The YS9 WAY: Player Evaluation, Part 2 – Rating Categories, and Yes, Platoons

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The YS9 WAY: Player Evaluation, Part 2 – Rating Categories, and Yes, Platoons

Post by RonCo » Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:16 pm

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I don’t know that I have great things to say about actual skill evaluation that others don’t already know. Balance is good for me, of course, but I think a lot of the conversation OOTP GMs have about these kinds of things are more into the neepery of the game—what’s more important, a point of Power of a point of Gap? That kind of thing. Generally the answers are obvious, at least obvious when you draw a constrained system diagram. I mean, of course you’d prefer a homer to a double of triple. Simply looking at a linear weight diagram can tell an interested party that.

But in player evaluation, it’s more complex. Do you prefer a guy who doubles 50 times and gets on base or a guy who strikes out and hits 40 homers? How about if that same power guy doesn’t strike out, but can’t take a walk on his mother’s life? And then there’s defense, and raw BABIP (which, of course, we can’t see, but can calculate—I can’t tell you how many times I’ve copied html stat lines to calculate BABIP over time). The idea of bucketing overall value of a player or a career is the Holy Grail of Sabermetrics, and WAR can only take you so far.

Pitchers are even more arcane. Stuff comes from the collection of pitches, of course. Are two pitchers with different repertoires—but the same calculated Stuff rating—actually identical? How do you factor in stamina injury rates? You can plug all this into a spreadsheet and create a nifty formula, and in the end come up with whatever stathead answers you want.

So, yeah.

Just what is the value of a stolen base?

Here’s the thing: Despite the fact that I spend a billion-billion hours on trying to get a feel for those balances, I’m not sure I can tell you one thing or another is “right.” What I can say is that I have a few basic things I try to keep in mind, so I’ll try and capture them here in probably no particular order.

Ball Parks

A lot of OOTP folks I know talk about building their team for their parks, and that’s probably helpful--at least to the players. For me, though, a park mostly works to obscure truth. Utopia Field, for example (the YS9 home park) is a great place for extra base hits. We are generally in the upper quartile in EBH and as a result do well in Slugging, too. It’s important, then, that I don’t look at the numbers and kid myself. I don’t want to, for example, tell myself I can get away with low Gap ratings simply because the park will create some for us. It’s important, instead, that I see the park’s warpage as simply that—In other words, I need to be in the upper quartile of those stats because if I am not toward the top of the register it’s likely that I have a crappy team.

Your mileage may vary, but Good Hitters can hit anywhere. Good Pitchers can pitch anywhere, though the park may buff or dull the raw numbers.

The “usual” example of this is pitchers with low Movement. As I’m trying to squeeze value out of that kind of player, and if I have a park that constrains HR, then I can be successful only if I micro-mange things and keep that guy from throwing in Omaha’s bandbox (as an example). Blah, blah, blah.


Rating Distributions (Holes)

I’ve said I like guys without holes—balance before all. That said a 6/6/6/6/6 hitter or a 6/6/6 pitcher will generally disappoint, often deeply. So, first thing first, look at average ratings around the league. It’s pretty clear that the 6/6/6 pitcher is out of his league in today’s BBA—but what about a 7/6/7, or a 6/6/8, or … you get the idea.

Beyond that, what I should say is that I look for players with at least one big skillset and no glaring holes. 8/6/4/6/6? Yeah, they can probably play—especially if I can keep them with a platoon advantage. Elite defense with limited offense? Yeah, if it’s in a key defensive role especially (see current YS9 SS Elvan Masûkî). Big offense with suspect glove, even at a key defensive position? Maybe. How big of a bat (see Angel De Castillo of the first real wave of Sustained Winning). Again, it’s easy to assess a guy with nothing but blue and green bars. The skillset to build is an understanding of what a hole is and how important it is—and the answer to how important it is can change year over year depending on the ratings of players in the league.

Anyway. That’s the thing.

Of course, players succeed with gaping holes.

The infamous Jon Reed comes to mind. The man couldn’t throw a strike at times, but had great value. Back in the day I kept closer Colin Julyan around for a couple years despite the fact that he had no Stuff. I mean, he was weird. It’s a rare bird with no Stuff, but pegged Movement and Control, but that Stuff hole didn’t matter because the two other areas were so good. Today I have Roberto Ramirez in a reliever’s role. His 10/5/10 core rating set shows a big hole in Movement, and he does give up homers. But his career 458K/51BB ratio blows that away.

Seattle’s old pitcher Alfredo Contreras comes to mind as a guy with horrible Movement, but great effectivity.

All of these kinds of players can fill roles in any team—Sustained Winning or Wave Winning—especially if you can do a little micromanaging of matchups and whatnot. This is because these players are like mini-microcosms of the Superstar thing—the skills they have at elite levels are so huge that they mitigate their holes.


Platooning

All right. Finally. Platooning.

I’m for it. Almost all the time, anyway.

