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

[ChaseB]

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 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)

Read More - The San Diego Padres Get Hit With Downgrades

[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.

[sh27]

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.

[Twinkie12]

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.

[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?

[BentleyA]

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.

[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.

[BentleyA]

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