Biggest Complaint - Player Values

[Jzyehoshua]

As I went through the trade screen, I was, for lack of a better word, shocked, to see the player valuation had been done completely randomly. I'd first noticed when I tried evaluating players by real world baseball stats, only to begin recognizing their player ratings had nothing to do with how they'd done in real life. Johnny Damon, one of baseball's great basestealers, for example, is giving a 54 Run rating.

The entire system is entirely random. Johan Santana, the best pitcher of the past decade hands-down, is just an 8 in the system as a pitcher, and ranked below no name pitchers who get better ratings. The entire system appears to have been sorted entirely random, and ratings assigned by a dice roll.

I understand the usefulness of this, in making it so nonsensical that people can't argue for or against a player being higher or lower in ratings, since it was all done randomly, but think it would add to the game to make it comparable to their real-life success and abilities, so that one could research player's actual stats to determine which are better choices. It would add another dimension to the game in making it realistic rather than a 'fantasy'.

[Edward@Sega]

I wouldn't say they're random. Some adjustment probably needs to be done but value is more like their contract number, and doesn't always correspond to skill. Johnny Damon stole 11 bases last season -- a 54 rating for Run is pretty reasonable. I like the guy but he's not what he once was :)

Santana being an 8 is a good thing -- you want great players to have a lower cost with the "salary cap". His numbers may not look superhuman but those ratings are actually pretty high and he will pitch very, very well for you -- especially once you use cards to increase key stats. In all, player numbers are fairly conservative. Numbers in the 70s are usually very good; remember the numbers are relative to the rest of the league, not just 1-100. You'll find that Santana and others in his class (Halladay, Lincecum, etc.) -- especially once you improve their stats with cards -- will have excellent pitching stats through your season. Just wait to see how they perform.

[Jzyehoshua]

Well, Damon stole 11/12, and 12/12 the year before, so when going he's successful, and should probably steal more. But a 54 speed rating? Even typical catches get Run ratings in the 40s. Ratings in the high 40s seem to be strictly average, and to say his speed is about average is not accurate.

Some other weird values:

-Willie Harris: A 46 run rating despite 42 combined steals over the previous 3 years - in very limited playing time, averaging only 400 Plate Appearances a year, about 2/3 of a season each time. In 2010 he had just 5, but this was due in part to limited playing time, with just 224 PAs, and reaching base just 77 times. I got a card for him and was thinking 'sure-fire leadoff possibility' and then saw the speed rating...
-Tom Gorzalanny: A 6 star player? Are you serious? With ratings all around 70? Hasn't had an ERA below 4 since 2007 - also the only time in his career (2007) that he won more than 7 games. His career 4.68 ERA should make him a 2 star pitcher, and that would be generous. Coming off a 7-9, 4.09 ERA season that, sadly, is one of his best seasons. There's no way to justify the value the game gives him.
-Brandon Morrow: Superstar 9-star pitcher? With a career 4.19 ERA, he's struggled to get an ERA below 4.30 since moving to the rotation 2 years ago. Though given a 73 stamina rating here (better than Carlos Zambrano who regularly pitches 200+ innings a year with numerous 120+ pitch games) he has never pitched 150 innings in a season. -.-
-Edwin Jackson: Like Morrow, the 8 stars and high value for a career 4.62 ERA pitcher are difficult to understand. Coming off a 4.47 ERA year, I'm not sure why he's rated on the 2nd page for top pitchers in baseball.
-Homer Bailey: Yet another no-name, 8-star pitcher with ratings almost all in the 70s. Bailey has a bloated 5.09 career ERA, and after 4 seasons in the majors has yet to show he can have a season with an ERA under 4.40... Yet somehow, he's suddenly a top MLB pitcher...
-Fausto Carmona: A 4.43 career ERA pitcher with 8 stars. He's had 2 good years out of his 5 seasons in the majors, and the rest had ERAs over 5 with no more than 8 wins in any of them. There is a reason he is NOT a household name.
-Jorge De La Rosa: Another starting pitcher with a career ERA over 5, yet an 8 star value. Need I say more?
-Johan Santana: Unfortunately he's just not as good as Brandon Morrow yet, despite having a career 3.10 ERA, 2 Cy Young Awards, 4 All-Star appearances, and leading the league 3 times in ERA, 3 times in strikeouts, 4 times in WHIP, and finishing 3 times in the MVP voting. Coming off a 2.98 ERA season, he's arguably the most dominant pitcher of his generation, yet somehow ranks below the noteworthy pitchers mentioned above. -.^
-Rich Harden: One of the most pinpoint pitchers in baseball, with impeccable control, Harden has somehow achieved a 56 control rating in the game. While coming off the worst season of his career, to put his control at the level of a 2 star pitcher is difficult to understand.
-Carlos Zambrano: With a 60 stamina rating, it's difficult to understand what in the world this could have been based upon. Big Z pitched 209 or more innings 5 straight years in a row, from 2003-2007. With a career 3.50 ERA, his career stats are in the realm of the top pitchers from the 9-10 star category. Despite missing a third of this season, thanks to another horrible move by Cubs GM Jim Hendry in demoting him for months because he had a poor 3 week start to the season, he still went past 100 pitches in 13 of his 20 starts this year. To put him below so many 4.50 career ERA pitchers in value, while also giving him a horrible stamina rating, is entirely unrealistic and inexcusable.

