MLB 15 The Show: Diamond Dynasty Stock Watch (6-15-15)

Feature Article

Submitted on: 06/15/2015 by Chase Becotte

Players On The Rise

Young starting pitchers began to see some love this week in the latest Diamond Dynasty update. Chris Archer has been an incredible pitcher this season and finally got another major uptick in his ratings. Beyond that, Sonny Gray (arguably even more ignored so far) also got a nice boost to his Overall rating in this week's update.

I'm really happy that Brian Dozier finally went Gold this week as well. I had predicted he would go Gold for weeks, and of course the week I don't put him in my predictions is the week he goes Gold (you're welcome Brian).

A.J. Pollock also continued his meteoric rise as he went Gold today. Albert Pujols returned to the throne and became a Gold as well. Lastly, Mark Melancon re-captured his Silver status this week.

Tier Changes

(All thanks go to Daddy Leagues for these numbers! They've been so on the ball the last couple weeks I no longer have to sync up before and after roster update video clips to do all the changes myself.)

Brian Dozier went from Silver to Gold
Avisail Garcia went from Bronze to Silver
Albert Pujols went from Silver to Gold
Dan Haren went from Bronze to Silver
Maikel Franco went from Common to Bronze
Mark Melancon went from Bronze to Silver
Chris Heston went from Bronze to Silver
A.J. Pollock went from Silver to Gold

Full List Of Changes

Eduardo Rodriguez +6 boost in Overall rating (75 Overall)

Dellin Betances +3 (90)

Chris Archer +4 (91)

Brian Dozier +2 (86) -- +9 Pwr vs. R / +9 Pwr vs. L

Eduardo Escobar +1 (68)

Jason Kipnis +2 (89) -- +6 Con vs. L / +8 Pwr vs. L

Avisail Garcia +3 (78) -- +6 Con vs. R / +4 Con vs. L / +9 Pwr vs. L

Carlos Rodon +5 (75)

Preston Tucker +1 (65)

Jake Buchanan +5 (64)

Joey Gallo +6 (75)

Ross Ohlendorf +5 (71)

Albert Pujols +3 (86) -- +18 Pwr vs. R

Carson Smith +3 (83)

Sonny Gray +3 (90)

Dillon Gee +5 (77)

Cody Martin +5 (74)

Dan Haren +3 (79)

Maikel Franco +9 (77) -- +14 Con vs. R / +15 Con vs. L / +10 Pwr vs. R / +10 Pwr vs. L

Carlos Martinez +4 (83)

Randal Grichuk +3 (64)

Mark Melancon +2 (79)

Jason Hammel +2 (84)

Pedro Villarreal +4 (59)

Michael Blazek +5 (75)

Andre Ethier +1 (80)

Chris Heston +4 (78)

Yonder Alonso +5 (76)

A.J. Pollock +2 (85) -- +5 Con vs. R / +7 Con vs. L

Corey Dickerson +3 (83)

John Axford +4 (76)

Christian Bergman +5 (67)

Chris Rusin +5 (67)

Players On The Decline

The Padres' pitching staff got blasted this week with Andrew Cashner, Ian Kennedy and Tyson Ross all being downgraded (sorry, Padres fans). Melky Cabrera was probably the biggest loser overall this week as his ratings overall got severely downgraded.

Yadier Molina and Alex Rios are two other players who dipped from Gold to Silver this week, along with Tyler Clippard. In Clippard's case, he's bounced between being Silver or Gold the last three weeks.

Lastly, Pablo Sandoval finally got another major downgrade against left-handed pitchers, which is very fair at this point.

