Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Thought I would examine the top ten salaries players (according to Dean Carrano's formulas and Marc's arm ratings). The first column does not use BP hrs or singles (like a 1 1 stadium and not factoring in the 1/20 chances of getting a BP hr or single). Second column is for an 1-8 BP hr, 1-8 BP single stadium, third column is for 1-16 BP HR, 1-16 BP single stadium). The fourth column is for defensive runs saved

Trout 23 28 35 -.75
MCCutchwon 23 28 34 -.4
Tulo 21.24 25 29 -6.8
Stanton 23.627 29.58 35.63 +.7
Brantley 21 24.58 28.18 -1.8
Bautista 16.40 20.50 24.70 +2
Beltre 16.443 19.34 21.3 -.3
V Martinez 18.46 22.56 26.76 +4.1
Abreu 16.65 21.95 27.4 +3.1
Rizzo 17.82 23.12 28.56 +1.1

This looks at runs created per 108 rolls on a batter's card against RHP pitching. I tend to think you can get platoon guys to fill in against lefties for relatively cheap prices. One obvious example: Zach Walters. For 2.34 mill you get a guy who at Rogers field creates 37 runs per 108 rolls. Also, I had no way of factoring in run ratings. I looked at some results for fast runners and Brantley in particular. If you analogize to steals, if a runner has 30 advances in a year that would yield about 10 every 208 rolls and multiplying that by .2 you get 2 runs. 15 advances would get 1 run. So for a fast runner with good on- base I think an extra run added to the formula is a safe bet-- might even be 1.5.

Hey freeman,

Trying to understand: in 1-8 stadiums, you have Stanton in front of Trout and McCutchen, both equal at 28.

Something is fishy. McCutchen is head and above the best offensive card vs rhp. Best onbase behind only to Turner, plus power, clutch. In my ratings, I have McClutchen, Trout, Turner, Stanton and Tulo, before adjusting for playing time.

It was a math error. McCutcheon should be about 32 in a 1-8 park. Thanks for pointing it out the error.And Turner may be the best overall offensive value in a pitcher's ballpark, but his value decreases in home run parks. I recall looking at Turner and it was about in the 23 area and of course he is a lot cheaper. Of course you lose about 4 runs playing him in the field but in a pitcher's ballpark it is still worth it.

The formula I used does not have clutch (Turner has great clutch numbers) and I just focused on RHP. Tulo crushes lefties so he would get a huge jump playing in Rogers and including numbers against lefties. Your ratings seem right to me. Danny Santana is also a sneaky good value in a pitcher's ballpark.

Okay, makes sense.

Just to clarify, my top 5 above is only vs rhp.

freeman wrote:Danny Santana is also a sneaky good value in a pitcher's ballpark.

see:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=638534

Santana doesn't look good in my ratings.

In my ratings, when rating Offensive value vs rhp, the value I have, in neutral parks, for Santana is 2.37M. The card most similar to Santana's in value for offense vs rhp is E.Hernandez (after factoring hits, walks, power, dp, and clutch, and ballpark factors hr=9/9 si10/10, but not incorporating running, and not adjusted for playing time).

What's interesting is that E.Hernandez has no value in defense (neither positive, nor negative), no value in running, no value vs lhp (similar to a 0.5m card vs lhp, but not worst than that). Bottom-line, what you pay for in Hernanadez is his value offensively vs rhp, and strat believe that this value is worth 2.35M. So I feel I'm right on target with my 2.37m value for Santana. And if Santana is not worth more than that offensively vs rhp, it's hard to imagine he's worth 6M with his other assets, no matter how (rationally) you weigh them.

For what is worth, this is Dean's NERP,for 4-6M ss, adjusted for playtime (Santana has a 3/11 injury) . Take note that Dean's NERP doesnot factor in clutch, an important lack in my opinion, but to keepmthe NERP spirit, i did not incorporate clutch here neither.

NERP ARGENT SS-Player
17.56 6,080,000 Escobar,A
14.56 5,910,000 Santana,D+
14.82 5,660,000 Ramirez,Al
13.87 5,170,000 Rollins,J+
13.40 4,820,000 Crawford,B*
12.66 4,740,000 Peralta,J
12.56 4,460,000 Aybar,E+
11.72 4,430,000 Desmond,I
13.01 4,270,000 Hardy,J

Santana is clealy not the better choice here as well, and if you factor clutch, I believe that Crawford's value overpass Santana---for 1M less.

Santana doesn't look good in my ratings---when I set neutral ballpark parameters. But Santana might be the card in this year's whole set that gets the biggest uplift by playing in a deep pitcher's park (no singles, no homeruns, like At&t) because his incapacity to turn the double-play has less impact there and because his card has high total bases not depending on ballpark homeruns. In my ratings, this uplift is still not enough to make him a good value though. But If a defensive backup can cover him in late innings, if there's no better option at leadoff, in At&t, I can see him being worth the pricetag.

My NERP calculation is about 20 for Santana with no injury adjustment. That's treating all BP hrs and singles as outs (so basically close to an extreme pitcher's park). He will also provide value as a 1-16 runner (say 1 run ). He will also provide value as an * base stealer causing hitters to see their 6 A+ numbers on their cards to turn from double plays to singles. So a player hitting behind him with 30 hits on his card and say 8 walks would go from a .300 hitter on their card to a .360 hitter and they would hit into fewer double- plays. Dean Carrano thought that runners would be held on first and first and third situations about 21.3% of plate appearances. I am not sure what number to use for how an * runner affects batting average. A runner can sit at first and affect three batters. And maybe the computer holds runner at second. If Santana got on base and affected 50 batters (That seems low) then he he would cause about three more hits and three fewer double plays over a season due to his *steal rating.

