Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I have this pretty fast team for AT &T which I somewhat mindlessly do in pitcher's parks but my question is whether it really impacts the game. When I look at the stats for my team Hal says I had 24 player advances in 27 games

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/misc/1418266

Well, that seems pretty modest to me. I took a look at my first nine games and the potential advances I saw with regard to speed rating were these:

6 singles, 1-3 (runner advancing from first to third)
1 single, 2-h
5 doubles, 1-h, b-3
2 doubles 1-h, b-2
2 h&R singles 1-3
6 ground-out advances (a total of 6 runners advanced)
2 SFs (3 total runners advanced)

If you counted all runner advances that would be 32 advances in 9 games, about 3 per game. But perhaps some of these advances are done without calculating run ratings (h&R, ground-outs or SF?) 3 advances per game seems significant--one, not so much. I am wondering if anyone has some info about when Hal uses speed ratings and what it is looking at in calculating player advance data.

My understanding is that the "opportunities" you see in the Baserunning section relate to all occasions where a baserunning decision is involved. But it's not always clear when these occasions occur. For example, if you read on a card "single**", it might be "transformed" into single + decision (as a consequence of the "more baserunning decision" option), but it could also not be "transformed" and the computer sends the runner to third without involving a decision. Of course, if the result is single* or si*, and the runner takes an extra base, but for sure a running decision was involved. My own estimation is that roughly 75% of all single* or single** are transformed into single + decision.

In all cases where a runner takes three bases on a doubles, it certainly involves a decision UNLESS you get a DO3 on a defensive chart (only outfielders rated 3 or worse have DO3). A double stretched to third always involve a decision.

FlyB with a scratch (with a question mark) always involve a decision, but I don't think flyB without a scratch does, unless it's flyB (rf) with a runner on second.

I believe that ground balls never involve a decision except with a runner on third trying to score...but I don't recall what that rules is.

Hit-and-run can involve a decision if the result is read on the pitcher's card---I seem to recall that a runner got retired as he was trying to reach 3rd base.

Finally, I think that the system only counts as one opportunity when you see two runners advancing, because only one throw is intended, unless a rare play occurs like a throwing error, where I think two throws are possible, but I write this without much conviction.

In fact the only reliable way to monitor your running game is that you record your data one night, you look at the difference the night after, and you look at play-to-play to understand what happened.

I did it with your team. On the baserunning page, the only player that had a change was David Oritz, he went from 6 opportunities to 7, but he didn't advance. Looking at play-by-play, the only occasion that makes sense was game 31, 7h inning, when Crawford hit a single with Ortiz on second, and Ortiz stopped at third. Note that the result on Crawford's card was 3-6, which reads do**/single**. So the single** was transformed into a single(of)

Marc, you are good man to go the extra mile to help Freeman with his question. It's kind, helpful, knowledgeable, wily veterans like yo that make this online game so great.

Thanks Kevin.

Yes. Thanks for the input, Marc--I appreciate it. My original idea was to look at players with high number of single*/single** on their cards in combination with a fast team in the theory that in a pitcher's ballpark that could lead to more scoring. But I realized that I really did not understand when Hal looks at run ratings. Clearly, Hal is looking at single* decisions and then looking at run ratings at least a good deal of the time (the rules say so) but what about other situations? Marc provides some valuable information but I am wondering how much value in the game run rating gives a player? Without really trying to assess when Hal uses run rating I looked at how many times a player advanced (whether 1-3, 2-h, going to third on a double, advancing on a groundout or a fly ball). So I looked at players who played on my team full-time, with the number of advances Hal calculates in parentheses:

Ortiz 10 (3)
Altuve 19 (4)
Simmons 10(2)
Crawford 10 (4)
McCutcheon 27 (10)
Gose 15 (8)

This was over 45 games. The problem is that certain players are on-base more have more chances to advance. Altuve, McCutcheon and Gose are 1-17. Ortiz is a 1-8. According to Hal, Altuve has advanced 4 times in 45 games and Ortiz has advanced 3 times. The question for me is Hal giving complete information regarding when speed comes into play. Are the stats in the Misc section a complete statement of when Hal looks at run ratings or do run ratings come into play in other situations? The other question is what results on a player card will cause Hal to reference run ratings? (Marc gave a good analysis here)

I think Hal provides full information--I followed one team over100 games with regards to running stat, and except for a few cases, the info on the stats page all made sense.

Altuve does seem low with only 4 "decisional" advances in 45 games, despite the fact that he did advance 19 times. I think the main factor explaining this is that Altuve hits mostly third in your team, behind some good onbase playes, most notably McCutchen, so there are probably many occasions where you had Altuve onbase as a trail runner with another runner that was the lead runner. In these cases, when the offensive coach sends both runners, the defensive coach must decide if he goes after the lead runner or the trail runner. Since Altuve is so fast, there is little incentive to go after this trail runner, so the defensive coach must probably alway pursue to retire the lead runner---most of the times McCutchen---and in these cases, my understanding is that Hals attributes the "advance" stat only to the lead runner, even though Altuve did advance on the play. Hal attributes the "advance" stat to both runners only when Hal intercepts the ball and relay it to second or third base to get the runner out--something that probably rarely happens to Altuve.

Your explanation makes sense. To try and get some sense of how running affects things I went and looked at my league's stats for the first 57 games. Here are the running stars for each team:

94 opp 54 adv 7 outs 498 h 341 s (my team)
90 opp 33 adv 8 outs 448 h 358 s
90 opp 35 adv 9 outs 483 h 281 s
115 opp 48 adv 9 outs 510 h 368 s
128 46 14 479 357
107 32 11 544 377
78 30 8 448 h 281s
110 27 14 478h 322s
111 41 11 519h 362s
99 31 5 498h 299s
108 40 11 499 317
105 48 10 493 357

Average 102 opp 39 adv 9 out. If it held up over a season I would get about 42 more advances over an average team with 4 fewer outs. My run setting is aggressive.

In a "gestalt" review I did not see much of a correlation between singles and opportunities but hits overall appear correlated which certainly makes sense.

So if you equated that advantage to SB and used Dean's formula that would yield about 8-9 runs above average. Maybe it should be likened to total bases in the formula because a lot of advances score runs and sometimes advances drag other runners along. So maybe close to 15 runs. I am not sure that justifies opting with a fast team.