate Regresses" box is the one Ted is talking about.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:45 pm

Note: If I take out a big chunk of the records I worry about, the basic picture does not change.
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Re: Ted Gripes About the Dev Engine More

Post by RonCo » Wed Aug 26, 2020 6:13 pm

Here's the same chart for 24-26 year old pitchers...with Ted's Danger Zone circled.

Is that too much? Too little?

Again, I don't have a clue, but I'll admit that if it's wrong it doesn't feel wrong too far. I mean, I don't think that EVERY pitcher who increases velocity should automatically receive a HR-Rate increase.

HR-Velo-24-26.PNG
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