2011 Projection-Based Rosters: Methods, Formulas, & Discussion ...

[TripleThreat1973]

Here is some information on some rosters I am workin on. It should give an overview of how they are put together, as well as, keeping my thoughts straight, and ensuring I'm on the right track.

This will be for MLB10, although if I buy MLB11, it could easily be done there too.

I'll be making about 10 consecutive posts. Give me a minute.

2011 Projection-Based Ratings System
[1] Projections
[2] Batting Splits
[3] Average Starter Ratings – OSFM v2
[4] Ratings Formulas
[5] Non-Formula Ratings
[6] Minor League Players
[7] Entering Ratings
[8] Lineups & Rotations
[9] Remaining, Absent, and Retired Players
[10] Testing
[11] Global Changes or Individual Tweaks

[TripleThreat1973]

[1] Why use 2011 Projections instead of 2010 Stats or 3-year Weighted Averages?

- My preference – I would prefer to play the “2011” season with ratings that projected players are calculated to have, versus “replaying the 2010 season”.

- Projections include 3-yar weighted averages already, plus MLE’s for minor leaguers, and aging curves, and league/park effects, career paths, etc.

Why ZiPS projections?

- I usually average 3 projection systems … CHONE, ZiPS, and Guru. The maker of CHONE projections has a job with a ML club, and can no longer produce projections for release to the public. CHONE recommends ZiPS.

Guru and ZiPS are already similar. I purchased THT (The Hardball Times), but they lack batting hand, games pitches, and games started, which makes it more difficult to calculate batting splits, pitcher stamina, and durability.

- ZiPS provides projections for about 65 players per team. Basically anyone that has a chance at playing at the ML level during the 2011 season is included.

[TripleThreat1973]

2] Batting Splits

Batting Splits were obtained from Scoresheet. The list suggests how many points should be subtracted from BA, OBP, and SLG based on pitcher handedness.

www.scoresheet.com/FOR_WWW/LR_diffs.txt

I then regressed the splits toward the league average, using 70% players splits and 30% league average splits as outlined by Mitchell Lichtman (co-author of ‘The Book’) and Dave Cameron (Fangraphs).

[TripleThreat1973]

[3] Average Starter Ratings


My MLB10 plays very well with my sliders and the OSFMv2 rosters. So, in order to come up with a system that is congruent with the ratings in the roster, I needed to find the average rating for each attribute for the average ML starter and work from there.

So, what I did was load the rosters and start a franchise with a fantasy draft. I recorded the top 30 position players at each position and the top 150 starting pitchers, top 30 relievers, and top 30 closer (Basically a starting team if the talent were distributed evenly throughout the league). The averages are displayed below.

POS.....CR.....CL.....PR.....PL.....BT.....DB.....VIS.....DIS.....CLT.....DUR.....SPD.....AST.....AAC.....RCT.....FLD.....BLK.....BAB.....BAG

C..........60.....63....55.....58.....22.....13.....57......65.......64.......71........32.......80......65........61.......66......76.......16........8

1B........73.....65....75.....67.....17......8......57......84.......76.......88........35.......64......64........62.......66........3........19.......8

2B........66.....71....47.....50.....42.....30.....69.....64........67.......83.......66........65......63........67.......71........0........50.......29

3B........68.....72....62.....63.....24.....14.....61.....64........72.......88.......50........75......68........67.......70........7........33.......15

SS........65.....73.....42.....44.....48.....39.....76.....56........70.......82.......71........71......65........71.......72........0........51.......33

LF........77......79....73.....74.....26......15.....67.....79.......81.......93........61........72......68.......66........69.......2.........44.......27

CF........67......64....51....54.....40.....34......56.....65.......65........85........75.......68......61........74......76.........0........65.......45

RF.......72......66.....64.....63.....23.....14....58......70.......71........83........60.......75.......65.......66.........64......0........37.......22

ALL.....68.......68.....58.....58.....30.....21......62.....67......70........83........55.......39.......23.......

I formed my ratings formulas to work from this information. BTW, thanks Knight & Co for the great work.

[TripleThreat1973]

[4] Ratings Formulas

I had all my formulas made, and then I stumbled upon Bahnzo’s spreadsheets. In these spreadsheets you can view the formulas he uses. Since this was released to the public, I figured I could use the formulas. I noticed that the results that his formulas come up with were about 10 points less in contact, power, vision, and discipline, when compared to knight’s ratings. So, I made my formulas a “little high” and averaged them with Bahnzo’s. The result is a system that can be applied to all players in a uniform and consistent manner … and be congruent with Knight’s ratings and my slider. *grin*

Here are the formulas …

Durability
-----------
(GP/162)*100

Contact
----------
Bahnzo
=IF((BA/1000)<0.28,(((BA/1000)*254.315428326364)-(((0.28-(BA /1000))*254.315428326364)/0.6)),(( BA /1000)*254.315428326364)+(((( BA /1000)-0.28)*254.315428326364)*1))

Me
=68+(((Y80-0.269)*1000)/2)

It’s basically “average starter rating + the difference in players BA and league average BA, with the difference divided by 2 in order to keep it to scale.

As I mentioned before, BA/4 works rather well too.