Tier Changes

Chris Tillman went from Silver to Bronze
Pablo Sandoval went from Silver to Bronze
Alex Rios went from Gold to Silver
Melky Cabrera went from Silver to Bronze
Roberto H. Hernandez went from Bronze to Common
Tyler Clippard went from Gold to Silver
Yadier Molina went from Gold to Silver
Andrew Cashner went from Gold to Silver
Ian Kennedy went from Silver to Bronze

Full List Of Changes

Chris Tillman -2 (76)

Rick Porcello -1 (79)

Pablo Sandoval -4 (77) -- -20 Con vs. L

Enny Romero -4 (55)

Alex Rios -4 (81) -- -7 Con vs. R / -12 Con vs. L / -5 Pwr vs. L

Melky Cabrera -7 (75) -- -13 Con vs. R / -23 Con vs. L / -20 Pwr vs. L

Hector Noesi -4 (64)

Roberto H. Hernandez -5 (66)

Drew Rucinski -5 (57)

Fernando Rodney -1 (78)

Tyler Clippard -2 (83)

Ben Zobrist -2 (79) -- -8 Con vs. R / -7 Con vs. L / +6 Pwr vs. L

Matt Harvey -1 (93)

Jordan Zimmerman -1 (88)

Dana Eveland -3 (62)

Kendry Flores -2 (60)

Yadier Molina -3 (83) -- -9 Con vs. L / -10 Pwr vs. L

Jason Heyward -2 (82) -- -14 Con vs. R / +13 Con vs. L

Jon Lester -3 (86)

Kyle Lohse -3 (78)

Andrew Cashner -3 (82)

Tyson Ross -2 (81)

Ian Kennedy -4 (76)

Yasmany Tomas -2 (79)

Carlos Gonzalez -1 (81)

Market Changes

There was a Draft Sleepers Pack that destroyed the market for some Silver players, but otherwise nothing too crazy happened during the week.

Ratings Boost Prediction Results

Let's see how I did on my predictions this week (and as always come back over the weekend for next week's predictions):

-From the High Probability section I went: (4/8)

This is the first time I didn't hit on my top choice (Josh Donaldson), but otherwise this was a decent effort. Sonny Gray and Archer received boosts, so Gerrit Cole was the only one from that young triumverate that didn't get love.

-From the Moderate Probability section I went: (2/5)

I was conservative this week in putting people in this list, but did hit on my top choice in Pujols. Britton, Sale and Rosenthal were not touched as of yet, but I still believe they are locks for future updates.

-From the Low Probability section I went: (3/6)

This was a good showing for me. I hit on two veterans in Hammel and Axford, and then a young starting pitcher in Eduardo Rodriguez who is already getting boost love.

New Players

There are 13 new players in Diamond Dynasty this week that will impact Collections:

Oliver Drake (BAL)
Giovanny Urshela (CLE)
Junior Guerra (CWS)
Carlos Correa (HOU)
Vince Velasquez (HOU)
Pat Venditte (OAK)
Joe Ross (WSH)
David Aardsma (ATL)
Adam Conley (MIA)
Rafael Soriano (CHC)
Jon Moscot (CIN)
Taylor Jungmann (MIL)
Scott Schebler (LAD)

MLB 15 The Show Videos

Member Comments

# 1 BentleyA @ 06/15/15 02:04 PM

Pretty good list and nothing that really makes you scratch your head.

I am happy they boosted Dozier since he is a guy that does not jump out to you looking at his common stats, but his advanced statistics all show he's been one of the best hitting second basemen in the league.

I am still bummed theres no bump for Logan Morrison, especially his contact and power against righties where he has a wOBA of .353 and a wRC+ of 132. I am not saying he should have elite ratings there but 70 power and contact are low for his production against righties when he has been essentially 32 % above league average against right handed hitters this year.

There are some others, but I will wait another week.

Oh, you could add to the post, that the big reasons Carson Smith has moved to an 83 is because he has been being used as the Mariners Closer now, so he is now listed as a closing pitcher on his card, while Fernando Rodney is now just listed as a Relief Pitcher.