Before I get going too far, here is something I think people don’t consider. At least I know I have to keep reminding myself. Platoon advantages (on average) are not equal. On average, a right-handed batter will do better against a right-handed pitcher than a left-handed batter will do vs. a left-handed pitcher. But … and here’s the beauty a left-handed batter will do better against right-handed pitching than a right-handed batter will against a lefty. It’s weird, really. But it’s true in real life (or has been through most of history) and it’s basically true in OOTP—with a little allowance for odd ratings warping in various leagues.

While there are counter-examples, at various times I think about this generality and come to the conclusion that if I have to prioritize what positions get platooned, I’m going to prioritize positions where I have left-handed hitters. If possible. Of course, I break the rule all the time, usually for defensive purposes. These days, for example, LHB Arvin Duggan patrols center field for us pretty much every day. That’s because he’s an elite glove, and until Sawyer Slizz made his arrival we didn’t have another capable defender, right-handed or left. Now Slizz plays a very small amount of CF simply to give Duggan a day off now and again.

Anyway … while there are a few LHB who can hit lefty pitching (which makes them truly valuable), lefties will almost always platoon in my system if it’s possible to make it work. That said, a lefty who can h it LHP—even a little—is valuable in two ways. First, they could play every day, hence freeing another platoon slot, and second, even if they are in a platoon, if they can hit LHP a bit that means in-game OOTP screwery won’t hurt as much.

Example in point, the conversation Aaron and I have had regarding Javier Rodríguez after an earlier segment. In the relatively few times Rodríguez has to face a lefty, he’s a dead duck. Sazui Kawashima, on the other hand has been in the league for five seasons now. He’s a lefty who can hit lefties (if he could play defense, he’d be a mega-player. Alas, not so much). Over the years I’ve offered Kawashima to several teams in potential deals and always get the cold shoulder. And, to be fair, he’s down in AAA now after Sawyer Slizz showed up…but he’ll be back next year. And, in fact, may be back up this year if I decide to cut Rodríguez. Why? Well, Kawashima is, very quietly, a 1.5-2.0 WAR hitter against RHP—and when forced to hit lefties, still manages to create positive results (maybe half a WAR).

This is small, I know. But for me it’s significant.


27 Roster Slots, and WAR

In earlier segments I noted that I don’t generally have “role players.” At least not as I think baseball people see them. I structure my team in such a way to use our BBA 27-man rosters to ensure that every player is a starter (not counting bullpen guys the same way, of course). This is difficult, of course, because of simple math. If you want to platoon every position on the field that takes 18 roster slots, add five starting pitchers brings you to 23, and that leaves only four for the bullpen. Sure, Recte’s rule of three relievers might make you want to try that out for a bit, but we all pretty much know how that’s going to go.

That said, here’s some math I think about. Obviously, it’s grossly simplifying things. But here goes. My goal is to get 3 WAR from every starting position on the field, then add in bullpen. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it gives me a staring place to assess if my team can win like I want it to. Why, you might ask, do I think about it that way? Well, here’s the math I mentioned (take it or leave it).

If one assumes Replacement Level is 48 wins, it looks like this

Replacement: 48 Wins
3 WAR per Hitter: 27 Wins
3 WAR per SP: 15 Wins

Add that up and you get 90 Wins. Assume the bullpen is positive, and … well, I said my entire goal is to win 95 games, forever. There’s the foundation.

So, yeah, I’d love for Javier Rodríguez to hit better against LHP, or just to hit better anyway. But he is what he is, and so my goal is to make sure he can create that 1.5-2.0 WAR from the left side of the plate and fine a player who can give me 1-1.5 from the right side. If I get close, that’s good. For most of his career, Rodríguez’s platoon mate was Mark Haynes. Haynes was a touch disappointing, too, but for the run of his time with us he created just under a WAR a season, so we got 2.5-3 WAR a year, basically, from our DH spot. Not perfect, but it worked.

Right now, John Weber is the RHB. He’s not a perfect fit either, but he’s producing as a similar rate. I’ll take it.


Post-Season Blues

Let me comment on something you might be thinking about now—that being that this approach of mine might be the cause of our prodigious losing streak in the post season. My answer to that is, well, you might be right. Results are results. You can’t argue them.

That said, each time I’ve gone through game logs after said loss (and believe me, I’ve done it a ton), I can pretty much never find a game where a forced appearance of a bad platoon split made an obvious difference. Usually, instead, I see Carlos Pineda blew up in the first inning of a critical game—or LaLoosh—or Chávez—or the big bats of Aaron Stone or Lucas McNeill or whoever just went silent. When the stars go dead in the clutch, it’s very hard for me to pin playoff washout the idea that Javier Rodríguez faced a lefty in the sixth inning of a game we were down by four in. I mean, yeah …

Anyway …


Back to Platoons

Platoons work. They just do. They also tend to work fiscally, because to be blunt—a good platoon hitter who I can make look like a Very Solid Player going to be cheaper than a fulltime Real Solid Player. But roster size constraints mean I literally cannot platoon every position, so the goal has to be to find either Superstars or just real solid true switch hitters. These are the guys who can play full time. Duh.

Then I look for the best ways to deploy those players, and fill in others. Often a platoon is simply that—one guy plays against RHP, the other against LHP. Rodríguez/(Haynes/Weber). You get it. But I also like what I call ….


