Arm/range studies

[Mean Dean]

[quote:51b3a11e3b]I think the +5 was on the order of around 5 wins a year relative to a 0. [/quote:51b3a11e3b]I really don't think that's possible. Run some more seasons :P

I did the LF/RF arms. Since the setup is always the same, I'll shorten the descriptions. It's always 50 repetitions per test, and the original team always scored 650 runs.

Original LF arm: Endy Chavez, -2
Test with -5 arm: -6 runs
Test with +1 arm: +6 runs

Original RF arm: Shawn Green, 0
Test with -3 arm: -2 runs
Test with +3 arm: +5 runs

So to sum up what we've got so far:

C range 1: -13 runs
C range 3 (original): 0
C range 5: +7 runs

LF arm -5: -6 runs
LF arm -2 (original): 0
LF arm +1: 6 runs

CF arm -3 (original): 0
CF arm 0: +2 runs
CF arm +3: +17 runs

RF arm -3: -2 runs
RF arm 0 (original): 0
RF arm +3: +5 runs

Catcher's arm is next.

[cummings2]

Dean, This is a really cool thread, thanks for sharing your findings.

I have been following this thread since it began and up until now I have been an avid reader with not much to chime in with other than thank you's so before I go on: Thanks again. :D

Okey Dokey, earlier today this thought crossed my mind and I guess I should give it a test run with the good ol' CD game but I thought of sharing with you here some thoughts. I am most likely wrong about this but let's see if I can explain my very questionable rationale here:

Is is possible to express the difference in the ammount of Runs allowed between arms not in terms of total runs but rather in terms of percentage of runs in relation to team whip? -I know it's complicating things -most likely without any use- but the thinking is as follows:

A team with high Whip has, obviously, more runners on base to test the arms in the OF than a team with lower whip. Therefore is it possible that in the team with lower WHiP the difference in runs allowed between a (-3) and a (+3) is lower than in the team with higher WHiP.

I'll run some test when I get a chance but for example, going with MLB stats for 2006:

Team with best WHiP: San Diego 1.27 (RA: 679)
Team with Wort WHiP: Kansas C 1.60 (RA: 971)

Let's say that we sim 50 season and find that the runs allowed and WHiP are basically those listed above. Now then we change the arms following the steps of the inital test.

My question is: Is it possible that we'll find that for the low WHiP team (San Diego) the difference between a Mike Cameron -3 and a Mike Cameron +3 is close to 15 Runs, whereas for the high WHiP team (Kansas City) the difference between a Dejesus or Gathright -3 and +3 is closer to 25 Runs? (The numbers listed are just guess-timates)

Thanks again for the very good post Dean, always a good read.

C2

[Mean Dean]

It definitely makes sense that if a team puts more men on base, then its OF arms will swing a larger number of runs, and the opposite; I've alluded to that a couple of times here. But, a couple of things.[list:01e45dfc90][*:01e45dfc90]Does it really matter? I'm not sure it would make sense to spend more on fielding because your pitching is bad. The percentage of team defense represented by the throwing arm would presumably be about the same, which it seems to me would be what you care about when deciding how to spend your salary cap.[*:01e45dfc90]To come up with what I've got so far, I've had to sim 400 seasons. I'll undoubtedly do hundreds more. If I changed the control group to a team that allowed more baserunners, I'd have to re-do all of those. It doesn't seem like the best use of my SOM study time.[*:01e45dfc90]The reason I'm trying to express things in terms of runs is because the real end goal here is to come up with a comprehensive player ranking. If I can express defense in terms of runs, I can add or subtract that from the player's offensive contribution, and get his total value.[/list:u:01e45dfc90]

[cummings2]

Much agreed Dean, I also question quite a bit it's relevance still I thought of sharing the thoughts anyway.. I'll try to run some tests on this and if I see a pattern I'll post some data but in general even if the variation is exponential the raw difference in terms of runs can not be [i:7ce7607528]That [/i:7ce7607528]big between the high end and the low end of the WHiP spectrum for rating purposes the data you have is right on the mark.

Nice going and Thnx again.

C2

[gkhd11a]

For the arms in ATG all I can go on is by my history and a recent study . Early on in ATGI I won consistently with Meusel, Clemete and Geronimo all -5 arms. Penngray at the time consistently questioned how my win% was what it was as his sims that he did showed it should not make a difference. There were many additional arguements made my way that the arms did not matter however as Oddessy Tiger set many records for pitching using that as a strategy that has made the ATGIII crowd agree for the most part that the outfield arms are a big deal. I believe that the [i:bb7b9aabd2]cumulative [/i:bb7b9aabd2]effect of great outfield arms are more than the sum of the individual totals.