# 2 sh27 @ 06/15/15 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BentleyA


	Pretty good list and nothing that really makes you scratch your head. I am happy they boosted Dozier since he is a guy that does not jump out to you looking at his common stats, but his advanced statistics all show he's been one of the best hitting second basemen in the league. I am still bummed theres no bump for Logan Morrison, especially his contact and power against righties where he has a wOBA of .353 and a wRC+ of 132. I am not saying he should have elite ratings there but 70 power and contact are low for his production against righties when he has been essentially 32 % above league average against right handed hitters this year. There are some others, but I will wait another week. Oh, you could add to the post, that the big reasons Carson Smith has moved to an 83 is because he has been being used as the Mariners Closer now, so he is now listed as a closing pitcher on his card, while Fernando Rodney is now just listed as a Relief Pitcher.

I honestly don't think that SDS looks at advanced stats much, if at all, unfortunately.

# 3 Twinkie12 @ 06/15/15 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BentleyA


	Pretty good list and nothing that really makes you scratch your head. I am happy they boosted Dozier since he is a guy that does not jump out to you looking at his common stats, but his advanced statistics all show he's been one of the best hitting second basemen in the league. I am still bummed theres no bump for Logan Morrison, especially his contact and power against righties where he has a wOBA of .353 and a wRC+ of 132. I am not saying he should have elite ratings there but 70 power and contact are low for his production against righties when he has been essentially 32 % above league average against right handed hitters this year. There are some others, but I will wait another week. Oh, you could add to the post, that the big reasons Carson Smith has moved to an 83 is because he has been being used as the Mariners Closer now, so he is now listed as a closing pitcher on his card, while Fernando Rodney is now just listed as a Relief Pitcher.

People aren't noticing Dozier yet because they look at his position and .265 avg and go "meh." But when you hit for power, get on base at a .340 clip and play great D, you don't have to hit .300. Crazy how people still don't realize this.

Also, looks like its time to sell my Dee Gordon. I have been hanging on to Kpnis and Dozier expecting them to both go up and now they make for a perfect platoon, and this is the highest I've seen Gordon selling for in a while.

# 4 dta151 @ 06/15/15 05:27 PM

The people doing the rating have to be either brain dead ,do not follow baseball, or just do not care about being realistic. The fact that Gerrit Cole has been a 90 for over a month and not got a raise of 1 point is utterly astonishing. He would most likely be the Cy Young winner for the NL if the season was over now,leads the NL in ERA and Wins 10-2 1.71 ERA 1.08 Whip and has allowed only 1 earned run since May 27th and has won his last 5 starts. In his last 5 starts (5-0) he has allowed a total of 3 earned runs and has only issued 6 walks while having 40K's in 35 1/3 innings pitched. How does this not warrant being raised 1 point overall from a 90 to a 91 at minimum?

# 5 BentleyA @ 06/15/15 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twinkie12


	People aren't noticing Dozier yet because they look at his position and .265 avg and go "meh." But when you hit for power, get on base at a .340 clip and play great D, you don't have to hit .300. Crazy how people still don't realize this. Also, looks like its time to sell my Dee Gordon. I have been hanging on to Kpnis and Dozier expecting them to both go up and now they make for a perfect platoon, and this is the highest I've seen Gordon selling for in a while.

Exactly!
This really bothers me that they do not look at advanced statistics (even extremely basic ones). Batting average is probably one of the most overrated statistics in sports. Well, wins for a pitcher is probably the most overrated statistic and should never really even be used in my opinion.
Anyway, things like OBP, OPS, wRC+ and wOBA should be used and not average. OBP might actually be one of the most overlooked stats and it is known that it is actually one of the more important hitting statistics which is why saber metrics like wOBA use a factor of 1.8 for OBP (meaning it is shown to actually be 1.8 times more important than slugging).
But yeah, Dozier has been crushing it with the second highest wRC+ (145) and wOBA (.377) behind Kipnis for second basemen.
I mean an advanced statistic like wRC+ should be absolutely mandatory for the SCEA guys to use (I don't know if they actually use it or not). It is one of the easiest advanced stats to understand and should be easy to rate players on. For example, Dozier's wRC+ of 145 means that he is 45% better than league average for weighted runs created (factors in everything including ball park factors). That is a very good number and elite among second basemen this year.
Just like how SIERA and xFIP should most certainly be used for pitchers and definitely not wins and ERA (ERA can be used to make sure it is consistent with a pitchers SIERA and xFIP). This would help clear things up for them mightily.