There are more situations, this is just a cursory view of mostly the top pitchers.

[Jzyehoshua]

As someone who follows MLB pitching closely, it jumped out at me fast that some of the best pitchers in the game were being rated poorly, while some of the worst were inexplicably getting 9 and 10 star ratings. The only explanation had to be that it was random rating, given the situations above, which are only a small sample of what I'm seeing wrong with the rating system overall.

[Edward@Sega]

As someone who follows MLB pitching closely, it jumped out at me fast that some of the best pitchers in the game were being rated poorly, while some of the worst were inexplicably getting 9 and 10 star ratings. The only explanation had to be that it was random rating, given the situations above, which are only a small sample of what I'm seeing wrong with the rating system overall.

As I mentioned -- the star ratings are not the same as skill (though they correlate). The stars are contract ratings, based partly off of real-world skills & value and partly off of balance (I don't have info on everything that went into determining stars). Pay attention to the actual number values for their categories, and especially, how they end up performing :)

[rdt24]

@Jzyehoshua

Agree with most that you have said - Ervin Santana, Homer Bailey stats are horrible, nowhere near what they should be.

At a glance Carmona, Davis (neither throw 96mph for starters), Guthrie, Masterson, Richard, also have stats that are too high.

Found less problems with Morrow (3.63 xFIP 11K/9 ---> 7/8 star?), De La Rosa (3.75 xFIP ---> 7 star?) - two pitchers that have changed (e.g. both gaining more control) and can't be judged by career numbers.

Also, Harden had a BB/9 over 6 last year - no problems with his control stat.

I assume the Zambrano stamina mistake would be due to someone not realising he was put in the bullpen for part of last year and should also be fixed.

%%%%%%%%%%%

Have noticed that fielding stats in general are rather arbitrary. e.g. Uggla (a player known to not be a very good defender UZR of negative 7.6) has a better fielding stat than Longoria, Zimmerman, Beltre ( UZR values 11.1, 13.9, 11.8 ) to name a few. The fielding trend continues with a lot of players.

Uggla is rated far too highly in Contact and fielding skills.

Konerko (Contact 81,Power 84) has the same batting stats as Pujols (Contact 80 Power 85)!!! I can understand some mistakes to an extent, but some like these are bordering ridiculous.

Also, setting a lineup is an arduous task at the moment as there is no way to compare stats of players in the lineup without doubleclicking each player and remembering the stats. If the batting stats were available next to the player pictures / the compare tool integrated so that it can be used between any two players (not just between an active and an inactive player), lineups could be made much more quickly.

Apart from the lineup taking a long time to make, and the stats problem in general, the game has been great so far, looks very promising.

rdt

[Jzyehoshua]

Yeah, some of the speed ratings seemed off too but I hadn't looked too closely yet.

Zambrano last year was sent to the minors and then switched between the bullpen for much of the early part of the season by the Cubs GM, Jim Hendry, who now has critics calling for his firing - finally -.- He even hired the only GM who'd been worse than him, Pirates GM Dave Littlefield, as a scout. Z like Johan Santana has always started the year off slow, and both have their worst months in April/May and June, probably a byproduct of both being from Venezuela's hot climate, yet now pitching in cold weather - Zambrano himself said this years ago.

Also, there is a player compare tool in Roster view if you go to the Change button. You can compare a selected player from the Roster view to one in the Change view.

[Jzyehoshua]

I've noticed inaccuracies in defensive positions too. Willie Harris has played over 200 games at 2B in his career, yet doesn't have it in his positions. Carlos Guillen has played 856 games at Shortstop. The most he's played anywhere else is 189 at 3B and 70 at 1B, yet according to the game he can only play 2B and the Outfield. Another easy example is Scott Hairston. As listed by Baseball Reference (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hairssc01.shtml), he's a leftfielder/2nd baseman, who's played 371 games in the outfield and 86 at 2B. He's never played shortstop or any other position, yet the game lists him as a D level outfielder and F level shortstop. Where the shortstop rating came from I have NO idea.

Btw, all 3 are on my in-game team, so it's not like I'm having to go far afield to find examples, either.

[rdt24]

@Jzyehoshua

my problem was you cannot compare 2 players from your active roster, which is what i want to do when setting a lineup.

You can only compare an active player to an inactive player

[Jzyehoshua]

@Jzyehoshua

my problem was you cannot compare 2 players from your active roster, which is what i want to do when setting a lineup.

You can only compare an active player to an inactive player

Ohhh, okay, good point. There should be a Compare button for the Roster page as well, you're right.

[Jzyehoshua]

Derrek Lee is a D rating 1st baseman. Really?

-.-

3-time Gold Glove winner and a human vacuum cleaner at the position, one of the best defensive 1st basemen to have played in the last decade. He's an ESPN highlight reel regular year to year. Teams like the Cubs and Braves have gone after him in part just because of his legendary fielding ability which is considered to instantly upgrade a whole infield's defense.

