Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Willis Page

What would you consider about right for this young man's OPS.  I would think his rookie year should be about the average .700 -.750 but his results since then have been horrific.  The splits are good the contact and eye are very good.  Is OB of .360 too much to expect out of this guy? 

Thanks for taking a look.

His speed and baserunning are pretty low....

Don't rule out the possibility that his rookie year was also his career year.

Actual OPS predictions are basically meaningless, but he shouldn't be a total dud, if that's what you're asking.

If he slugs .350 again, you should do a dance.

Yeah I didn't expect to see a .320 hitter just because of the lack of power.  I did expect a .270 AVG with around a .350 to .360 OBP because his other hitting ratings are pretty good.  In my mind Con of 89 and Eye of 83 would normally mean this is a guy that walks as much as he strikes out or at least close to it.

Over his last 1000 AB's he has stuck out nearly twice as much as walked, hit .250 with a .320 OBP.  The decline in walks is actually the most perplexing, and a .320 OBP is getting towards worthless even for a catcher with decent defensive ratings. 

I am just trying to figure out if he is under performing what would be average for a similar player (like I think he is), or if I need to learn that low power low speed players are going to be pretty flaccid hitters regardless of their Con, Split, Eye ratings.

The Ted is a particularly bad park for him; a 5% boost in his homers and triples is going to manifest as maybe one extra of each in his career.

That said, I'd have guessed that his rookie season would be his average, not his peak.  Is he playing a lot below 100% at the end of the season?  He's got good DUR but catchers fatigue quickly...

Honestly, he's one of those guys that looks good but has warts.    He's not getting any IF hits due to his lack of speed.  He's not driving the ball due to lack fo power.  .260/.340/.340 might be about it, give or take a dozen points in either direction. 

We agree on the projections, within a dozen points, but ... infield hits are a "flavor" of hit; speed converts other singles to infield singles, not outs to infield singles.  Mike and I have gone over this before on the forums... find your world leaders in IH and look at their career averages compared to the rest of their ratings.  They're not getting extra hits.

I don't think fast players with good contact get "extra" hits.  I think they get hits.   Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Haywood Cashman is a good example.   Take his IF hits out of his career and he doesn't play in the bigs.   Find a guy with similar numbers with 35 speed and you'll see what I mean.

It's a small sample size but Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Orlando Aguilera is slow with good contact and no power.  2 IF hits in 131 AB.    Hit .237.    Give him 90 speed and I think he's a .265 hitter. 

For my 2 cents (adjusted to half a cent for inflation), last season my team started out incredibly slow at the plate, by 50 games pitching and 2 hitters were the only things consistantly bailing us out.  By seasons end, the guys who I though were fantastically underperforming their respective numbers, had climbed to were I thought was in the range of stats from season to season at their age and skills.  Give it time.

To add, they needed to as my pitching nosedived after about 70 games.

I would think he'll have more years like his rookie year, or close to. 

I do not know if the sim engine factors power into walk percentage, but contact hitters with close to zero power often draw very few walks in MLB for the simple reason that pitchers are not afraid to challenge them. What are his pitches seen per at bat? Sometimes I look to that stat when guys are drawing fewer walks than I might expect. High contact guys with plus batting eye should be seeing a good chunk of pitches, and if he is but is still not sawing walks maybe the sim is adjusting his walks downward because he has no power.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/6/2012 4:08:00 PM (view original):
It's a small sample size but Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Orlando Aguilera is slow with good contact and no power.  2 IF hits in 131 AB.    Hit .237.    Give him 90 speed and I think he's a .265 hitter. 

I agree with you: speed can produce infield hits that boost batting average. But neither of the guys you posted have slits as good as this catcher dude, and I would expect low-to-mid 70s splits to help boost his batting average a bit.