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buffmckagan
Joined: 12/22/2013
Posts: 651

Scranton Bears
Legends

Broken Bat Baseball
Anyone use sabermetrics in determining who plays on your team? I've thought about it and am curious to see any thoughts
Frankebasta
Joined: 09/15/2013
Posts: 884

Kodiak Mules
III.3

Broken Bat Baseball
No. I don't think it's possible.

Sabermetrics is trying to pry into RL events.
Here we are in need to reverse engineer a Game Engine.

Unless Steve has been so ingenious to imbibe all the knowledge of Sabermetrics into a simulation, it is pointless.

If he did so, Steve should not be here, but working for the Dodgers, or the Padres?, instead :)
tamale
Joined: 02/19/2018
Posts: 357

Concord Jets
Legends

Broken Bat Baseball
I use a method of evaluating prospects and young players where I try to combine current skills, training history, scouting reports, and minor league stats into a single measure. But as it's completely based on my own opinion (rather than anything that's proven to lead to wins) it's probably not that useful beyond identifying easy cuts.

For old guys I just tend to eyeball their skills and stats. I think the basic stats provide enough information on how effective batters and pitchers are (without the need to "reverse engineer" the game engine which I agree would be difficult), but defense is a bit trickier, especially range.
Seca
Joined: 05/05/2014
Posts: 5199

Waterloo Dinosaurs
Legends

Broken Bat Baseball
wOBA is pretty easy to do in a spreadsheet. A nice overall stat that can give you a little different perspective on some players. I'm not sure the weights should be the same here as in MLB, but I don't mess with them.

I tried to make a WAR calculator a few years ago. Got bogged down with the defensive runs. Specifically, I was trying to weight our player skills (arm, range, field) at the various positions to try and come up with output that resembled real players. (eg., a 20-20-20 SS giving a UZR number like Andrelton Simmons). It was a nightmare.

Any numbers I do are mostly for fun. Can't say I make lineup or personnel decisions based on them.
hurstdm
Joined: 01/18/2017
Posts: 576

Murfreesboro Moo Cows
VI.5

Broken Bat Baseball
I've read most of what Bill James wrote, multiple times, starting with the 1980s Abstracts. They're an excellent resource and a fun read. He's a great writer - not just a great baseball writer. I was a Baseball Prospectus reader for years.

I highly recommend reading this primer if you're just getting started. It's his own summary of the most important points from his research from about 1988. Some of it is old news and based out of what people believed in the 1970s, but much of it is applicable to Broken Bat.

Point 1 is up for debate here. I'd also argue that Broken Bat (annoyingly) has shifted catchers left of 1B on the defensive spectrum because the lone required attribute is Arm. From the manual: "The catcher (C) does not field many balls, but is required to try to throw out runners trying to steal bases. For this the catcher should have a good arm. Range and fielding aren't particularly important." This is bizarro-weird from real life, where a good catcher is the most difficult defensive player for a team to acquire. My catcher bats leadoff, which feels diabolically wrong.
Seca
Joined: 05/05/2014
Posts: 5199

Waterloo Dinosaurs
Legends

Broken Bat Baseball
I'd say the manual is a little off / out of date there. Fielding is relevant reducing passed balls. You may not see it season to season (a lot of variability), but if you compare career numbers there is an effect.

Catcher is the oddball. It's fielding runs for WAR is a different calculation than the rest of the positions. From a WAR pov, I'd argue BrokenBat C are actually a little easier to relate. Arm --> stolen base prevention, Fielding --> fielding / blocking. (Framing isn't in WAR).

It's a good point about C being demanding defensively, but I think it's done about as well as it can be here. If you were to relate range to "agility" you are just blurring the defensive templates (I just drafted Lindor. Should he play SS or C?)
Alternatively you could give all players additional skills that relate to catching. IMO that's unecessry complexity, and a lot of potential clutter and confusion on the player card. A third option would be to cast specific players as C, and give them different defensive player skills. This would add realism, but would hurt gameplay. A big part of the game is deciding who goes where. If C are C period that's fewer decisions for the manager to make.

Again, I agree with your point that C should be more demanding from a skill perspective, but within the framework of BrokenBat I think it's done pretty well.
hurstdm
Joined: 01/18/2017
Posts: 576

Murfreesboro Moo Cows
VI.5

Broken Bat Baseball
You're right that Broken Bat models catchers about as well as it can within the simple framework, without adding new attributes. I've been knocking around some thoughts for improving catcher defense and might post about them to the "suggestions" page soon.
Holmes
Joined: 11/07/2013
Posts: 1175

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
Same as Seca, basically. I moved from OPS to wOBA as my first offensive number to look at a few seasons ago. I make my judgements based on skills much more than actual performance, though. I don't see a way to calculate reasonable defensive performances or, therefore, WAR, here.
ChillFunkEz3000
Joined: 03/13/2017
Posts: 170

High Point Shaolin Stars
III.4

Broken Bat Baseball
"Anyone use sabermetrics in determining who plays on your team? I've thought about it and am curious to see any thoughts

I use Extrapolated Runs for hitters and fWAR for pitchers without park adjustments.
I don't use them to determine who plays or not, more of just another added statistic to help make the decision when I decide to make adjustments.


Updated Friday, April 12 2019 @ 4:08:26 pm PDT


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