Power
---------
Bahnzo
=IF(HR550<18,(( HR550*3.0256)+((18- HR550)*0.65)),( HR550*3.0256)-((( HR550-18)*3.0256)/1.9))
HR550 = Home runs per 550 AB’s. It can be calculated with (550/AB)*HR

Me
=(58+(((HR550-15)*2)))*0.95

58=average starter power rating; 18-average HR550

Vision
---------
Bahnzo
=(((((650/PA)*SO)*0.590223)+((108-((650/ PA)* SO)))*1.05)-(10-(( PA / SO)/1.5)))

Me
=62+((100-K550)/2)

K550 = strikeouts per 550 At Bats

Discipline
----------------
Bahnzo
=IF(((650/PA)*BB)>60,((((650/ PA)* BB)*1.205393)-((((650/ PA)* BB)-60)*0.52)),((((650/ PA)* BB)*1.205393)+((60-((650/ PA)* BB))*0.15)))

Me
=67+((BB550 - 55)*0.9)
67=average DIS rating; 55=average BB550

Speed
---------------
Modified James Speed Score

5 formulas, averaged to get a “speed score” and multiplied by a modifier to get a speed rating.

[TripleThreat1973]

Clutch
-------------------
Here’s where I diverge from common practice. Traditionally clutch uses BA on RISP or a clutch rating from a sabermetric website. However, since we’re dealing with projections, and clutch factor does not correlate one year to the next (i.e., ARod has been very clutch and very not clutch, as has “Mr. Clutch” David Ortiz. They can be among the league leaders one year and among the league’s lowest the next. In short, there is no clutch skill. There is overall player talent, and BA w/ RISP is victim to a whole host of small sample issues. It is my preference that Ramon Hernandez not have a 95 clutch rating, nor would McGehee be a 99.

Rather than have a clutch rating for everyone, such as making everyone “league average” or something like 65, I used a formulas that would measure their “true talent” (amount above and below league average on the key batting ratings), and scaled it to be essentially between 55 and 75.

The stat I used was “Runs Created” which factors in things like BB and SB that improve WPA (Win Probability Added). Sometimes a walk is “very clutch” and that won’t be encapsulated in Batting Average with Runners in Scoring position, or Close and Late batting average.

=70+((RC-68)/5)

70=average clutch ratings for OSFM; 68=average runs created … dividing by 5 causes the difference to fall with the 55-75 range. What this means is that players with higher talent are more likely to be clutch than those with lesser talent.

This is what research tells us. When runners are on 1st and 2nd with 2 outs, you want Pujols at the plate, even though Rasmus may have a higher BA with RISP. It’s because he has more talent, and Rasmus’s BARISP could just be the result of a small sample. Just because Brandon Inge is 4-for10 against Sabathia does not mean I want him at the plate instead of Miguel Cabrera. Furthermore, this is how it’s done in projections, so it remains uniform.

Likewise, pitching clutch is the difference between each pitchers 4 main ratings and the league average added to the league average clutch ratings. Same deal, the better pitchers will tend to have higher clutch ratings, also in the 55-75 range.

[TripleThreat1973]

Pitcher Durability
----------------------------
Starting Pitchers
(GS/35)*100

Relievers
(G/81)*100

Mixed Pitchers
((GS/35)+((G-GS)/81))*100

Pitcher Stamina
------------------
Bahnzo
=IF(GS>0,IF((((IP/G)*13.5)+10)<50,(((( IP / G)*13.5)+30)),IF(((IP / G)*13.5)>99,99,( IP / G)*13.5)),((( IP / G)*13.5)+10))

Me
=IF(POS="SP",(85+((K2*10)-(58))),IF(POS="RP",(25*K2)))

Again using league averages as the basis. For starters the difference between their IP/GS is added to the league average stamina rating of 85. The lower the IP/GS, the more is subtracted (adding a negative number) from 85.

For relievers, the same thing is done to 25.

Hits Per 9 IP
--------------------
Bahnzo
=((HR/9*8.160999)+((8.5- HR/9)*15))

Me
=64+((9.3-R2)*10)

64 = average rating; 9.3 = average H/9 stat for top 150 starting pitchers

Home Runs Per 9 IP
-----------------------------
Bahnzo
=IF(((HR/9*71.11)+((0.9- HR/9)*125))>99,99,(( HR/9*71.11)+((0.9- HR/9)*125)))

Me
=62+((1-HR/9)*100)

Strikeouts Per 9 IP
-----------------------------
Bahnzo
=IF(K9<7.6,(( K9*10)+(7.6- K9)),IF(((K9*10)+(7.6- K9)+((7.6- K9)*0.5))>99,99,(( K9*10)+(7.6- K9)+((7.6- K9)*0.5))))

Me
=IF(K9>9.9,((68+(K9-6.6)*10)*0.95),((68+((K9-6.6)*10)*0.9)))

Walks Per 9 IP
-------------------------
Bahnzo
=IF(L2<3.4,IF(((L2*18.21593)+((3.4- L2)*35))>99,99,(( L2*18.21593)+((3.4- L2)*35))),( L2*18.21593)+((3.4- L2)*30))

Me
=(65+((3.1-BB9)*10))

[TripleThreat1973]

[5] Non Formula Ratings

Sac Bunts, bunt singles, specific fielding stats are not projected stats for various reasons.

I left bunting and drag bunting as is. If a player saw a huge jump in contact, but not power, I increased his bunt rating some (not much).

Essentially all minor league players can field at a replacement level. The difference between a major leaguer and a minor leaguer is basically “all hitting”. This means minor league players will have fielding ratings in the 50s instead of the 40s.
I have fielding value projections, and at the end I’ll go through and note the fielders that are exceptionally good and bad, and tweak their ratings to be congruent with the average starter fielding ratings from OSFM.