BBA Today #59 - Relative to El Paso

[Ted]

Ron Collins and Ted Schmidt talk about the impending relocation of the Aviators franchise to El Paso. Gap power gets a day in the sun and we discuss the merits of defense. Lastly, we ramble on about the impending shift away from relative ratings to absolute/real ratings and get as excited as two nerds can about multi-colored bars changing.

GET IT HERE!

[jleddy]

The rest of the Frontier will be happy to reap some of the rewards of improved attendance in El Paso after years of extremely low shared gate revenue.

[Fat Nige]

Thanks guys for the Wichita discussion, I really enjoyed it. I have been planning it for a couple of years now, ever since it became clear that 2045 was potentially the first year I would make a profit, but as you say is 2045 the right year to move? Anything before that is definitely a no-no, 2045 is year zero, I should have no debt but no money either. If I wait to 2046 though how much money would I make as a 52 FI team that might well lose heavily again? No money in the kitty to improve at the start of 2045 but perhaps the opportunity to jump in at trade deadline time having made some money and grab some decent bad-contract half season rentals to boost the win total for the second half of the year? I thought the best deal would be to move with no money and take advantage of the fan and market boost to make year zero a better revenue year than if it had been in Wichita.
Maybe a boost in season tickets makes enough money to strike lucky plus I have potentially a few good (good for Wichita) rookies arriving who might add a few wins and keep the FI from eroding too much in EP’s first year. It’ll be a real chase, getting the money in to grab a few better players while holding up the FI. From the second year in EP I should have the money to do as Ted said and gradually use a few FA’s to shore up the wins & revenue.
The thing is though I just can’t see many scenarios in which I could do worse in EP in 2045 than I would have done in Wichita. The battle is to improve the team faster than the advantages erode. Although the results don’t really show it I have improved the team, I took over a bunch of 35-45 rated players with a couple of star names. Now while getting rid of the debt, I haven’t added to the top end but the players in the middle of the roster have all gone up to 40-50 ratings. A small change yes, but if my rookies improve maybe I can push that to 45-55 and then add a few 55-60 rated FA’s as suggested and the wagon may be rolling.
Anyway as you both said it’s a gamble, not the first gamble in the franchise but I think one at better odds than Stu’s. If either of you want to ask me financial values for your studies, feel free to drop me a pm, I’m more than willing to help your studies so long as the end results are made available to the league as always. I will do my best to document it all so perhaps people can learn where I went wrong lol

[jleddy]

Great convo about the ratings, especially King v Palmer.

I think it’s somewhat pretty clear as to why each pitcher have their existing Stuff ratings: King’s poor third pitch, his lower than league-average velo, plus he has a reverse-split as a lefty...six seems fair and I’d guess it’s on the mid-to-low end of that rating. I’d guess it stays a six when ratings change.

For Palmer, he has a good third pitch (plus five total pitches) and throws gas. Seven seems fair and I guess it’s on the mid-to-high end of that rating. I’d guess it had a good chance of bumping to an eight when ratings change.

The guy I have bookmarked to check after ratings change is Omaha’s Jorge Hernandez. I have no clue why he’s a seven stuff, although his K/9 doesn’t reflect having really good stuff. Maybe he’s an “induce weak contact” guy, not a “swing-and-miss” guy?

[shoeless.db]

Interesting discussion on Fernando Reyes and the move to real ratings. The guy I'm most curious about on my Sacramento squad is my current DH against RHP, Ramon Carrasco. He's still running a generally small sample size in the BBA (404 Plate Appearances with a slash of .280/.354/.571), but he's far exceeding his visual relative ratings: 5/6/7/6/6 OVR; 6/6/7/6/6 vs RHP.

[Ted]

Interesting discussion on Fernando Reyes and the move to real ratings. The guy I'm most curious about on my Sacramento squad is my current DH against RHP, Ramon Carrasco. He's still running a generally small sample size in the BBA (404 Plate Appearances with a slash of .280/.354/.571), but he's far exceeding his visual relative ratings: 5/6/7/6/6 OVR; 6/6/7/6/6 vs RHP.

That's an interesting one. You'd think his bad split would pull hit POT down to a 45, so maybe some of those 6/7's are gonna jump. He's a great example of what I was talking about.

[Ted]

Great convo about the ratings, especially King v Palmer.

I think it’s somewhat pretty clear as to why each pitcher have their existing Stuff ratings: King’s poor third pitch, his lower than league-average velo, plus he has a reverse-split as a lefty...six seems fair and I’d guess it’s on the mid-to-low end of that rating. I’d guess it stays a six when ratings change.

For Palmer, he has a good third pitch (plus five total pitches) and throws gas. Seven seems fair and I guess it’s on the mid-to-high end of that rating. I’d guess it had a good chance of bumping to an eight when ratings change.

The guy I have bookmarked to check after ratings change is Omaha’s Jorge Hernandez. I have no clue why he’s a seven stuff, although his K/9 doesn’t reflect having really good stuff. Maybe he’s an “induce weak contact” guy, not a “swing-and-miss” guy?

Yeah his stuff rating is interesting. I'd guess he'll go to a high 8 for stuff, but 9 is possible. You still think he'd whiff more guys with that, right?

[shoeless.db]

Interesting discussion on Fernando Reyes and the move to real ratings. The guy I'm most curious about on my Sacramento squad is my current DH against RHP, Ramon Carrasco. He's still running a generally small sample size in the BBA (404 Plate Appearances with a slash of .280/.354/.571), but he's far exceeding his visual relative ratings: 5/6/7/6/6 OVR; 6/6/7/6/6 vs RHP.