The Three-Legged Platoon

I suppose everyone does this, but I don’t watch that closely. But, one of my personal enjoyments about this game is when I can find a workable set of three players who can create a defacto platoon. I’ve used several in the past. Usually they include a Superstar (Lucas McNeill) or a Very Good player (Angel De Castillo). Today I’m deploying one that utilizes Dong-po Thum.

Thum is an unusual Superstar in that he can play elite defense anywhere I put him, all while crushing both RHP and LHP. Today he plays second base against RHP, and Elvan Masûkî picks it at shortstop. But since Masûkî is severely sub-replacement against lefties, Thum moves to short and Dian Sartika takes over second base against LHP. Sartika is no great shakes, but both he and Masûkî can play Zimmer quality defense, I’m optimistic they will pull positive WAR by the end of the year.

Time will tell.

But, yes, if you go back in time you’ll see YS9 has deployed at least three or four of these three-legged platoons—generally around the infield.


Financial Value

Now … I hear you: Ron, you say, you’re really parsing things out here. I mean, Elvan Masûkî Dian Sartika? Those guys kinda suck!

And you wouldn’t be totally wrong.

To use Aaron’s word on Javier Rodríguez, I’m not thinking of those guys as leading the charge. We are not winning because of them or despite them. Except … well … this whole piece is about building a team that can win 95 games a season, forever. So I want to talk about how these guys are providing value to the structure of the team off the field, too. Because it’s in that light that I’d say we’re winning because of them.

We are, after all, 37-20 at this moment. That projects to 105 wins … which is … well … more than 95.

So Sartika and Masûkî are contributing.

Realize this: the BBA plays in a league with a Hard Cap of $110M. When you are fully engaged in Sustained Winning, you will always be up against the Cap. Both those second and third legs of the platoon with Thum make exactly league minimum. Their role in the team is to be at least a little positive and cost almost nothing. Right now they’re doing that really well.

Kind of anyway…

A sharp person would retort that Sartika’s defense has been an atrocious -2.3 ZR so far this year, and that’s not good. But I wouldn’t blame that on him. Sartika is literally learning the position in the major leagues—so he’s going through tough times because I put him there on purpose. That said, I’m watching him … he’s improved from “0” to “5” in just 16 games played. I’m guessing that by July (another month) I’ll have two Zimmer quality second basemen and two Zimmer quality shortstops (Thum being one of each) playing the middle infield.

With Zimmer quality Arvin Duggan in center and a Zimmer-quality catcher platoon in Jesus Rodríguez and Bruce McKinley also playing behind one of the better pitching staffs in baseball ... well …

I can live with that.

Regardless, the main point is that Elvan Masûkî is who I can afford. Dian Sartika is who I can afford. Same for John Weber and same for Javier Rodríguez. The fact that these guys are producing something on the field is outstanding, but they are also contributing to my Sustained Winning strategy by being cheap enough that I’ve been able to fit them in and retain the Rex Fosters and the Dong-po Thums and the Carlos Valles, as well as bring in Sawyer Slizz.

Dealing with the cap is tricky business, after all. I’ll talk about how I think of that in detail in another one of these installments, but for now let me leave it like this: Going back to the original ideas behind Sustained Winning—all these players are part of my toolbox. My goal is to fill that toolbox with value, and hone that value to its peak. This is different from making each player a star. Given the salary cap (which is very, very important for OOTP leagues IMHO) you can’t just staff the whole team with Superstars. Guys like Sartika and Masûkî and Javier Rodríguez, and Wilber Lewis and John Weber and Natsume Kondo (to name only current players) are the result of creating and/or developing that toolbox.

Even though you wouldn’t want to lean on them to bring you championships all by themselves, all of those guys can play for winning teams.
aside wrote: Stepping out of the flow a moment here. Being an OOTP GM means you’re not doing this full time. Real life invades, you know? And as the longer-term folks around here probably know, the past several months have been somewhat difficult.

If I were really on my game I’d probably have had Sartika fully trained in the minors. But I didn’t do that. Instead, I’m suffering the learning curve in the big-league level. Such is life.

In a way, though, improvising like this is an aspect of running a Sustained Winning strategy can enable. The team is very good and very deep. If we need to drag a guy along for a bit because the GM isn’t on the mark all the time, we can do it.
So, anyway, there’s that. On the way up I find wringing value from players more … stressful … than I do now. Today, as the wheels turn, I most definitely find great joy to having the leeway to attempt to wring full value out of younger/cheaper players. It’s fun to train Sartika at the big league level, for example. This game is supposed to be fun, you know?

And it leads to a kind of Next Man Up mentality inside my mind. The YS9 Way pervades the clubhouse. If you put on the uniform, you’re going to play. And if you play, you’re expected to contribute.

- - -
Next time I think I’ll talk a bit about budget and salary cap management, and maybe even get into how I look at YOUR budget and salary cap as MY resource. As you’ve heard me say, this is a financial sim first and foremost. To win in Sustained Ways, though shalt think of thy cash first. [grin]
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