McDiddy Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Props to GrnDynsty for coming up with the idea for this. He can explain CAP making like none other for NBA Live. This is for MVP though, and I've taken the job as instructor. Have fun guys! The Art of CAP making First of all, I want to say that I dont use any set formula for my CAPs (Create-A-Player). Baseball is too unpredictable.... a guy can have a bad year and then break out the next. Formulas dont understand that. So what I ean by formulas is basically making a stat-to-ratings type calculator... that doesnt work well. What you do need is a general knowledge of what a good rating is, and what a bad rating is. And, you have to have good judgement in decerning if a player is worthy of a high or low rating for whatever attribute, based on what you know about him. The ultimate goal when creating a player CAP is to make it so that the player plays in game just like he would for real. Let me explain the CAP attributes one by one... Career Potential This determines how well a player will progress throughout a season and his career. 1 star would mean that the player has pretty much peaked in terms of ability. Players with a 1 star rating are usually minor leaguers who have basically most of what they're going to be taught and they still havent improved. Some players just dont have what it takes to make it playing professional ball. Those players are 1 star minor leaguers. A 1 star ratings can also be given to veterans who have hit that time in their career where they just arent going to improve anymore. In the case of veterans though, their career potential rating is not really a gauge of how much they improve, it actually judges how well they retain their skill. For instance, Barry Bonds (or Jon Dowd) has a 5 star career potential rating; he isnt going to improve any though, because he's 40 years old. The reason he has a 5 star rating is because Bonds retains his skill well (which may be due in part to steroids) and he's going to retire as a good player. The sky is the limit for a young players that have 5 star career potential, they'll improve a lot. 5 Stars - Future superstar. 4 Stars - Great potential, will turn out to be a good player. 3 Stars - Teachable, might even be a standout prospect, but still not top notch. 2 Stars - Not much potential. This rating is for "expect little" players. 1 Star - Peaked. Wont get any better, only worse. RH/LH Contact A player's contact rating determines how well he can get the bat on the ball and put it in play, and how well he can place the ball. If you're creating a player who gets a lot of hits than he'd need a high contact rating. Here's my general understanding of what certain contact ratings produce... 95-100: This is for the hitter elite only. That would be your Ichiro's. 90-95: This rating belongs to excellent hitters. 80-90: This rating is for successful major league hitters of whom you'd expect a .308-.320 range batting average. 70-80: Generally, batters with a 70's rating are .300 type hitters. 65-70: This is the rating that mostly good role players would have. 60-65: This is usually the contact rating for major league backups and standout minor leaguers. 50-60: This rating goes to your above average minor league hitters. 0-50: This contact rating is for minor leaguers and poor major league backups. RH/LH Power A player's power rating determines how hard he can hit the ball, and how likely he is to go yard. This one is pretty simple... power hitters have a high power rating, and base hit type players have less. 95-100: This is for the monster mashers. 45+ home run hitters. 90-95: Excellent power hitters. 30+ home runs. 80-90: Great power hitters. 20-35 homers. 60-70: Respectable power, but could be better. 50-60: Good minor leaguers, major league backups. 0-50: Minor league power. A player can have lots of contact with almost no power and he can still be major league material (i.e. Juan Pierre). The same applies to power hitters with little contact. It is generally know that a hitter hit worse against a pitcher that is the same hand as him. So, a right handed hitter will usually have a bit higher of a contact rating against a left handed pitcher, as opposed to a righty. Just like how lefty hitters have less success against lefty pitchers. So you may want to remember that. It applies in most cases, but not all cases. Bunting Seldom is a player's bunting ability spoken of, and you cant easily figure it out thru stats. Most of the time a player's bunting rating is a product of the edjucated guess. In most cases, contact hitters are better bunters than power hitters, and most speedy players have taken the time to learn to bunt well, whereas slower players tend to just focus on swinging the bat. Believe it or not, most minor leaguers are fairly bad bunters. If they're going to be a real bunter it'll happen to them in the bigs. 90-100: Exceptional bunter. This rating is for sac bunters, its for guys who bunt for hits. 80-90: This is for great bunters. Guys who can get it done. 70-80: Very good bunters. 65: Average Major league bunter. 55: Average minor league bunter, below average major league bunter. 