Player Ratings

[paulw]

I created these formulas for my rabid interest in old-baseball. That's why I have 100 set for Roger Maris 1961 (pre-steroid era). Here's some fun teams for you. I putzed with these numbers until they felt and played right. Contact is first/Power second/Speed is third.

1951 New York Giants

Whitey Lockman 76 53 68

Alvin Dark 83 59 74

Don Mueller 76 62 28

Monte Irvin 85 70 78

Bobby Thomson 77 82 66

Willie Mays 69 70 90 (Willie's rookie year)

Eddie Stanky 60 54 54

Wes Westrum 44 72 22

Speed is calculated from my "secret" formula. Actually about four or five different references.

1952 Philadelphia Athletics

Ferris Fain 92 45 58

Elmer Valo 76 52 71

Eddie Joost 57 65 56

Guz Zernial 64 71 36

Dave Philley 69 44 75

Skeeter Kell 53 34 78

Billy Hitchcok 61 28 47

Joe Astroth 63 27 36

[Cris987]

I'm very interested in the "highest rating is 127 in the game" thing. I'm sure a guy(could he be a girl ? 8O) like Bill can change the progress file such that it doesn't switch any numbers above 100 back to 100.

Hopefully, he - or any others who has explored and understands the progress.big file - can help us on that.

[Cris987]

My contact formula takes into account both batting average and strikeout rate - which is how contact works in MVP. Strikeout effects the rating much, MUCH less than batting average however.

((350*Batting Average)-25)+((0.1-Strikeouts/At bats)*50)

I wish I had answers to your other questions. I've been thinking about setting up players with no hot and cold zones and seeing what happens. Just haven't had the time.

Did you base this equation on any classic players? (like what you did for the power one) And what would happen if I raise "350" to a higher number?

Thx

[jpup]

I'm very interested in the "highest rating is 127 in the game" thing. I'm sure a guy(could he be a girl ? 8O) like Bill can change the progress file such that it doesn't switch any numbers above 100 back to 100.

Hopefully, he - or any others who has explored and understands the progress.big file - can help us on that.

where is he anyway?

[paulw]

The contact scale doesn't have any absolute point of reference. I think around .350 with a low strikeout rate comes out to 100. That's the more arbitrary number I was shooting for.

If you raise the 350 in the formula it will increase the slope of the line. Ratings will increase and players with the higher average will increase the most. Lowering it will have the opposite effect.

[Cris987]

The contact scale doesn't have any absolute point of reference. I think around .350 with a low strikeout rate comes out to 100. That's the more arbitrary number I was shooting for.

If you raise the 350 in the formula it will increase the slope of the line. Ratings will increase and players with the higher average will increase the most. Lowering it will have the opposite effect.

So, what's your "secret" speed formula?

Edit: Can someone explain the difference between speed and baserunning ability?

[metalboy15]

Wow, very good job on making that formula.

Here are some players I tried:

Manny Ramirez: 89

Albert Pujols: 92

Barry Bonds (I know, I know) 126

Jim Thome: 90

Alex Rodriguez: 77

Ichiro: 42

Mora: 74

David Ortiz: 87

Edmonds: 95

Those are 2004 numbers, so I don't know if you'd want to use 3 year splits, 2 years splits, or career numbers.

Alex Rodriguez: 77!!!!!!!!!

yeah right...

[paulw]

77 for Alex last year (only 24 doubles with the 36 dingers). The numbers never lie If I were to subjectively on a 1 to 100 scale rate Alex for his career I'd probably give him about an 84 or so.

[Cris987]

77 for Alex last year (only 24 doubles with the 36 dingers). The numbers never lie If I were to subjectively on a 1 to 100 scale rate Alex for his career I'd probably give him about an 84 or so.

Looks like my question got hidden:

Paul, would you like to "reveal" your "secret" speed formula?

Also, can someone explain what is the difference between speed and baserunning ability?

[paulw]

I "plugged him in" and he got an 83 for power and 77 for contact - career numbers. The contact would be 84 or so but he whiffs about 110 times per year. That's what drops his contact down.

Please take these numbers with a very, VERY large grain of salt. I do, however, enjoy very much talking about them.

[CCH3900]

Anybody happen to know if the player ratings system is going to be the

same this year as in 2004? In other words, can I take players from the

2004 game and make copies of them in 2005 without any real difficulties?

I hate when sports games change this. I remember one year ('99 i think)

EA's NHL game went from using numbers to stupid bars to show ratings.

late, but it was for that one year only

[paulw]

Speed is very hard to calculate from actual baseball stats. It's never been done as far as I know. What I use are old Strat-o-matic ratings, APBA ratings and references such as The Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James.

Baserunning, as opposed to speed, refers to decision making on the bases.

[CCH3900]

im confused??????????????????????, so the decsion on stealing the based on speed to baserunning

[stecropper]

paulw,

Nice to hear you reference back to old Strat-O-Matic cards to do some individual customization on things such as Speed ratings. I do the same and I have several boxes of old Strat-O-Matic cards for research.

As far as Speed. I fully agree the difficulty in calculating a Rating for. But what I normally use is a ratio of Triples a player get relative to a normalized year of 500 AtBats combined with his stolen base success rate. Also I factor in the position he plays as Centerfielders & Shortstops typically are the speedster whereas catchers & 1st baseman are typically the slower players.

