position ratings

[squaredrive]

I've been playing ootp for a while and somehow i have come to realize that I don't have a good understanding of how position ratings combine with fielding ratings to determine overall defensive performance. I'm also unclear which numbers evolve over time, especially relative to prospects. 

It seems to me in this draft that a lot of players have lower position ratings than I remember seeing in the past and i'm finding myself uncertain on how to weigh that info.

Would greatly appreciate some thoughts / input!

[Huckleberry]

Fortunately some super awesome guy has researched the position rating part of this:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/showthread.php?t=277698

So the low position ratings you're seeing are simply due to a lack of experience at the position. If you play them there in the minors they will eventually get to a higher rating (obviously you have to adjust all the number I posted up there to the 1-10 scale).

As for how they then work to determine overall defensive performance that's a whole lot trickier. I track this in the WBA to estimate player values, and every year there are guys who have more defensive runs saved (displayed as ZR - Zone rating in OOTP) despite a lower position rating. So that part is subject to a lot of variance I figure. But in the long run, of course, players with a better position rating will save more runs.

[Echo127]

And FWIW, I think it typically takes just over a full season at one position for a player to "master" it to the extent of his abilities.

[Coop]

This is great information, thanks.  A couple of things I'll throw in, not that anybody cares ...

(1) It irks me a bit that OOTP will often rate a guy as a terrific rightfielder, but a terrible leftfielder.  Realistically, it makes no sense.  I've played both positions many times and frankly if you can play RF you can play LF.  At most, I'd say the difference would be a factor of one point --- say, if you're a 7 in RF you should be no worse than a 6 in LF.  The idea that somebody like my RF, Sangha, can be a 7 in RF and a 1 in LF seems crazy to me.  I can understand it when the rating is different in CF, because there's more ground to cover there.  But from my personal experience, I've seen very, very little difference between playing LF and RF.

(2) Is it a sure thing that a guy's position rating will improve if he spends a whole year at a position?  Case study:  Bao-tian Qian, one of my outfielders.  Way back in 2103 he had a rating of 5 in LF and 6 in RF.  When I took over the team he was a marginal prospect, so I put him in RF for one of my farm teams and forgot about him.  But his hitting ratings went up and up and up, so last year I decided I could use him in the majors.  Only problem was, RF is locked down by Sangha; where I needed help was in LF.  And by this point Qian had a rating of 7 in RF but 3 in LF.  So I reassigned him to LF and made him play that position all of last year in the minors.  His RF rating declined to 6, but his LF rating didn't improve; it's still 3.  I want to use him as my big-league LF this year but my pitchers may mutiny if I put him out there.  Fly balls will be dropping around him like mortar rounds.  Is it a sure thing that he'll move up to an acceptable 5 or so if given more time?  He's 23 years old, so it's not like he's gotten old and slow.

[squaredrive]

Thanks Huck! After doing some reading I understand that position ratings are determined by a formula which factors fielding ratings + experience, but also factors position.  So if I understand correctly, though this prospect does not have good fielding ratings, he is given a 7 at 1b because the scale is weighted for first basemen? Is that correct? Is he a good fielder or no?

http://www.worldbaseballassociation.com/reports/news/html/players/player_4426.html

[Huckleberry]

This is great information, thanks.  A couple of things I'll throw in, not that anybody cares ...

(1) It irks me a bit that OOTP will often rate a guy as a terrific rightfielder, but a terrible leftfielder.  Realistically, it makes no sense.  I've played both positions many times and frankly if you can play RF you can play LF.  At most, I'd say the difference would be a factor of one point --- say, if you're a 7 in RF you should be no worse than a 6 in LF.  The idea that somebody like my RF, Sangha, can be a 7 in RF and a 1 in LF seems crazy to me.  I can understand it when the rating is different in CF, because there's more ground to cover there.  But from my personal experience, I've seen very, very little difference between playing LF and RF.

(2) Is it a sure thing that a guy's position rating will improve if he spends a whole year at a position?  Case study:  Bao-tian Qian, one of my outfielders.  Way back in 2103 he had a rating of 5 in LF and 6 in RF.  When I took over the team he was a marginal prospect, so I put him in RF for one of my farm teams and forgot about him.  But his hitting ratings went up and up and up, so last year I decided I could use him in the majors.  Only problem was, RF is locked down by Sangha; where I needed help was in LF.  And by this point Qian had a rating of 7 in RF but 3 in LF.  So I reassigned him to LF and made him play that position all of last year in the minors.  His RF rating declined to 6, but his LF rating didn't improve; it's still 3.  I want to use him as my big-league LF this year but my pitchers may mutiny if I put him out there.  Fly balls will be dropping around him like mortar rounds.  Is it a sure thing that he'll move up to an acceptable 5 or so if given more time?  He's 23 years old, so it's not like he's gotten old and slow.