0-50: Minor league bunters and bad major league bunters. Plate Disipline This attribute determines how smart, or patient, a player is when batting. Somebody said once that this attribute is for simming purposes only, thats not true. The plate disipline of the batters you face decides how much of your junk he'll swing at. I always have a hard time pitching to Todd Helton because his great plate disipline prevents him from chasing balls. Plate disipline also effects human users when they're batting. You know how the batter will check swing if you tap the swing button? Well the batter's plate disipline determines his swing sensitivity. For instance, if you come up to bat with a player like Yogi Berra, who has almost no plate disipline, all you have to do is just barely tap the swing button and he's going around. If you're hitting with guys like Helton or Barry Bonds, their swing is sharper, under way more control. Lots of minor leaguers lack plate disipline, and almost every pitcher does. You can judge a player's plate disipline from their stats if you look at how many walks they get, compared to how many times they strike out. 90-100: Amazing disipline. These hitters almost never swing at pitches out of the strike zone. 80-90: Great disipline. Tough hitter to fool. 70-80: Good disipline, smart hitter. 65: Average major league disipline. 50: Average minor league disipline. 0-50: Minor league disipline and poor major league disipline. Durability A player's durability rating determines his game-after-game stamina and his ability to protect himself from injury. The best way to figure out a player's durability is to look at his athleticism and to check out his injury record. Since minor leaguers play less games than the major leaguers do, their durability may be a tad less. For the most part though, they're the same, since durability deals more with athleticism than experience. 90-100: Extremely athletic, very healthy, never-get-injured players. 75-85: Very athletic players with no signs of injury. 70: Average healthy athlete with no injuries yet. 65: Athlete with a past injury. 50-60: Athletes who've had a bad injury. 0-50: Way out of shape players, or players with nagging injuries. Speed This attribute determines how fast a player will run in-game. The higher you set it, the faster he'll go. Even if they're a good athlete, many pitchers have a low speed rating. That is because there's just something about pitchers which makes it seem like they try to run while shielding their throwing arm. They're pretty slow... you'll rarely see a pitcher with a speed rating higher than in the 60's. Its pretty easy sometimes to overrate a player's speed, be careful. 95-100: Top in the league. Speed machines that can burn the basepaths. 90-95: Very, very good runners. Terrific speed. 80-90: Great speed. Not tops, but still very good. 70-80: Good speed. Above average. 60-70: Pretty good speed. Still above average. 50-60: About average major league speed. 40-50: Poor runners. Wont get around the bases very fast. 0-40: Terrible runners. Absolute slowpokes. Steal Tendency This attribute determines a runner's aggressiveness on the basepaths. It decides how often he will try to steal a bag, or how likely he is to try and stretch his hits by taking another base, and the probability of his tagging up on a fly ball, etc. This rating can also be a factor in the coach's decision to call a hit-and-run. 90-100: This rating is for those annoying runners that always seem to be doing some kind of damage when they're on base. 70-90: Aggressive runners. They'll definately try for a stolen base if the time is right. 55-70: Fairly aggressive baserunners. Willing to steal. 50: Average steal tendency. 0-40: Pretty low steal tendency. Wont try for many bases. Baserunning Ability This attribute determines how well a runner can go about his business on the basepaths. It decides the runner's ability to take a big lead and not get picked off, how good of jump he can get when trying to steal or tag up, and it also determines how well he slides on close plays. You could probably figure out a player's steal tendency through stats by looking at his stolen base attempts, but to figure out his baserunning ablility you'd have to look at how many steals he's gotten as opposed to how many times he's been caught stealing. 90-100: Fantastic baserunners. These guys do it right. 70-90: Great baserunners. They do a good job of running the bases. 55-70: Decent baserunners. Above average. 50: Average baserunners. 0-40: Poor baserunners. Below average. Fielding This attribute determines how well a player can field the ball. It's pretty self-explanatory. It decides how well he fields grounders, catches flyballs, how likely he is to make the play on divers, and it also determines his reaction time on linedrives. 80-100: Gold glove fielders. The cream of the crop. 70-80: Very good fielders. 65: Average fielders. 50-60: Below average fielders, but not utterly lost. 0-40: Terrible major league fielders. Range This attribute determines how much range a player can cover when he's fielding. A player's speed adds or subtracts to his range considerably, but his range rating decides how good of a jump he can get on the ball when its hit, whether he's tracking flyballs, or ranging for grounders. 80-100: Excellent range. Definately for guys who know what they're doing. 70-80: Very good range. Above average. 50-65: Average range. 0-40: Below average range. Throwing Strength This attribute explains itself. It determines how hard a player can throw the ball. 90-100: Fantastic throwing strength. This is for those guys who can throw a effortless bullet. 70-80: This is for players with a great arm. 65: Average throwing strength. 