With all due respect, all Blankenship proves is that your grandmother could pitch to a 3.84 ERA in POR and SD in the NL. I admit that I would have projected him to 4.30 under those insanely favorable circumstances-- but I bet you'll find he had excellent PC and defense if you look.

Across all hbd, pitchers give up an average of approximately 1.25 HR per game. When you look at GB rating, there is a significant difference between a guy with a 75+ rating vs. a guy with a rating under 25 from a homerun per game perspective. It is still a secondary rating as splits, control and pitches are more important. However, if I had to choose between an elite velo and an elite groundball rating, I will take the the groundball rating.

The only possible exception I can think of is if you're playing 81 home games in one of those true hitters parks like Colorado, Santa fe or Albuquerque and you have a poor defense.

Posted by hockey1984 on 1/11/2021 11:01:00 PM (view original):
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

Across all of HBD the average Baa .261. I think you'll find that a pitcher that has a 70 rating across the board will have a BAA worse than .260 unless he has great defense behind him, pitches in a pitcher's park, pitches in the NL and has highly defensive C. I think Blankenship is closer to a .255 BAA guy based on his peak ratings. I would be willing to bet that he had plenty of the above working for him since he is a career .240 guy. He has a great P1 and that saves him from being an arb1 non-tender-retire-before-the-age-of-30 guy.

The combination of all the ratings is accurate. In fact, you can find value in guys like Blakenship and sometimes guys better than Blakenship in free agency for cheap or on the trade block for next to nothing. People overvalue control, R split and P1. I traded for a guy in one of my Worlds a few seasons ago. He had R split under 70, but he has won three consecutive CY Young awards and could be on his way to a fourth in a row.

Blankenship proves you ALL right. Cromulent guy. Played for defensive teams in pitchers parks. I let him walk because I was paying him $4.5 mil to be a long reliever.

As for tlowster's story, I've seen a guy like that. VsR split was only 54, but every other one of his primary pitching ratings was 75+. I've also had a power-hitting 3B who I drafted in the first round, whose hitting VsR was 14. If a guy has only one bad rating, he's still pretty useful and can even be elite. Except for pitching Control.

Posted by hockey1984 on 1/11/2021 11:01:00 PM (view original):
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

Exactly. a couple of 70's does not make a player good. It takes more or them to be in the right spots.

Posted by damag on 1/12/2021 7:56:00 AM (view original):
Blankenship proves you ALL right. Cromulent guy. Played for defensive teams in pitchers parks. I let him walk because I was paying him $4.5 mil to be a long reliever.

As for tlowster's story, I've seen a guy like that. VsR split was only 54, but every other one of his primary pitching ratings was 75+. I've also had a power-hitting 3B who I drafted in the first round, whose hitting VsR was 14. If a guy has only one bad rating, he's still pretty useful and can even be elite. Except for pitching Control.

Sadly that is true, but it is on a sliding scale and dependent on SP vs RP for me. I'm slowly learning that RP's with control under 70 get into a lot of trouble regardless of the other ratings.

Rougned Amaro was my recent science experiment. As part of a throw in for a trade I figured those splits would make up for just about anything. The pitches I can deal with, but he just gives up too many walks at the wrong time. Especially in a pitchers park like Petco giving up walks is too big an ask. He's my LR / MOP guy now until my other guys come off the DL.

I ignore velocity completely. I think it gives you more strikeouts but those are replacements for other types of outs. I do look for high Gb/FB especially because I pair them with good infield defense. Lots of groundballs and double plays and less home runs

I had Andy as the #2 guy on my draft board despite projection ratings for health and control at or below 50. He is a SP, but I have been using him as a SUA/Closer because I am so afraid of pitching him fatigued due to his low health rating. He has already had two major injuries that have affected his control, splits and pitches. Despite his low control and two major injuries, he has been pretty frigging good for me -- any time a pitcher can give you an OPSA of under 700, I'll take it. In this particular World, I run a great defense at every position except RF where I have a Rock. For the low control thing to work, the pitcher needs to have a good combo of other things working for him. Andy has three MLB rated pitches, and splits near 90 for both L and R.

I do wonder if this guy's control was in the 20s as opposed to being in the 40s, if he would just add 20 more points to his OBP which affects WHIP and ERA downstream? Or, would the control lead to a higher BAA and slugging as well?

Honestly, I think if his control was that low, even with all his other ratings he'd be a disaster. I generally look at 40 as the absolute floor as far as Control in the major leagues. Guys with Control in the 20s put up 1.80 WHIP in AA... no chance they're sniffing the majors.

From what I have seen I think 45 is the cut off for control. Obviously the other ratings matter as well. I've only personally tried it twice one was like 42 the other like 48.