Also, I posted it in another thread, but Frazier being left at 87 overall is starting to bug me and showing that they are not doing proper research. He has arguably been the best third basemen this year and every advanced statistic backs the argument of him being either 1A or 1B with Donaldson. Frazier's wOBA .410 (Donaldson .403), wRC+ 160 (Donaldson 161... Donaldson is 1 point higher here most likely due to park factors... again if this was used to rate players, it would clear things up a lot), slugging .603 (Donaldson .575), OPS .960 (Donaldson .944), homers 18 (Donaldson 17), and for the hell of it, Frazier has 7 stolen bases.

# 6 MrOldboy @ 06/15/15 07:48 PM

It's nice that Dozier has great OBP and his advanced stats look good, but we're talking about a video game here and one that values skills differently from real life. For instance, his OBP might influence his plate discipline, but the rating that counts more is his contact and a .265 average doesn't translate to something that high in game.

They couldn't bring his contact up any more so they upped his power a bit. There isn't much more room for Dozier to grow if he is rated properly in terms of what the game values. We might value his on base skills and above-average power at 2B, but the game has it's own value system in terms of it's overall rating calculation.

It's not that SDS doesn't look at advanced stats, they may very well look at them heavily. But in the game they created many of them don't matter. They built a simulation system and gameplay system to works with their ratings. In game a player might be rated very high because of his power ratings, yet in real life his value tanks due to his high strike out rate. In game that low vision rating doesn't affect his calculated value (overall) that much compared to if his power rating was dropped.

# 7 BentleyA @ 06/15/15 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dta151


	The people doing the rating have to be either brain dead ,do not follow baseball, or just do not care about being realistic. The fact that Gerrit Cole has been a 90 for over a month and not got a raise of 1 point is utterly astonishing. He would most likely be the Cy Young winner for the NL if the season was over now,leads the NL in ERA and Wins 10-2 1.71 ERA 1.08 Whip and has allowed only 1 earned run since May 27th and has won his last 5 starts. In his last 5 starts (5-0) he has allowed a total of 3 earned runs and has only issued 6 walks while having 40K's in 35 1/3 innings pitched. How does this not warrant being raised 1 point overall from a 90 to a 91 at minimum?

While I am not going to sit here and debate for or against Cole getting a rating bump, I do want to point out that you need to be careful using stats such as wins and ERA (again, I am not sure what SCEA uses). Especially wins. I would argue that pitcher wins is the most overrated and awful stat to use in sports.

Anyway, I am not trying to attack you or necessarily debunk anything you are saying, but I think this is an excellent example to use to point out why a stat like ERA should never be used by itself to evaluate or rate any pitcher.

So, Cole has an ERA of 1.71 on the season through 13 starts (84 IP). When I see that type of ERA, I want to either make it a stronger case, or explain why it might be so low. Taking a look, his xFIP is 2.68 with a SIERA of 2.70. Those two numbers are actually excellent, but since it is still early in the season, they are tied for 8th among starting pitchers. Additionally, the ERA-xFIP is -.65, which is the 21st highest (or lowest) among starting pitchers. This is signaling that there is inconsistencies in his statistics and that there is something going on (either getting lucky, pitching in pitcher friendly parks, playing poor quality opponents, or all three). Now keep in mind that Cole is a power pitcher and a strikeout pitcher which means his SIERA and xFIP are going to also be more favorable.
Anyway, when you look further into the reason for the ERA-xFIP or ERA-SIERA, you notice a couple of things. First of all, his HR/FB% is one of the lowest in MLB at 7.1%. The average is between 9-10% and this is not a stat that stays in favor of pitchers over the course of any amount of time. This is a regression to the mean statistic meaning that either he is playing in pitcher friendly parks, is getting lucky, or is facing poor opponents. If you want to look quickly at the other side of the spectrum, Felix has a FB/HR% currently of 21.3%, which is why his xFIP is quite a bit lower than his ERA. It is factoring in that he won't give up 21.3% FB/HR all season just like Cole will most likely not stay with the 7.1% (last year it was 9.4% and the season before 8.1%).

