Arm rating question

I was wondering if anyone through the years has seen a -6 arm in the outfield besides Clemente.

The same question goes for a -5 arm for a catcher besides Ivan Rodriguez.

Another question is how do they come up with the arm ratings for players?

I was looking at Campanella's two seasons on here.

In 1950 he threw out 63% of runners in 56 attempts.

In 1953 he threw out 54% of runners in 41 attempts.

It would seem that his 50 card should have a better minus rating but both are -3. Would there be any other factors to this? Maybe who the pitcher was and who was stealing?

Arm ratings may be one of the most misunderstood ratings in the strat world. Back in the days of the old strat fan magazine remember reading reputation played a significant role. That may be less so with newly minted cards in the 200x games. But probably still very much so when most of these ATG cards were first created. And once created there is a tendency for Strat to leave it alone.

Regarding Campy there are a couple things. The negativity of the arm rating not only impacts what percentage of runners are cut down but also on how likely a runner is to steal in the first place. Going from 41 to 56 is about a 25% increase in number of attempts. That might help explain why the arm ratings are the same. The formula has to simulate both likelihood of running and success rate. The problem is negated a little by the good jump bad jump ratings for runners but there is no mechanism for impacting frequency of steal attempts. Similar for theOF.

The computer may be a little more likely to be accurate but in face to face games managed all by humans Clemente will have few if any assists because we will be smart enough to look at the calculated odds of success which are always fixed and known and never challenge. While in real life Clemente was challenged a significant number of times. Had to be to be challenged a lot to be in the mid teens in assists every year with 27 in 1961. He had been around long enough by then to have the rep but still challenged enough. That same 61 strat card if I was managing against him would never throw anyone out.

Maybe a little off topic with that discussion but somewhat relevant. Now as to how Strat calculates and determines what the arm rating should be assigned as who knows. And nobody is ever going to know. That is the sort of thing strat treats like national security.

Also to stay a little on topic I do not ever recall seeing anyone other than Clemente get the -6 and never seen anyone other than Pudge get the -5.

Valen said:

I do not ever recall seeing anyone other than Clemente get the -6 and never seen anyone other than Pudge get the -5.

I am missing a couple of recent seasons, but I have the cards for most of the years for which they were printed and I don't remember anyone other than Clemente being -6 or other than Pudge being -5 either.


so I think Valen is pointing in the right direction.

Thanks. I didn't think about the rate of running as being a factor for catchers. It makes perfect sense.

I do wish we could find out how they calculate the ratings. It seems that stats are not very good from the old days. How did Strat come up with a -4 for King Kelly in 1886.

i think speaker is the all time leader in OF assists. he should be a minus 6. i saw aaron fool clemente. aaron was on first and either carty or alou hit a sharp single to clemente. aaron pretended he was going to stop at 2nd. clemente,assuming aaron was going to pull up at 2b, threw the ball behind him. at that point, aaron turned it on and beat Maz's throw to third.