I saw this discussion and wanted to put my two cents in... My Montreal franchise sits in a slight hitters park(2-2-2-1-1), but I feel I have consistently built a top pitching staff by prioritizing GB/FB + Vel a bit more. Sure, they still need to have workable splits, control, and pitches. But it lowers those thresholds a bit. I would argue that if you have elite to great ratings(80+) on 3 of the 5 then you can get away with minimal requirements on the others. As an example Player Profile: Louie Cerveza - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

I think I disagree with the above regarding a min on control rating. However, I think my disagreement is near moot because I don't think I have ever seen a guy with 20 control, but 90+ in at least three other of the following ratings -- L split, R split, p1, p2, p3, p4. I am willing to bet that a guy with 20 control, but 90/90 in splits and then a 90\70\70\60 in pitches, would still be effective. His BAA would be around .205, his obp would be .335, but because his slugging would be so low, I think he would still pitch with an OPSA of under .700. If you throw in an elite GB rate of 88+, and I am nearly certain a guy like this is effective during the season. I doubt I would give him many playoff innings, but in the regular season, it would be nice to try. My main worry is that his pitch counts spiral upwards.

Posted by McGirkTheJer on 1/13/2021 4:20:00 PM (view original):
I saw this discussion and wanted to put my two cents in... My Montreal franchise sits in a slight hitters park(2-2-2-1-1), but I feel I have consistently built a top pitching staff by prioritizing GB/FB + Vel a bit more. Sure, they still need to have workable splits, control, and pitches. But it lowers those thresholds a bit. I would argue that if you have elite to great ratings(80+) on 3 of the 5 then you can get away with minimal requirements on the others. As an example Player Profile: Louie Cerveza - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Cerveza is the type of guy that many under value due to low splits. I love these types of guys. Especially when you can nab the guy with two elite pitches, but then either the R split or L split is under 60, but the other is like 79. People value control and split for a reason -- they're very important ratings, but when people start putting minimum rules on ratings, that's where I swoop in and find value. The only rating I have a minimum value on is R split. Everything else is fair game.

This guy was a very valuable piece for me for many season in Toledo....so slight pitchers park. His HR/Inn is 1.23 with GB/FB of 0. He had a huge impact on one of my WS wins when he threw 23 innings in the post season. The guy was able to pitch in 80 games and hit 150-160 innings on multiple occasions. I think many would have passed him over because of the "0". I don't know that his career ends up much differently if his GB/FB was 70. Player Profile: Damion Standridge - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

On a related note.....I remember a discussion some time ago that the simulator determines the outcome of the at bat.....hit/out/walk....then it determines the specific outcome. So.....a hard hit ball for a "100" pitchers might show up as batter rips a ground ball past the third baseman into the corner for a double......a hard hit ball for a "0" shows up as batter hits fly ball to center that falls in for a double. Still a ground ball and still a fly ball with the same outcome. It's also entirely possible I am not remembering the previous discussion correctly as it was quite a while ago.

There actually might be a thread about Standridge from when he got his DITR. I may have to go find that thread and review what the thoughts were on him 15-16 seasons ago.

Posted by bigbucks07 on 1/14/2021 9:51:00 AM (view original):
This guy was a very valuable piece for me for many season in Toledo....so slight pitchers park. His HR/Inn is 1.23 with GB/FB of 0. He had a huge impact on one of my WS wins when he threw 23 innings in the post season. The guy was able to pitch in 80 games and hit 150-160 innings on multiple occasions. I think many would have passed him over because of the "0". I don't know that his career ends up much differently if his GB/FB was 70. Player Profile: Damion Standridge - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

On a related note.....I remember a discussion some time ago that the simulator determines the outcome of the at bat.....hit/out/walk....then it determines the specific outcome. So.....a hard hit ball for a "100" pitchers might show up as batter rips a ground ball past the third baseman into the corner for a double......a hard hit ball for a "0" shows up as batter hits fly ball to center that falls in for a double. Still a ground ball and still a fly ball with the same outcome. It's also entirely possible I am not remembering the previous discussion correctly as it was quite a while ago.

There actually might be a thread about Standridge from when he got his DITR. I may have to go find that thread and review what the thoughts were on him 15-16 seasons ago.

That is interesting. The average HR per 9 innings is about 1.25. This guy is below that despite being an extreme flyball pitcher. I see a 1.185 HR per 9 innings in Toledo and a .987 HR per 9 innings in Burlington. The home park is definitely playing a factor here. However, after looking at the history of the NL during this guy's career, I think the entire league leaned more towards pitching parks and the fact that it is the NL really contributed to this guy's performance. He usually sat at a .50 GB/FB rate and that is asking for trouble, but because his home parks were pitcher parks and the overall league leaned towards pitcher's parks, I think this guy benefited. I am glad you posted this guy because I have a guy I am concerned about that is quite similar. He has a 0 groundball rating, but I am playing in the AL. We'll see how he fares assuming his DITR helps him get to the MLB.