[Jzyehoshua]

And to think, David Ortiz with 7 points of Run training is as fast as Johnny Damon. Look out Johnny, he's gaining on you! Seriously, you don't get much slower than Big Papi on the bases - you've got to figure Ortiz's 47 Run rating should be the lowest possible rating.

[Weebs]

Jzyehoshua, I think the ratings, as they should be, are based on a player's current abilities. Johnny Damon really isn't a big base-stealing threat at this point in his career. Should he be so close (after trainings) to David Ortiz? Probably not, but he still shouldn't be too high. I also think one problem is that they categorize the stat as Run, instead of Speed and Base-Running. For example, Albert Pujols isn't fast, but he's an excellent base-runner. I'm sure SEGA has some sort of explanation for how the numbers all work out, but I would guess that stat mostly relates to their ability to steal bases. I have Nyjer Morgan and Trevor Crowe on my team, both of whom have like 8-9 SBs so far. I would imagine a higher Run stat results in more SB attempts, which makes sense. That mid-50s rating for Damon would probably get him around 5-10 throughout the season.

I definitely do agree, however, that some of the cost ratings are ridiculous. I don't think you'd see a 5-star player with comparable skills to an 8-star, as Edward@Sega was kind of suggesting. Either way, some of the cost ratings are way off, with Fausto Carmona being the most obvious.

[Edward@Sega]

A few notes on ratings, with the caveat that this is partly my opinion & observation from seeing the game develop and talking with the devs. I didn't design the game myself so I can't speak to every single thing, and I'm certainly not in a position to for a game still in beta, but hopefully I can clear up a few things :)

1) As Weebs says, ratings are based more on players' current abilities. I mentioned earlier in this thread -- Damon stole 11 bases last season. He's 37 years old and his range in the outfield isn't what it was. The low rating is fair there. Also worth mentioning: it's particularly tricky to balance cost/ability ratings for players with injury history affecting their performance and/or players with recent good and bad seasons. How exactly do you value a player like Fausto Carmona? He's still a young player, had an excellent 2007 season, has a contract that could net him 43 million (had to look this up), has been otherwise up and down but clearly still has talent (had him on my fantasy baseball team last year and will vouch for this). Maybe he's not in the same "sure thing" category that other 8-star players are but I think that 8 stars actually reflects him in a fairly clever way: He has some good ability numbers that you could get lucky and improve; he's a risk to use on your team but could potentially pitch very well for you. We could argue all day about if he's "good" or not but the point is the game tries to split the balance between a player's real life talent and their potential for future performance, and how much of a risk/reward there is to plugging them into your team.

2) The catch with any and all sports games will always be the ratings. Real life players don't have number values attached to their abilities and when you try and describe their behavior in a simulation or video game or whatever, you're going to run into quirky things (like being able to bump David Ortiz up to Johnny Damon's speed rating). This is especially true in that this is a game that's attempting to simulate player abilities; to make things "work" players have to be assigned a number and that's going to end up looking odd in some settings.

3) A huge part of this game is built around being able to improve your players. Yes, you CAN improve Ortiz to match Damon's speed. But then you've spent all your improvement cards improving his speed from "poor" to "average" (or thereabouts). It's a trade off, and that's part of the strategy of this game -- picking what to improve for players and deciding how that fits in with your team.

4) Yes, most of the 10 star players are the best players. For the most part, star rating does = player ability. But star ratings can be very, very deceiving. An 8 player may be "better" in most senses than, say, a 4 player. But those extra stars are a lot of extra salary cap space. Each time you add one of the most expensive players to your team you have to consider who you could add instead. Is a 10 star player better than a 4 star player and a 6 star player? It's going to depend on the improvements you've given them and how you want to build your team, and who those players are.

5) No, not every star rating or ability score is 100% "accurate". That's very hard to get right for everyone in any game and there's always going to be someone who's not happy with someone's rating, especially if that someone happens to be on their favorite team. Ratings for players will be adjusted in future updates; I don't yet know how often but we will make changes. Something to consider if you're eager to see ratings updated: This game is built around people keeping and improving their teams. There's a balance to be had between reflecting real life abilities and in not messing with the teams people have invested in.

6) Defensive ratings were also mentioned in this thread. IMO that's an especially difficult one to reflect, and especially in video games. I mean sure Derek Jeter won a gold glove last season ... but should he have a really good defensive rating? You can form your own opinion on that one :) Defensive ability at a position like first base matters a lot more in MLB than it does in games, and this isn't a failure of programming so much as it is a really difficult position to quantify. What should an excellent defensive first basemen add to the game? They may get to slightly more line drives and make fewer errors but how much should a sim-type game weigh that stuff? Unless a 1B/3B is at the far end of the spectrum -- either a total liability or a total wizard -- it probably shouldn't effect the sim THAT much if one guy is a 55 and one is a 65. An engine accounting too much for that sort of difference would be very sensitive indeed, and you'd probably get a lot of unintended results. I'm not saying that none of this should be corrected, or that Derrick Lee or Albert Pujols or whoever has a 100% accurate rating for these categories. But it is a really difficult thing to reflect in a game.