Yes, that is a fairly minor difference, but it does make a difference. Next then you have to look into the quality of opponent and parks that he has been pitching in.
You mentioned his 5 most recent starts. They were Phili, @Atlanta, @SFG, Miami, NYM. Now, to keep this brief and simple I am going to use wRC+ as a statistic for his opponents hitting. It is a well rounded stat that includes league averages and park factors. This article explains it in more detail (wRC+ Explained).

Okay so his recent opponents are currently 30th (Phili), 27th (Marlins), 20th (Braves), 17th (Mets), and 4th (Giants). Nice work for him against the Giants even though it was in a pitcher friendly park. Now looking over his season, he also has another start against Phili, one against Milwaukee (29th in hitting), Arizona (19th), Cinci (16th) twice, Chicago (18th) twice, and Detroit (3rd) once.
So that means out of his 13 starts this year, only 2 of them have been against teams that are better than 16th in hitting! So, that definitely helps explains his very low (or high, however you want to put it) ERA-xFIP or ERA-SIERA stat and is also a very very good reason and example of why stats like ERA by themselves should absolutely never be used to rate or evaluate a pitcher.

Again, I am not trying to attack you or even really debate whether or not he should get a rating boost (I could see a slight one). I just wanted to use your example as to why standard statistics such as ERA are not meant to be used by themselves.

EDIT: I will add links to brief explanations of some of the advanced stats that I mentioned incase anyone is confused:
xFIP
SIERA
wRC+
HR/FB% (This one does a good job of explaining how it is a regression to the mean stat)
This Article goes into further detail about why ERA is a bad stat to use by itself

# 8 BentleyA @ 06/15/15 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrOldboy


	It's nice that Dozier has great OBP and his advanced stats look good, but we're talking about a video game here and one that values skills differently from real life. For instance, his OBP might influence his plate discipline, but the rating that counts more is his contact and a .265 average doesn't translate to something that high in game. They couldn't bring his contact up any more so they upped his power a bit. There isn't much more room for Dozier to grow if he is rated properly in terms of what the game values. We might value his on base skills and above-average power at 2B, but the game has it's own value system in terms of it's overall rating calculation. It's not that SDS doesn't look at advanced stats, they may very well look at them heavily. But in the game they created many of them don't matter. They built a simulation system and gameplay system to works with their ratings. In game a player might be rated very high because of his power ratings, yet in real life his value tanks due to his high strike out rate. In game that low vision rating doesn't affect his calculated value (overall) that much compared to if his power rating was dropped.

All excellent points about trying to tie in something like OBP into the game. They would probably need to revamp their ratings methods (which I think they should), but I still think there is a lot they can do to make it better the way it is now.
Using the Dozier example, they could look at just a few advanced statistics to see the reason for his OBP, slugging, and average. His HR/FB% is awfully high right now at 14.6% (average is 9-10%), but at the same time the % of pitches he hits "hard" or "medium" is pretty high around 83%. This means he is getting good contact a high majority of the time. Once you see that, you can then peak at his BABIP which is just .287. A BABIP of .287 is actually a fair amount below average (MLB average hovers right around .300). When you mix in the fact that he is far above league average for percentage of balls hit either hard or medium with the fact that his BABIP is below average, I think it is very fair to say that his batting average of .265 is by no means an indicator of the contact he is making at the plate. For that reason, they should actually bump his contact up despite him having just a .265 average. Just like my post above, basic statistics such as batting average should never be looked at by themselves. There is always other statistics that show the reason why they are where they are or if they are the product of something else going on.
Basically, I guess what I was just arguing is that a power bump for Dozier is not a horrible thing since he is hitting the ball hard, especially since power in the game is not just used for homer runs (his home run percentage will drop due to his high hr/fb), but I think he should have also gotten a boost in contact as well since his .265 average clearly does not show the solid contact he is really making.

