This guy has me pulling me hair out. As realistic as this game may be, I can't believe this is possible real life.Player Profile: Red Christian - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Its frustrating when you do what you have to do to put yourself in position to get a player like this. Even more painful when I think of the great free agent pitcher I passed up to focus on on signing this guy.

All of sudden the SBs are gone and he keeps getting CS and he doesn't get base hits.
This is highly unrealistic because there is no way you can put so many balls in play yet make so many outs. Not striking out, walks alot still gets XBH but the singles are gone and when he gets a single he gets caught stealing. He will probably have a hot 2nd half but I didn't pay $25 million for a .240 hitter.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml

I'm guessing that's how the Angels felt about signing this guy.

He's definitely having a poor first half, and could get hot anytime. BUT... he's OPSing .550 at home and .840 on the road. Of course, it looks like he did play his entire career with pitcher parks for home. I play in two, Portland and Seattle, and I've definitely seen stats like these before. He's also 33 so his ratings have been declining a little.

Id expect an.800 ish ops. How can you expect him to perform the same as when his ratings were different.

Small sample size. He'll play the second half at 90-95% of his previous performance.

Everyone should read the book, "Fooled by Randomness."

I'm definitely getting that. Thank you.

12 million was a stretch but you got him for 2 years if you had him for five for 30-20-20-20-20 then i’d Be worried.

Posted by dedelman on 6/5/2019 5:21:00 PM (view original):
Small sample size. He'll play the second half at 90-95% of his previous performance.

Piggybacking off of this comment, how low of a percentage of previous performance do you deem acceptable? For example, if someone goes a full season at just 66% of previous performance, would you cut bait or give them a second chance? My initial thought is that according to the 68/95/99.7 rule, 66% is right on the bubble of being acceptable if not below the line...also, which stat do people like to use for this kind of exercise: OPS? Runs Created? WAR? Something else?

What are your baserunning settings? 6 for 14 isn’t very good but it is a small sample. In 292 AB with 87 speed I’d expect him to try more, although his BR isn’t tremendous.

also JMO but $12.5m seems awful high for this guy. I think the aforementioned $8-9m is about where he belongs.

The value of this guy really depends on the league and team. Id pay the guy 20 mill if it put me over the top but in other leagues he wouldn't make the roster.

*************** UPDATE ****************** Player Profile: Red Christian - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports
Season over and he didn't even get the .240 ba that I hoped for to make up for the horrible first half. I want to address a few of the responses I received in this post, but ofcourse the disclaimer is I only have 5 seasons completed so I could just be wrong. My point is I feel like there is an algorithm against my team and I din't think falling off to this degree is not realistic. I say this because there is no way a player can put so many balls in play and not get base hits. So based on the amount of balls he puts in play, my scouting was right, the problem is IMO the algorithm is taking away hits. Is this even possible?

1. My struggle has been finding someone that takes advantage of the numerous rbi opportunities that are created by the players I have at the top of the order. I am not necessarily looking for a superstar power hitter although that would be nice but I know those guys are almost impossible to get without tanking. It seems no matter what I do any player I put in this role becomes unproductive or produce below their normal level . I have been near the top of my league in runs scored the past couple of seasons, so having a player have success in this role would make my offense the best in the league, combined with my usual top of the league pitching staff I should have been over 100 wins.

2. I understand that his ratings are declining, however he is still has very high ratings and on a 2 year deal he should still perform near his peak for the duration. I don't need him to perform at his peak, I need him to perform at his current ratings and performing at his previous career lows would work for this team.

3. As for his salary, for my current situation and for what my expectations were for this player, he would be worth the dollars.

4. My base stealing settings were on infrequent for the entire season, so I expect his SBs would be lower, but the CS rate makes no sense considering his historical success rate.

I feel like if he performed at his previous lows (especially in BA/hits) it would be worth 30 + runs. Which I like to think would get me 5 or so more wins and the division title instead of the wild card.

Some additional context, My team ranks:

3rd in runs scored
10th in batting average
5th in home runs
9th in hits
3rd in doubles
6th in triples
13th in strikeouts
2nd in BB
7th in OPS
5th in slugging

I would have him at .285/.360/.510 in a neutral park-- OPS .870, which is basically exactly what he did on the road.

Playing half his games in SEA I would deflate to about .265/.340/.470 overall. So he did have a bad season... I hate to say, "small sample size" but even a season is not enough of a sample size that everyone has to play exactly to ratings every time.