That's an interesting one. You'd think his bad split would pull hit POT down to a 45, so maybe some of those 6/7's are gonna jump. He's a great example of what I was talking about.

He's also an example of a guy who has no right to call himself a switch hitter. I mean... good god, he hits like my 95 year old grandma from the right side.

Hmm... I wonder if just being a switch hitter bumps his overall for some dumb reason.

[Ted]

Interesting discussion on Fernando Reyes and the move to real ratings. The guy I'm most curious about on my Sacramento squad is my current DH against RHP, Ramon Carrasco. He's still running a generally small sample size in the BBA (404 Plate Appearances with a slash of .280/.354/.571), but he's far exceeding his visual relative ratings: 5/6/7/6/6 OVR; 6/6/7/6/6 vs RHP.

That's an interesting one. You'd think his bad split would pull hit POT down to a 45, so maybe some of those 6/7's are gonna jump. He's a great example of what I was talking about.

He's also an example of a guy who has no right to call himself a switch hitter. I mean... good god, he hits like my 95 year old grandma from the right side.

Hmm... I wonder if just being a switch hitter bumps his overall for some dumb reason.

I does not. Handedness doesn't change overall rating. You could edit this guy to R or L and it wouldn't change. At least it didn't in the last version of OOTP. I suppose I haven't checked in this one, but don't expect it to be different.

[HoosierVic]

Nice job, men. Particularly enjoyed the El Paso discussion and the pros and cons of making the move next year.

[RonCo]

... Handedness doesn't change overall rating. You could edit this guy to R or L and it wouldn't change. At least it didn't in the last version of OOTP. I suppose I haven't checked in this one, but don't expect it to be different.

Mechanically it's true that handedness doesn't affect overall ratings. You can switch the handedness of the hitter (or pitcher) in the editor and the ratings won't change. But that's a limited framework. I'm pretty sure handedness makes a big difference on player creation, and splits. Left handed batters, for example, will tend to have bigger splits than RHB.

The game will, however, use a player's ratings against handedness to determine value. In the editor this seems to be a 30/70 kind of split for hitters (meaning that the ratings assume the player at hand is assumed to face 30% LHP, 70% RHP).

So, to see this in the editor, you have to go and swap the Vs. RHP/LHP ratings.

For Example (using a test league and the 250 scale):

VS RHP: 25/25/25/25/25
Vs. LHP: 175/175/175/175/175
Overall: 30

Vs. RHP: 175/175/175/175/175
VS LHP: 25/25/25/25/25
Overall: 55

-------------------------------------------

Now, my angst with relative ratings can be boiled down to that second player who--in almost any league I've been a part of--would be a monster. To your point, there's really not any difference in true value of this last guy and a guy with:

Vs. RHP: 175/175/175/175/175
VS LHP: 75/75/75/75/75
Overall: 60

Neither guy do you want hitting RHP.

----------------------------------------

On the other hand, maybe that's cool. Dunno. Here's an example of a true switch hitter (hits equally well on both sides)

Vs. RHP: 140/140/140/140/140
Vs. LHP: 140/140/140/140/140
Overall: 55

So per the game this guy who can truly switch-hit is valued the same as that mega-LHB who can't hit LHP in case number one. He looks worse than the LHB of case #2.

[RonCo]

If we drop vLHP down to very small...

Vs. RHP: 175/175/175/175/175
VS LHP: 10/10/10/10/10
Overall: 50

Effectively all the LHB numbers are probably of about equal value on the field but they vary from 50-55-60 in overall ratings.

[bschr682]

Is the switch back to real ratings going to happen immediately post Landis? Seems like it could have some major influence on non tender and free agent target decisions...

[Lane]

Is the switch back to real ratings going to happen immediately post Landis? Seems like it could have some major influence on non tender and free agent target decisions...

It would probably be prudent for GMs to make some of those decisions before the switch.

[Lane]

Great discussion gents. Enjoyed the discussion about defense and pitching, this is definitely the biggest change in the Surfers from 2043 to 2044, and a huge part in why my pitching is second in the league.

[usnspecialist]

Is the switch back to real ratings going to happen immediately post Landis? Seems like it could have some major influence on non tender and free agent target decisions...

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=36201

This is probably assumed by now, however we never made an official announcement.

At the end of the Landis this year, we will be switching back to Real Ratings rather than Relative Ratings.

[FuzzyRawley]

Oh god, twisting the knife when talking about the Kernels defence. Tried to address that in the offseason, booted a bad CF and SS, replaced them with better defenders who then got worse. Beginning to think our groundsmen are sabotaging this.

[shoeless.db]

Oh god, twisting the knife when talking about the Kernels defence. Tried to address that in the offseason, booted a bad CF and SS, replaced them with better defenders who then got worse. Beginning to think our groundsmen are sabotaging this.

Have you tried not tilling up the field and growing a corn crop during the team's long road trips?

[FuzzyRawley]

Oh god, twisting the knife when talking about the Kernels defence. Tried to address that in the offseason, booted a bad CF and SS, replaced them with better defenders who then got worse. Beginning to think our groundsmen are sabotaging this.

Have you tried not tilling up the field and growing a corn crop during the team's long road trips?

Not negotiable. A large part of my offense comes from other teams lack of familiarity with how balls bounce between the corn rows in center.