can anyone tell me a good number for velocity and GB/FB also does anyone ever sign the middle round picks for a lot of money mine usually look like trash

can anyone tell me a good number for velocity and GB/FB also does anyone ever sign the middle round picks for a lot of money mine usually look like trash

I'll be totally honest, for me GB/FB is a number I don't usually look at. One of my favorite pitchers of all time, Jair Sanchez had a GB/FB of 0 and was still very servicable. Now, keep in mind, this is in San Diego, where hit baseballs go to die.

Generally I'd say look for GB/FB velocity around 30-50 for starters and 50+ for relivers. For starting pitchers, they face so many batters and are in so many situations that striking a player out or keeping the ball on the ground for double plays tends to even itself out over the long run of a full season or multiple seasons.

But for relivers, especially ones that are brought in for high leverage situations, getting a strikeout, a double play or a infield fielders choice is far more important then getting a flyout that could advance the runner or score a run.

If I have the money available at the end of the season I will sign everyone from the draft I can starting from the cheapest unscouted guys and working my way up. There are sometimes a few gems that get unscouted by everyone that will end up being staples in your ML roster. Tony Puljos was taken in the 19th round and wasn't a diamond in the rough. No one else saw him and I was lucky enough to sign him. You never know.

It is a secondary rating. So I look at it after looking at the other ratings and use it as a tie breaker.

For any pitching rating you care about:
70 is marginal major league; other important ratings must be higher for this pitcher to be anything better than a mopup
75 is about major league average
80 is good

I think GB/FB is quite important, and I consider it seriously. I'm pretty sure that velocity is irrelevant and I never look at it.

Guys whom I draft but that I didn't rank-- for me usually picks 5-25 or thereabouts-- I sign only when I have money left over after I've used my prospect budget in every other way possible. I focus on players who make maintaining my minors easy; pitchers with high DUR/ST, and position players with high DUR or who play important defensive positions.

Thank you

Higher velocity generally means more strikeouts.
Low GB/FB generally means the pitcher will give up more home runs,

I generally - and very generally - look at it this way: Combining all the ratings in your mind will give you a mental snapshot of what kind of pitcher a guy is.

Some time ago I had two very different SPs on one of my teams. Both high control, one with high velocity and excellent VsR but GB/FB was 29.
The second guy had 90+control, 98 GB/FB, but only fair-to middling (65-70ish) splits.

They both gave up about the same number of HRs, and very similar slugging %. The groundball guy, for sure, got more groundball outs, but when he got hit he got hit hard. The flyball guy had more flash, he was my #1 for a number of seasons.

I'd almost argue that GB/FB needs to mean more.

If you look back at Jair Sanchez that I talked about earlier, he had a GB/FB of 0

He gave up an average of 0.112 homeruns an inning. With his worst season giving up 37 homeruns and averaging in the high 20's to 30 HR's a year.

Now compare him to Tomas Caballello (who also played in SD) in his best years he had a GB/FB of 99 with a 95 control. The other ratings make him a AAAA pitcher at best (but I was curious so he got to play in the majors). Tomas gave up 0.156 homeruns per inning. I realize that Sanchez is by far the better pitcher but wouldn't it be more singles, doubles and triples for Caballello and more homeruns given up for Sanchez over a career?

Lonnnnnng time ago when I first joined this website, I read a post by an ancient owner discussing Ratings. Now, he was talking about hockey defenseman ratings at the time, but I figure if you see his point you might apply it to just about any rating in these simulations.

He said that if you compared a 90 rated defenseman and a 50 rated defenseman you shouldn't think of it as a one-to-one ratio, more like a bell curve. The 90 guy is not "almost twice better than" the 50 guy. It's more like he's in the 90th percentile of what's possible, while the 50 guy is totally just replacement level.

In baseball alone, look at the speed ratings. You have guys with speed of 5. Now, I would like to think that even at 57 years old, right now I have more speed than 5. OK the guy's slow and he should almost never steal a base. But it doesn't mean he's only got one leg, or that a guy with 95 speed is literally 19 times faster than him.

Posted by damag on 1/11/2021 1:17:00 PM (view original):
Lonnnnnng time ago when I first joined this website, I read a post by an ancient owner discussing Ratings. Now, he was talking about hockey defenseman ratings at the time, but I figure if you see his point you might apply it to just about any rating in these simulations.

He said that if you compared a 90 rated defenseman and a 50 rated defenseman you shouldn't think of it as a one-to-one ratio, more like a bell curve. The 90 guy is not "almost twice better than" the 50 guy. It's more like he's in the 90th percentile of what's possible, while the 50 guy is totally just replacement level.

In baseball alone, look at the speed ratings. You have guys with speed of 5. Now, I would like to think that even at 57 years old, right now I have more speed than 5. OK the guy's slow and he should almost never steal a base. But it doesn't mean he's only got one leg, or that a guy with 95 speed is literally 19 times faster than him.

Never thought of it like that. I like that analogy.

I pretty much view ratings like a %. 70 is average, 80 is good, 90 great etc. Of course there are other things to consider like now many 80's and where are they. Plus secondary ratings like gb, velocity etc.

OH WAIT.

There is one thing I feel like I've noticed about HBD in particular. brianp87's post right there, reminded me of it, where he says 70 is average, 80 is good.

It feels to me like, say you get a player who's got "all-70s" ratings, and maybe there's a lot of "why is this guy underperforming" to his game. But there's a sweet spot - I want to say it feels like around 78 - where suddenly a player tips over into "consistent."

Everyone always says 70 is average 75 is above average and 80 is good but it’s so much more of a combination of those ratings. Damag’s own guy is proof of that.

Bill Blankenship never had splits over 70 but he was around a 3.5 ERA in the right hands.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerStats.aspx?pid=6054926