A few questions Marc:

(1) how much effect does clutch have on a player's value (they seem to be rare occurrences)
(2) what effect does run rating have on a player's value?
(3) what effect does *rating have on a player's value?

I agree that Santana probably should only be played in a pitcher's park but other than injury rating not sure why our NERP ratings seem to differ as to him.

Also, when you go from a hypothetical 0 0 BP hr si to a 8 8 park the value of a player goes up .608 runs per BP hr and 1.216 per BP hr in a 16 16 ballpark. BP singles increases .5 runs at an 8 8 park and 1 run at a 16 16 park.
For each BP hr you multiply .4(4)=1.6 TB(.318)+ .4(.25)=.608. For 16 16 it's .8(4)=3.2tb(.318)+ .8(.25)=1.217

Then just multiply number of BP home runs times .608 to get increase in runs created in a 8 BPhr ballpark and 1.217 times number of BP hrs to get the increase in runs created in a 16 16 ballpark.

Hi freeman,

My NERP calculation is about 20 for Santana with no injury adjustment.

Did you consider only vs rhp? I The NERP listed above is both vs lhp (30%) and vs rhp (70%). Also I plugged in the NERP formula my projected SB and CS (instead of real SB and CS). My projected SB-CS for Santana is 22-7. Finally, I adjusted for playtime---93% instead of 100% for a full regular player. To repeat, I did not adjust NERP for clutch (even though I believe it should) because I know that Dean didn't think clutch was important.

He will also provide value as an * base stealer causing hitters to see their 6 A+ numbers on their cards to turn from double plays to singles.

Two things. First, the rule you stated above (A+ turning into singles) is the rule in advanced play---but not in super-advanced mode, which is the mode use here on-line. In super-advanced mode, the impact is not as bad--some defenders lose 1 rating and some results (roughly 2.5 chances overall) become singles. See rules 23.81-23.83 here for more details: http://www.rsbl.org/SOM-BaseballRulebook.pdf

Second, most unfortunately, Hal doesn't act like a human when it comes to holding the runner. Basically all runners are held except with
a)runners without the star and with extremely low chances of getting the lead,
b)runners with very high chances of getting out if not held
c) runners with very low first steal numbers
d) or when game is blown off.

So there is no huge advantage to have a * because almost all potent runners, including those without the *, will be held--but players who fit the a)-c) descriptions should be penalized.

(1) how much effect does clutch have on a player's value (they seem to be rare occurrences)
(2) what effect does run rating have on a player's value?
(3) what effect does *rating have on a player's value?

Clutch hits are rare occurrences indeed. Roughly 12% of all at-bats are clutch situations and, save a few exceptions, all players are within +10/-10 boundaries for clutch hits---so clutch hits don't affect more than 1% of all readings for most players. That's the main reason why Dean didn't bother to count clutch in his NERP rating. And the other reason why Dean came to the conclusion that clutch hits were not worth the trouble is because, when he was using his NERP formula, he was weighing clutch hits as singles--so the overall impact of clutch in his formulas was minimal.

To me, to consider clutch singles like any other singles because the formula says so is having a blind formula leading blind men. But we know baseball, we understand it. Singles are not all equal, our baseball intuition says so. So let's use some common sense (and let me set aside the impact of running, throws at the plate, etc). When a clutch hit happens, you get one run. Actually, you may even get more than one run--you get two runs when bases are loaded---and the inning is still open, so you might as well score more runs than that. Alternatively, if you get an out, you get no run, and the inning is over--no chance to score any more.

So the value of a clutch hit is obvious---it's definitively worth one run, and in some occasions it's worth more than one run. The only other event to definitively produce one run and sometimes produce more are homeruns---and indeed, when taking into account all probabilities, a single in a clutch situation usually generates 1.40 runs while a homerun generates 1.44 runs. So, in a simple way, clutch hits are worth (almost) as much as homeruns.

Of course, clutch hits occur only in clutch situations---and those situations occur roughly 12% of all situations--1/8th so to speak. So if I were to integrate clutch hits into NERP, I would give clutch ratings the value of a homerun event divided by 8. A player with a -8 clutch rating is like a player with a full chance of homerun taken away.

Yep, mine was only for RHP, not adjusted for injury, and I used Dean's way of doing steals--I guess that explains the difference. Thanks for the correction on the effect of runners on A+ results on cards. Is there a way to estimate the difference between an *rated player and a non-asterisk rated player in general or is just not quantifiable because there are too many unknowns?
With regard to clutch, it seems to me it's a bit tough to evaluate it by looking at individual players but with teams over a 162 games it certainly makes a difference. It was looking at a recent league where the best clutch team had 9 hits and 6 outs and the worst had 0 hits and 39 outs. So that's at least 36 runs difference plus any extra runs lost/gained when there is a man on third as well as second plus whatever runs would be gained after the clutch hit. Anecdotal review of cards seems to indicate that there is a skewing towards higher non-clutch results in cards. It's hard to build a team that gets a lot of clutch hits--it's avoiding cards that are really bad clutch that is more important.