Does it take into account outfielder arm? Topic

The catchers have arm strength rating but is the season assist for outfielder what factors into ability to hold runner on 2nd or 3rd base Or stop a player on 1st to stop at 2nd instead of going to 3rd? Players like Roberto or Furillo do not have a lot of assists because runners did not even attempt an extra base. But other outfielders might have more assists for a season but they didn't have as good an arm. Guess another question would be, if I wanted a right fielder that would deter a runner on first to go to 3rd would a get an outfielder with more assists? Or is the outfieder assist already factored in to assist attempts to assist sucess?
5/27/2020 11:54 AM
no, arm strength only affects catchers
5/27/2020 11:55 AM
https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=520566

From the second post of that thread:
"Like any model, SLB simplifies the game by making a lot of assumptions and embedding a lot of rules and shortcuts in the algorithm.Some of these you probably won’t miss – they are not terribly important.Others you might consider very important, but if you expect them to be incorporated you are going to be disappointed.Among the things that are NOT included in SLB:
  • Outfielder throwing arms. Not a factor.
  • Catcher’s ability to call a game
  • Catcher’s ability to frame pitches
  • An individual hitter’s bunting or hit-and-run skill
  • An individual pitcher’s ability to hold a runner on first
  • An individual pitcher’s pickoff move
  • Pitchers who are more or less effective than others in pitching from the stretch
  • Any measure of “clutch”
  • Real life platoon differentials (the game uses a standard platoon adjustment that applies to all players equally)
  • Situational stats that you might personally think are significant. Pat Tabler was 43-88 (.489) in his career with the bases loaded. That won’t happen here. Jim Palmer never gave up a grand slam. That won’t happen here.
  • Streaks and slumps.
  • Injuries. Players can and do get injured here, but only for the duration of the game.
  • Etc. This list is far from complete."
5/27/2020 12:00 PM
I'm not a newbie anymore. Been here for years, but this last post makes me wanna ask...................

why not?? Why can't some of these more important game aspects be considered in the outcome "algorithm"?

Why must the "model" used by WIS be "simplified"??
It's a computer formula no? Why must it be simple at the expense of realism?
5/27/2020 3:25 PM
Bob I sent a ticket. Reply forthcoming.
5/27/2020 3:37 PM
Most of this list can easily be explained by lumping them into 2 categories.

1) Most of them fit here. Anything that isn't represented in a basic newspaper box score significantly limits the player pool. Part of the beauty of the way this game is designed, as opposed to most other historical replay/mix-and-match games on the market, is that it works purely off of the real historical statistical record of Major League Baseball. This is the same reason why realistically negro league players can never be added to the SLB database. Many other games convert stats to ratings that, if the player plays in a league of similar talent and statistical makeup to his historical league, should reasonably reproduce that player's stats over time. SLB doesn't do that. It uses exclusively statistical inputs. That means if we want to use players from the early eras of baseball, we have to limit what skills can be used in the game. Successful bunts, for example, generally show up in box scores. Failed bunt attempts do not. This is related to the biggest problem with early-era players in SLB - caught stealing were not always tracked faithfully, so stolen base rates and catcher CS%s for deadball players are iffy at best. And periodically SLB players do complain about this. I don't think we want to exacerbate the problem by trying to extrapolate/invent more numbers where they don't exist. To come back to the example of bunt success rates - any meaningful estimate would require you to know how many foul bunts a player laid down in a season. To know that, you need not just play-by-play accounting, but pitch-by-pitch. That doesn't exist for every game until well into the 21st century.

2) Sample sizes. A lot of things just don't come anywhere close to statistical significance within the statistical framework of a single season, which is the basis for the 99%+ of SLB leagues that aren't DL career leagues. Incorporating additional statistically insignificant numbers and trying to pretend they're meaningful is going to break the game. Consider the case of "clutchness." Without going down the rabbit hole of the ongoing argument about whether baseball players can really be "clutch," it's clear that even those who do believe in clutchness as a skill probably shouldn't want to see it incorporated into this game. Last year Aaron Hicks went 11 for 28 in late and close situations. Which do you think is realistically a better representation of his ability to hit - the .398 he hit in 28 at-bats, or the .235 he hit for the season? Consider that in 2018 he went 12 for 71 in late and close situations, for a .169 average. And he hit .310 late and close in 2017, and .208 in 2016. So did he really go from being poor, to good, to really bad, to really good as a clutch hitter over the past 4 seasons? Or does it have more to do with the fact that, according to most estimates, batting average doesn't really stabilize until you have about a season and a half of full time play's worth of at-bats? Given that, is there really any way in which adding any small sample size tendencies could possibly make the game better, rather than just more random/extreme?

In addition to all of the above, my personal opinion is that the current complexity of the game "feels" about right to me. Adding a bunch of additional statistical depth would probably just make the game less approachable. Most players already struggle with their first few teams. I don't think the way to grow the game is to make the barrier to success taller. Even for me, as a vet, I don't want to deal with a great deal more to think about during drafting. Sure, we could use the same questionable level of accuracy we have for stolen bases to include pitchers in the equation. While this is more realistic, it's also more mathematically complicated, because you're trying to disentangle the pitchers' and catchers' contributions to stolen base rates and success. But you could come up with an equation to do this. You also run into sample size issues with relief pitchers in particular. Even if we wanted to ignore all that, I just personally don't want to have to think about this 3-way interaction during drafting. I'm sure everyone's personal tastes differ a little bit on this question, but while I recognize how frustrating it is to watch your Andy Pettitte get lit up on the basepaths, I still find it preferable to having another thing to think about when drafting pitchers and catchers.
5/27/2020 5:41 PM
If a catcher's arm can come into play here, surely a cannon armed right fielder can get a little love here too.
5/27/2020 7:51 PM
Sample size doesn't work.
5/27/2020 8:15 PM
The problem is defining "cannon armed". OF assists is a poor measure of a player's actual throwing ability, and no other stat captures that ability with reasonable accuracy. There's no legitimate way to account for OF arms statistically, so those kind of plays are decided by the runner's speed score, directionality of the hit, the owner's base running aggressiveness setting, toss with a light vinaigrette and see what comes out.
5/27/2020 8:50 PM
Reply

I wasn't a part of the team that built the game, but I believe the reason is because it was hard to get an accurate assessment of arm for outfielders from the available data. Assists is really the only useful stat to use, and it's not always an accurate indicator of arm strength/accuracy.

Thanks for playing on WhatIfSports.

5/27/2020 8:50 PM
This may go beyond the capacity of this site, and require an entirely new stat. Assuming we have play by play data, you could not only use assists but also quantify an outfielder's ability to hold runners from advancing extra bases over the course of several hundred plays in a season. That fixes your sample bias issue, but there's a causality/third variable problem that arises. There are tons of other extraneous factors that would affect this, but I'd argue the same could be said for range factor. There's a base running component of WAR so it's only a step further to infer how a strong outfield arm impairs that base running ability.

At the very least, this stat would be a more accurate representation of an outfielder's throwing ability than assists. In '98 a young Vlad Guerrero canned 9 guys from right field. Johnny Damon threw out 10 the same year, and I'm not sure he ever figured out he might not be left handed. Assists are pointless for the simulation exercise. Outfield assists are as much a product of opportunity as success rate, unlike CS% for catchers which has enough of a sample to strip out the opportunity aspect. I'd bet good money that in that season, a LOT now guys scored from 2nd on Damon than Vlad. Now if someone could figure out how to collect this data...
5/27/2020 10:23 PM
Does it take into account outfielder arm? Topic

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