55-60: Below average throwing strength. 0-50: Really bad throwing strength. Throwing Accuracy This attribute is also self-descriptive. It determines how accurate a player can throw the ball. 90-100: Superb accuracy. On-line everytime. 70-80: Great accuracy. 65: Average throwing accuracy. 55-60: Below average throwing accuracy. 0-50: Really bad throwing accuracy. I havent had a whole lot of time to study the Batting Tendencies because its new for 2005, but I did do some research. Take: This determines how much a batter takes that type of pitch. The higher you set it, the more he'll take. Good players mostly have high take ratings. Chase: This determines how much a batter will chase after that type of pitch. The higher you set it, the more he'll fish for bad balls. Good players have low chase ratings. Miss: This determines how likely the batter is to miss that type of pitch. The higher the rating, the more he'll miss. Good players have a low miss rating. Thats really all for the ratings. My last piece of advice for you guys would be to try and stay away from extremes. Dont rate someone really high or really low in something unless its clear that it needs to be that much of an extreme. Thats it. Thanks for reading, and good luck making CAPs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoltinJoeCarter Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 awesome thanks. good to see you back mcdiddy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morhaky Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Good stuff, I was wondering what all those categories specifically did for me to create a certain player. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDiddy Posted March 23, 2005 Author Share Posted March 23, 2005 I'm probably going to add pitcher info later this week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qpontiac Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Very helpful McDiddy.... Question to McDiddy or to anyone: Career Potential...Not finding that in MVPEdit, so is that just "star power" in MVPEdit, and I should coincide Super, Lots, Avg, etc, with 5-star, 4-star, 3-star and so on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDiddy Posted March 23, 2005 Author Share Posted March 23, 2005 Very helpful McDiddy.... Question to McDiddy or to anyone: Career Potential...Not finding that in MVPEdit, so is that just "star power" in MVPEdit, and I should coincide Super, Lots, Avg, etc, with 5-star, 4-star, 3-star and so on? Yes, you assumed correct. Super = 5 Stars Lots = 4 Stars Average = 3 Stars Some = 2 Stars None = 1 Star Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llcmac Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 yuppers, qp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snash13 Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 great stuff mcdiddy. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tks Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 McDiddy.... Great information....Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDiddy Posted March 24, 2005 Author Share Posted March 24, 2005 No problem, glad to help guys. If you want, you can check out my CAPs site here: http://www.fanfaregames.com I've been making CAPs since 2003... never really stopped since then. Some people have asked how to do it and whatnot. I never really thought there was any way to teach it, its just something you can or cant do. I dont think thats true though anymore, hence this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kriegz Posted March 24, 2005 Share Posted March 24, 2005 Thanks Diddy, thats very helpfull! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stecropper Posted March 24, 2005 Share Posted March 24, 2005 McDiddy, This very good information and very much appreciated. Thanks, Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yankee Faithful Posted March 24, 2005 Share Posted March 24, 2005 Great Post Man, Great Post :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mclulu Posted March 24, 2005 Share Posted March 24, 2005 Awesome job! Thanks this helps me out a bunch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDiddy Posted May 13, 2005 Author Share Posted May 13, 2005 I finally got around to making the pitch ratings section. Enjoy! Pitch Ratings Descerning a player's pitch ratings can be the most difficult part of making a CAP. It's also the most important, as long as the player you're creating is a pitcher. Each pitcher has a Stamina and Pickoff rating. There is four different kinds of ratings that you can give each pitch: Movement, Trajectory, Control, and Velocity. That applies to every type of pitch except for the fastball, which requires only a control and velocity rating. I'll break down the pitch catagories for you guys and explain them all each in more detail. Stamina A pitcher's Stamina rating determines how long he can keep pitching without tiring, and it also determines how long it takes each pitcher to warm up. Sometimes you can get a somewhat accurate idea of a pitcher's stamina by looking at his average amount of innings pitched per game appearance. You can get that statistic simply by dividing the player's innings pitched (IP) by his games played (G), the number that comes out tells you what you need to know. So if I wanted Travis Miller's average innings pitched per appearances in 1997 I'd divide his 48.1 innings pitched by his 13 games; the outcome: 3.7. Lookes like long