Not BaseRunning ability is even more difficult to calculate but in doing the best I can at it I also factor in the number of games played with the rationale that a player that doesn't play as often probably has a better chance of making a poor baserunning decision.

Interesting stuff ain't it.

[paulw]

Great stuff, stecropper. I've thought many times of a speed formula with many of the same variables you mention. Could age be something else that you could fit into your formula?

[stecropper]

Yep I certainly think age could be a factor in such that after a certain age there is a direct relationship to slowing down regardless of the speed one possesses. Now on the other hand an older age might reflect an increased ability in something like Baserunning ability.

I like to believe if you apply a generally accepted factor to a formula or equation that the overall end results always has a positive effect toward being more realistic. You may miss heavy on some and lite on others but overall the results for the masses will be more accurate than inaccurate.

MVPEdit incorporates some of those beliefs. It is almost a necessity when you have such a limit amount of statistics and have to come up with Ratings - Good example is Throwing accurracy was a tough one with the limited amount of stats available .... but MVPEdit did come up with one and it was fairly evenly distributed (which is important) and overall I felt it was as realistic as it could be.

[stecropper]

paulw,

Have you been in touch with Robert Glass? I think it would be a good thing to get you two guys together because I think improvment on some of the MVPEdit output would happen by combining some ideas. Robert is a great guy to work with and he gets things done quickly which is really nice when you are working toward a product a lot of people are waiting on.

[paulw]

Never spoke with him but would love to. Thanks...

[BiggaAdams]

Well I think Im getting the game for PS2, and will go through the first day creating minor leaguers and editing current players who I believe are a little off.

Question, how would I go about creating the # 1 pitching prospect in baseball Felix Hernandez? What kind of formula would I use to try and get an accurate rating of him.

Thanks guys.

[Cris987]

Well I think Im getting the game for PS2, and will go through the first day creating minor leaguers and editing current players who I believe are a little off.

Question, how would I go about creating the # 1 pitching prospect in baseball Felix Hernandez? What kind of formula would I use to try and get an accurate rating of him.

Thanks guys.

There's no accurate formula for anything, and formulae just don't rhyme especially with pitching. I can only suggest you to take a look at GForce22's TotalMinors to see how he did his. I think his roster has the best minor league setup.

[BiggaAdams]

There's no accurate formula for anything, and formulae just don't rhyme especially with pitching. I can only suggest you to take a look at GForce22's TotalMinors to see how he did his. I think his roster has the best minor league setup.

Cool, I'll have to do that. Ill check his ratings and go from there. It'll take me a few hours to create every prospect, still not sure if I'm gonna do that or not :?:

[pujols_7777]

"pujols_7777" wrote: (I really dont know for the life of me what i am talking about)

Regardless ....... I enjoyed reading your thoughts and they made sense to me !!!

thanks man. maybe i dont suck so much after all about paulw's power formula--I separated the Lahman database into 2 excel files (players a-m and n-z) so that it all fits into one spreadsheet; now im working into having a power rating next to each guy. Anybody interested?

[yukon2k]

According to this equation, my boy Aaron Rowand of the White Sox will have a 79 power rating:

Aaron Rowand's SLG % was .544 last season so:

((.544 * 1000) - 300) / 5) + 30.5 = 79.3 or 79

You must have screwed up your math with Chavez and Berkman...

Eric Chavez's SLG % was .501 last season so:

((.501 * 1000) - 300) / 5) + 30.5 = 70.7 or 71 if rounded up

Lance Berkman's SLG % was .566 last season so:

((.566 * 1000) - 300) / 5) + 30.5 = 83.7 or 84 if rounded up

I would hope that EA adjusts Chavez's power rating. 71 is too low for him. Chavez's power rating should at least be in the high 70's. Him being injured for half the season likely had alot to do with his low Slugging % last season.

[yukon2k]

According to this equation, my boy Aaron Rowand of the White Sox will have a 79 power rating:

Aaron Rowand's SLG % was .544 last season so:

((.544 * 1000) - 300) / 5) + 30.5 = 79.3 or 79

You must have screwed up your math with Chavez and Berkman...

Eric Chavez's SLG % was .501 last season so:

((.501 * 1000) - 300) / 5) + 30.5 = 70.7 or 71 if rounded up

Lance Berkman's SLG % was .566 last season so:

((.566 * 1000) - 300) / 5) + 30.5 = 83.7 or 84 if rounded up

I would hope that EA adjusts Chavez's power rating. 71 is too low for him. Chavez's power rating should at least be in the high 70's. Him being injured for half the season likely had alot to do with his low Slugging % last season.

how are you getting these formulas to work? i've tried entering them exactly the way you have entered them in both excel & works and i keep getting error messages about the parentheses. i've tried entering the formula listed a couple of different ways by changing the parentheses around, but i either get an error message or i get a sum of -29. something when i try to use .650 as a slg%

[paulw]

The ratings for the default MVP rosters look very different this year. One thing is that it looks like 25 is about the minimum for contact and power. I don't get this. Why chop off 25 points from a scale that you could use to discriminate more among players with differing values?

I want to study the ratings - run some regressions and stuff. I'm actually playing 2005 with my old ratings right now and it seems to be working fairly realistically. This needs to be looked into quite a bit more.