Since we're talking about baserunning, I have a player with like 92 speed and like 23 baserunning. Is his 92 speed pretty much worthless?

In his ML career he's stolen 30 bases and been caught 45 times.

I'm of the school that says that speed doesn't affect OPS much, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't impact fielding above and beyond range. So I'd say the 92 SPD is useless. Others will disagree-- and I'll admit that if you bunt a lot, SPD might convert sac bunts into hits-- but I think the value of speed is entirely in baserunning, except for beating out bunts.

Posted by sjpoker on 2/21/2018 10:42:00 AM (view original):
What's the baseline for an acceptable BR value? If i have a guy who is say 90 spd/55 BR is he effective? Or is say a 66 BR needed?

Here's a pretty good example. Upper 90s/upper 50s. Successful 73%+ of the time over his career. 67% is what I consider "acceptable".

Player Profile: Jimmy Dorsey - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

The player Mike posted ^ is why I disagree with dedelman when he says "speed doesn't affect OPS much". Raw speed factors into 2b/hit and 3b/hit, so guys with 55 power but 95 speed end up reaching 70 xbh whereas a slower player would get much fewer.

in general yes I'd rather have 25 speed with 75 IQ as opposed to 75 speed with 25 IQ, but speed itself does have some value

Speed effects infield hits as well which would boost BA/OB, correct? But I would assume a player with lower power would mean less fly balls so more infield hits? My leadoff hitter has Speed:96 / BR:72 / Power: 20 / Bunt: 41 and I have bunt setting low and he averages about 40 infield hits per season.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=7969969

@mstanton there is disagreement as to the concept of "infield singles", specifically whether the engine already decided the plate appearances to be hits and merely labelled them as infield hit based on power (lack thereof) and push/pull ratings, or whether the engine decided it should be a groundout and then flipped it to a hit, sort of the baserunning equivalent a "plus play" for fielders.

I've always been a believer that it's the latter, and your guy achieving such an unusually high batting average is one sliver of anecdotal evidence in support, but somebody would really need to dig deeper and do some analysis on a far larger sample size to draw any conclusions

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/20/2018 9:56:00 AM (view original):
No, it's just walks. As a rounded off number, the eye generally means BA+eye=OBP. So if your guy hits .282, his OBP will likely be around .346. It's not perfect but it's close. Higher numbers, 90+, seem to equate to more than 90+

Also, I meant to say this is a good observation, nice call.

I believe eye (and contact) also affects the # of pitches that the engine assigns to every plate appearance regardless whether it is walk, hit, or out. Obviously we know a walk is at minimum 4 pitches and a strikeout is at minimum 3, but in-play-outcomes will have a varying # of pitches "randomly" assigned to it. But you can sort player stats by NP/PA for both pitchers and hitters, and there is indeed high correlation with control and eye for the leaders of each column respectively.

It's obviously a minute difference over the long run, but within individual games in small samples (such as a playoff series) if you have a lineup with strong eye then you "tire" your opponents' pitchers faster which can often be useful if it causes an ace to reach max pitch count and get pulled after 6.0 IP instead of 7.0 IP and face an inferior bullpen player sooner, or if you go to extras then maybe you're one inning ahead of schedule on your opponent and that's what makes the difference. Little advantages add up

Back to the original "Batting Eye" discussion, the definition within the game is: Batting Eye involves plate recognition and dictates a player's ability to draw the walk, avoid the strike out looking, and taking advantage of mistake pitches. I would think the "taking advantage of mistake pitches" would affect more than just drawing walks. I'm a fairly new HB Dyn owner too, so was wondering whether the consensus is that Batting Eye is mostly about drawing walks, or does it help with batting average and home runs hit to a certain degree as well? (And if so, to what estimated degree?)

Posted by affvid on 2/28/2018 9:20:00 AM (view original):
Back to the original "Batting Eye" discussion, the definition within the game is: Batting Eye involves plate recognition and dictates a player's ability to draw the walk, avoid the strike out looking, and taking advantage of mistake pitches. I would think the "taking advantage of mistake pitches" would affect more than just drawing walks. I'm a fairly new HB Dyn owner too, so was wondering whether the consensus is that Batting Eye is mostly about drawing walks, or does it help with batting average and home runs hit to a certain degree as well? (And if so, to what estimated degree?)

I'll try to post some examples of similar players with differences in eye. It's walks. The "averages" will be better with the better eye but the raw numbers are pretty similar. The walks turn PA in non-AB.

This player's career batting average of .312 is higher than I would expect from his vL/vR ratings. He has played in neutral or pitcher's ballparks his entire career as well. My guess is that his 96 batting eye has something to do with it.

Player Profile: Alex Henriquez - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Switch hitter with 77+ contact, 85+ power, 79 VR. Dude is a beast. 300+ isn't a surprise.

I agree, I think people miss the advantage of a Switch Hitter. ALMOST always getting the weaker split of the pitcher is a big deal.

SH f'd up my formulas until I put it as part of the equation. There was always a guy or two that WAY overperformed my formulas. Took me several seasons to recognize they were SH. At least a 5% increase.