relief material to me. From what I've observed, if you take the pitcher's innings per appearance average, multiply it by ten, then add yen more points, then the pitcher's stamina rating comes out about right. I'll continue using Miller as the example. Multiply his 3.7 average by ten and you get 37, add ten points to that and we come up with 47. Thats about right for a guy who'll throw 3-4 innings a game. So thats one way to decide a pitcher's stamina rating. There is a slight flaw in that system though... Miller was the starting pitcher for seven of those thirteen games he played in. Major league starters all have a stamina rating higher than 47, so should Miller's rating be higher? Probably. Generally the principle stays the same though, it's up to you to decide whether the pitcher throws his amount of innings because thats all he can throw, of because thats all his team needs him to throw. Understand? I hope so. Pickoff A pitcher's pickoff rating determines his ability to pick runners off, obviously. It also has a slight effect on the runner's willingness to steal (another cool little unknown feature that EA slipped into MVP). Often times you'll have no idea what kind of a pickoff ability the guy you're creating has, when that happens just make sure you dont go to any extremes. A mild 40-60 rating would suffice. Movement This rating determines how much movement each pitch has. This is probably the most important rating that you'll give each pitch. You have to be careful not to go overboard and rate the movement too high, I think that I fell into that early on. 90-100: Unreal movement, just nasty... like Barry Zito's curveball. 80-90: Very, very good movement. Wicked stuff. 70-80: Good major league movement. 60-65: Average major league movement. 40-55: Minor league movement, poor by major league standards. Note: Pitches like the change-up and circle-change dont need a very high movement rating. I rarely give a change-up a movement rating any higher than 60 because movement generally isnt what makes those kind of pitches effective. Trajectory The trajectory rating determines the angle in which the ball breaks after it has been thrown. Trajectory goes hand-in-hand with movement, to decide the ball's approach to the plate, the pitch velocity plays a part too. For instance, the velocity will decide how much time it takes for the ball to go fromt he pitcher's hand to the catcher's glove, and in that time the pitch has to exicute its movement and the trajectory of it. All of them work together to form the effectiveness of each pitch. So the combination of those three ratings together when the pitch starts to break. If the pitcher has a looping 12-to-6 curveball with lots of movement then it's going to have to break sooner to fulfill its alloted trajectory and movement before the ball gets to the plate.If it's a high velocity pitch then the ball has even less time to the plate, thus the movement is sharper and more sudden. Does that make sense? I hope it does. You can check out a pitch trajectory chart here: http://www.fanfaregames.com/mvp/trajectorychart.htm Velocity As I explained earlier, the velocity rating determines how fast the pitch is. It normally isnt hard to fill out a pitcher's velocity rating because if you've been a good boy and done you're research then you already know what velocity each pitch is, whether it came from a scouting report, article, or just watching the guy pitch on TV. One thing that you have to know is that the velocity rating needs to be about two points lower that what the pitch speed actually is. So if you need to create a 90 mph fastball than you should rate it 88. Control A pitcher's control rating will determine his pitch accuracy. This is probably the toughest rating to get right. If you give a pitcher too much control than he'll just have his way with the opposing hitters. It's easy to give a pitcher too much control as opposed to not enough, so try and be a tough critic of each pitcher's control. Pitchers generally have more control over their fastball than any other pitch, so always keep that in mind. 90-100: Fantastic control, pinpoint accuray. 80-90: Awesome control, wont walk many batters. 70-80: Very good major league control. 60-65: Average major league control. 40-55: Minor league and poor major league control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nittanylionfan3 Posted May 13, 2005 Share Posted May 13, 2005 Awesome, thanks so much Mcdiddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDiddy Posted May 13, 2005 Author Share Posted May 13, 2005 I'm glad it's of some good use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDiddy Posted May 19, 2005 Author Share Posted May 19, 2005 I'm kind of glad I got it all finished, that was a lot of typing for me, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nittanylionfan3 Posted June 2, 2005 Share Posted June 2, 2005 wow, that is a lot of typing, but believe me it's helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fastflink2009 Posted June 2, 2005 Share Posted June 2, 2005 Hey man, thanks a ton, this explained so many things to me and if you figure out anymore stuff, i know everyone would want to know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nittanylionfan3 Posted June 8, 2005 Share Posted June 8, 2005 Where's a good place to get somebody's stats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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