Agreed on #1.

#2, it depends on the fielding experience he started with. Every player has an experience factor at each position from 0-200. They gain roughly one experience point for every 9 innings played at the position, I believe. So it looks like Qian is probably only halfway to 200 experience based on having played 984 innings in left field, assuming he started out with 0 experience there.

There is a boost during spring training, too. I think it's basically doubled so make sure he plays LF exclusively during that period.

[Huckleberry]

Thanks Huck! After doing some reading I understand that position ratings are determined by a formula which factors fielding ratings + experience, but also factors position.  So if I understand correctly, though this prospect does not have good fielding ratings, he is given a 7 at 1b because the scale is weighted for first basemen? Is that correct? Is he a good fielder or no?

http://www.worldbaseballassociation.com/reports/news/html/players/player_4426.html

First base is easy, plus he gets a bonus because he's tall. He will be terrible in the field anywhere else other than 1B. In fact, he won't even get a rating at any other infield position because he has a 0 for Turn DP, and he might not get a rating in RF because of his 2 for OF Arm, although I'm not sure the minimum on that one.

Great 1B prospect but will never play any other position successfully.

[CaseyBlakeDeWitt]

In terms of LF/RF differences arm quality could be a factor at least? Some guys just don't have the arm strength to play right field which might impact their defensive rating at the position. Though that wouldn't explain your problem with Qian.

This is great information, thanks.  A couple of things I'll throw in, not that anybody cares ...

(1) It irks me a bit that OOTP will often rate a guy as a terrific rightfielder, but a terrible leftfielder.  Realistically, it makes no sense.  I've played both positions many times and frankly if you can play RF you can play LF.  At most, I'd say the difference would be a factor of one point --- say, if you're a 7 in RF you should be no worse than a 6 in LF.  The idea that somebody like my RF, Sangha, can be a 7 in RF and a 1 in LF seems crazy to me.  I can understand it when the rating is different in CF, because there's more ground to cover there.  But from my personal experience, I've seen very, very little difference between playing LF and RF.

[Coop]

It's possible that arm strength could be a factor, I guess, since you need a better arm in RF than in LF.  But then why does Sangha get a 7 rating in RF and a 1 rating in LF?  If he's got the arm for RF, what's holding him back from playing LF?  I think the developers at OOTP have just chosen to treat LF and RF as being very different from each other.  Which I think is an incorrect assessment, but it's one that we have to live with.

[Huckleberry]

Again, it's because it's all based on experience at each position. The way to fix it would be for them to establish rules that apply a lesser amount of experience points to a similar position.

For example, if a guys plays 900 innings in right field and gets 100 RF experience points for it he should also get 75 LF experience points and 25 CF experience points. Maybe not that exact ratio but that's the idea.

If a guy plays 900 innings at shortstop and gets 100 SS experience points then he also gets 80 2B and 50 3B experience points.

Something like that. As of now the positions are completely separate when it comes to experience.

[Echo127]

^^yeah. I always make sure to get my top prospects lots of playing time at multiple positions while in the minors. So that when they're ML-ready they can fill-in at positions other than their natural ones.

[Huckleberry]

As the world's greatest commissioner I present:

Maximum Position Rating Tool

Enjoy.

Still making some tweaks but should be good for most players. An important note is that it is based on converting 1-10 ratings to the middle of the 0-200 scale range that they represent. So these can be off one rating point up or down due to rounding (it's even possible it can be more than that I guess) from what you see from WBA players. What this tool does is report the final position rating the player will achieve with 200 experience at each position, assuming that his 1-10 ratings represent the middle of the corresponding range.

[squaredrive]

Wow Huck, that's awesome!!!!  Follow-up question, will players always max out their potential position rating given enough innings/ experience?

[Huckleberry]

Yes, they will max it out at 200 experience points after which it won't go up anymore. Experience points do decrease, I believe, with time spent not playing the position at all.

And just to point out what I mean above about rounding, Will Jones's ratings in that tool say he should be a 6 in centerfield. He's actually a 7. That means that one or more of his fielding ratings (range, error, arm) are at the high end of their displayed rating. Maybe his range is almost a 9 or his error is almost an 8 or his arm is almost a 7. Or more than one of those is true.

[claphamsa]

i liked in 6.5 where you could direct them to work on positions....was helpful