P.S. If any developers read this stuff, I am not trying to bash you guys, I am just trying to help out and can certainly offer more suggestions or help if needed

# 9 VoItage @ 06/15/15 11:22 PM

Glad to see Betances got an upgrade. 2-3 more and he'll be where he deserves.

# 10 LewisCAVS @ 06/16/15 06:44 AM

Wade Davis should be upgraded and possibly the first diamond reliever, he is just ridiculous and putting up unbelievable numbers.

# 11 Twinkie12 @ 06/16/15 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrOldboy


	It's nice that Dozier has great OBP and his advanced stats look good, but we're talking about a video game here and one that values skills differently from real life. For instance, his OBP might influence his plate discipline, but the rating that counts more is his contact and a .265 average doesn't translate to something that high in game. They couldn't bring his contact up any more so they upped his power a bit. There isn't much more room for Dozier to grow if he is rated properly in terms of what the game values. We might value his on base skills and above-average power at 2B, but the game has it's own value system in terms of it's overall rating calculation. It's not that SDS doesn't look at advanced stats, they may very well look at them heavily. But in the game they created many of them don't matter. They built a simulation system and gameplay system to works with their ratings. In game a player might be rated very high because of his power ratings, yet in real life his value tanks due to his high strike out rate. In game that low vision rating doesn't affect his calculated value (overall) that much compared to if his power rating was dropped.

I agree for the most part and I think he'll stay around an 86. The main problem I had with his initial ratings were that he had EXTREME splits. He was basically a completely different player at the plate against RH and that wasn't really accurate. They fixed that and gve him a little boost with this update.

I could argue his fielding rating could get a small bump, because I think hes borderline elite for his position, but he obviously plays 2B for a reason (he couldn't play SS) so it's not that big a deal to me.

# 12 BentleyA @ 06/16/15 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twinkie12


	I agree for the most part and I think he'll stay around an 86. The main problem I had with his initial ratings were that he had EXTREME splits. He was basically a completely different player at the plate against RH and that wasn't really accurate. They fixed that and gve him a little boost with this update. I could argue his fielding rating could get a small bump, because I think hes borderline elite for his position, but he obviously plays 2B for a reason (he couldn't play SS) so it's not that big a deal to me.

I am honestly not well versed in some of the defensive saber metrics and now that you bring that up, it has motivated me to look more into those haha. I mean i know UZR and defensive WAR (DWAR seems to be very inconsistent though), but not some of the other stuff.

That is really silly about his splits. Taking a quick peak, he has very minimal differences in his splits. Last year he was wOBA .351 LHP/.335 RHP and wRC+ 126 LHP/114 RHP, and a slightly bigger difference in his OPS and slugging but nothing significant.

# 13 MrOldboy @ 06/16/15 06:36 PM

The devs use the last 3 years to compute their ratings so although his 2014 splits weren't that extreme, his 2012 and 2013 splits were. From what the devs said it was maybe 50% last year and 25% the previous years. Could be mistaken, but they don't just use the previous year to get their ratings. Looking at Dozier's past splits what he started at this year seemed reasonable.

His career split tell this story. 93/141 wRC+

# 14 Twinkie12 @ 06/17/15 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BentleyA


	I am honestly not well versed in some of the defensive saber metrics and now that you bring that up, it has motivated me to look more into those haha. I mean i know UZR and defensive WAR (DWAR seems to be very inconsistent though), but not some of the other stuff. That is really silly about his splits. Taking a quick peak, he has very minimal differences in his splits. Last year he was wOBA .351 LHP/.335 RHP and wRC+ 126 LHP/114 RHP, and a slightly bigger difference in his OPS and slugging but nothing significant.

Im not all that well versed in defensive metrics either other than UZR and DRS (defensive runs saved) and even those can be a bit sporadic. I judge his defensive mainly upon what I see, as I watch a lot of Twins games, as well as what others see/write about him.

More Links

Players On The Rise

Players On The Decline

Market Changes

Ratings Boost Prediction Results

New Players