2046 Full UMEBA preview

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allenciox
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2046 Full UMEBA preview

Post by allenciox » Wed Feb 24, 2021 1:53 pm

So, like last season, I am doing an "analytical" preview, but also doing it somewhat different from last season.

What I am doing is estimating overall WAR based on "expected" WAR for each player on each team's 27-man roster. First, I will show result table, then I will explain what I am doing here. Here is the table:
Non-RpsRps:
86.254.73.3210Non-RP2.521.61.20.80.40-0.3RPTotEst.
70+656055504540WAR70+65605550454035WARWARWins
--------------------
MAN101537242.22513.645.8 97
JER112042833.711423.637.389
BEI12410229.32332.832.184
BAG0136915.31251.616.968
RIY00181010.0441.611.663
BUC12377046.611235.652.2101
MUM0388133.911322.336.285
ATH2155627.75214.832.581
TRI1345727.61151.228.877
CAI11061114.011152.816.865
22101939645610221526292810
So, for each team, the individual cells have the number of players that have different OVR ratings (70+,65, 60, 55...) for its expected 27-man roster. These numbers are broken out for two categories of players: Relief pitchers (right-hand half) and everybody else (left-hand).

Expected WAR is calculated using the weights in the second row multiplied by the number of players on the 27-man roster that are in that column: i.e. a non-relief pitcher (RP) rated at least 70 overall is expected to be worth about 8 WAR, but a relief pitcher with an OVR of 70+ is expected to be worth about 2.5 WAR. In both cases, I have designated a 40 OVR player as a typical "replacement" player, so all players with an OVR of 40 are worth 0 WAR. The way I got these values was to look up the results of some representative players at those OVR values and how many WAR they got over the past few years. For example, closer Knox Sked , rated 75 OVR, got 5.1 WAR over past two seasons (average of 2.55 WAR, and so 2.5 is the weight I gave for RPs of 70+ OVR.

The total WAR is summed up for both non-RPs and RPs and show up for each team in the Tot WAR column. So, for example, Manama has about 45.8 WAR on its active roster: 3.6 WAR for its RPs and 42.2 WAR for everybody else.
In the Estimated Wins column, I assigned wins by adding the "expected" number of wins for a replacement level team to the total WAR for the team. Now, in MLB, this value is generally assumed to be somewhere around 48, but by balancing the league (so that the total expected wins is 810, or 81 per team) the value I obtained here was 50 --- a team with all 40s overall would expect to get that many wins.

One final thing I did was a league adjustment: teams in BANC came out slightly better overall than teams in BURT. Now, if BURT teams played BANC teams as many times as they do BURT teams, that wouldn't matter. But they don't --- they play much fewer games against BANC competition than against BURT competition. So I have added a "league factor" into expected wins: + 1.4 wins if the team is in BURT, and -1.4 wins if it is a BANC team. So, going back to Manama, they are expected to win 45.8 games (their total roster WAR) + 50 games (what a replacement level team would win) + 1.4, which comes out to 97.2 Wins, rounded to 97 wins in the table.

Finally, the question arises: How did I decide on the 27-man roster for each team? Well except for my team, Bucharest, that was not trivial, since I had to go off of spring training rosters. I feel like it is mostly correct, but might have a few glitches. First, I only considered players that were on each team's 40-man roster. It is possible that some teams might promote one or more players not on their 40-man roster (for example, Jerusalem's 60 OVR reliever Jan Chmelyk ) and put them on their major league roster for the season. But that won't be captured in my analysis.

Second, I assumed that all the top players on the 40-man roster that are "needed" for the 27-man roster would be on that roster. The way I defined needed here was as follows: first the top 5 SPs were chosen for each team. Then the top eight other pitchers that were on the spring training roster and 40-man roster were included as RPs, unless that would mean that there would be at least one relief pitcher with an OVR < 40, in which case I assumed only 7 relief pitchers plus 5 starters on the roster . After taking out the 12 or 13 pitchers, the highest rated position players were assumed to be on the active roster. I realize I had to make some judgment calls here, but I plan on updating the table above after the first season sim.

So, the results suggest that Manama (exp. 97 wins) and Bucharest (101 wins) are once more, the favorites for BURT and BANC respectively, with Jerusalem (89 wins) and Mumbai (85 wins) the favorites for the two wild cards. But, while both Manama and Bucharest are clear favorites for league winners, there are other teams that could easily "steal" a wild card position, such as Beirut (84 wins) in BURT or Athens (81 wins) or maybe even Tripoli (77 wins) in BANC. Not surprisingly, the two expansion teams are forecast to finish last in each league, although Baghdad might not be a whole lot better than Riyadh.

I realize there are significant limitations in this analysis, specifically, just focusing on OVR ratings: this does not consider that OVR rating might NOT be the best indicator of projected WAR: it might not correlate exactly with performance in game. For example, a good hitting, good fielding 70 OVR player might be worth more WAR as a SS, for example, than as a 1B: their batting WAR will be equivalent, but the defensive WAR that a good fielding SS could get is much greater than the first baseman. It does not consider platooning choices, or team strategies, or other intangibles. So it is a rough guide, at best. But for margins of at least 7 or 8 WAR between teams, that would be tough to cover by these differences alone.

And, of course, there is also the issue about injuries. That 70 OVR player getting a long-term injury would mean a huge difference to a team that has to replace that player with a replacement-level player.

Finally, there might still be some free agent purchases, and trades made between teams (or, maybe, Jerusalem promotes Chmelyk midway through season). That, of course, could have a significant impact on teams' ratings.

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Re: 2046 Full UMEBA preview

Post by jtannehill » Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:11 pm

Nice Preview and explanation of how you came up with your final totals! Thank you for putting in the time and effort good stuff!

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Re: 2046 Full UMEBA preview

Post by tylertoo » Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:14 pm

Excellent analysis. This approach should be integrated into OOTP for the game's own predictions.
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Re: 2046 Full UMEBA preview

Post by usnspecialist » Wed Feb 24, 2021 3:00 pm

This is some cool stuff
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Re: 2046 Full UMEBA preview

Post by DaveB » Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:35 pm

Interesting read. Makes me think we stink. Oh well let’s get the games played see if that’s accurate. I’ve never trusted OOTP overall and potential ratings.
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Re: 2046 Full UMEBA preview

Post by allenciox » Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:57 pm

DaveB wrote:
Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:35 pm
Interesting read. Makes me think we stink. Oh well let’s get the games played see if that’s accurate. I’ve never trusted OOTP overall and potential ratings.
No, it doesn't think you "stink": it projects you for 85 wins which is better than last year. You made some nice upgrades in the offseason, but so did everybody --- every team in UMEBA is better than last year's team, as the talent level continues to go up.

Perhaps you are noting the game's projection that had you winning BANC. Maybe that is right, but it seems a bit rosy from my vantage point (even trying to take away my prejudice towards my own team).

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