Additionally wjanssen did a study in ATGIII that showed the one individual that won titles at the highest rate in 80 million leagues was Cesar Geronimo 41 championships in 221 leagues won an amazing 19% rate Bob Meusel was fifth on his list with 38 rings in 285 leagues.
[url=http://forums.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=238648][b:bb7b9aabd2]Strong arms = titles[/b:bb7b9aabd2][/url]

As for win % Bob Meusel was 5th (.522) and Cesar Geronimo 14th (.518) and Willie Mays 10th (.521) Larry Doby a -4 arm is 17th (.517) Johnny Callison with a -4 arm is 16th (.517). so the correlation between arm strength and winning is very much present in the ATGIII game.
[url=http://forums.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=245839][b:bb7b9aabd2]By Win percentage[/b:bb7b9aabd2][/url]

I would see no reason for it not to be in the 200X games. And while I play the 200X games very infrequently when I do I always try to utilize strong arms. And in the 3 times I have played the 200X games I have 3 playoff appearances and 2 championships and always the lowest ERA by far. It is my belief that 3 -4 or -5 arms in the outfield is worth at least 1/2 run per game in your pitchers ERA or 80 runs in the course of a year. And these teams are constructed to try and hold the opposition to 550 or fewer runs when I would build those kind of teams.


Here are the 2 2005 teams both won the championship, I named the one Thomson Gunners as a dig at Penngray since he believed the arms did not matter! I miss that guy!


[url=http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=10467] Thompson Gunners[/url]

[url=http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=4385][b:bb7b9aabd2]Clancy Killers[/b:bb7b9aabd2][/url]

[LA Bear]

My belief? Where's the data?

[Mean Dean]

First off, it's literally impossible that there is a "cumulative"/"more than the sum of its parts" effect to having more than one good OF arm. This is a dice game, with specific rules, where only one OF at a time makes a throw, and the success of that throw, by the rules, has nothing to do with who the other two OF are. You can't talk about intangibles in Strat-O-Matic; that doesn't make any sense.

I highly doubt that the ATG games and 200x games are completely different creatures, but arms certainly could be more of a factor in ATG; I don't know or care. I can't even rule out the possibility that in ATG, three -5 arms, added together, would save 80 runs compared to a team of awful (not average, but awful) arms. According to this 2006-based study, the difference between a CF -3 and a CF +3 is 19 runs; the difference between a LF -5 and a LF +1 is 12 runs; and the difference between a RF -3 and a RF +3 is seven runs. That adds up to 38 runs, so if arm is more important in ATG [i:28f5b892a3]and[/i:28f5b892a3] they were all -5 [i:28f5b892a3]and[/i:28f5b892a3] you were comparing them all to +3 or higher, who knows, maybe you could get it to 80. However, in 2006, when again a LF -5 saves only 12 runs compared to a LF +1, there is just no way a team of -5s is saving 80 runs compared to any realistic alternative. And you can't get three -5 arms in those games anyway.

None of this, BTW, contradicts the evidence you do provide about teams with good arms doing well. All that matters there is that the pricing system [i:28f5b892a3]undervalues[/i:28f5b892a3] the arm. If, hypothetically, arm isn't being considered in the pricing at all, and less hypothetically, a -5 arm is worth about 10 runs compared to a 0... then absolutely, over a long period of time, in very competitive leagues, once everything has evened out, you will see the teams that have the guy with the -5 arm do a little better, because that team picked up 10 runs (about a win) for free. I'm more interested right now in establishing how many runs the arm affects, simply because that is something we can know, whereas we don't know the pricing system (and also because the information applies to draft leagues as well.) But yes, ultimately the question for TSN purposes is putting together the best team under the salary cap, and if the pricing system underrates the value of the arm, then you would want to go for good arms in TSN. It doesn't have to add up to half a point off your ERA; it just has to have its effect, whatever it is, undervalued by the salary system.
[quote:28f5b892a3]I'd like to add that there's one factor not currently being considered, and that is pitching. A defense with great range and arm strength is going to benefit a team more when their pitchers are "contact" pitchers rather than strikeout pitchers. J. Santana might get just as many outs as Maddux, but the ball is hit in play far less.[/quote:28f5b892a3]Highly doubtful. All pitchers have the same exact X-rolls. And all SINGLE, DOUBLE and TRIPLE results go to the OF. So the only distinction I can see here is that the arm will matter more if more SINGLE, DOUBLE and TRIPLEs are being rolled -- in other words, against worse pitchers. But as discussed before, I don't think that changes the [i:28f5b892a3]percentage[/i:28f5b892a3] of team run prevention that the arm is responsible for (the arm will represent a larger piece of a larger pie), which I think is the larger concern.

Now I'm gonna talk about catcher's arm. Same type of study as before. The catcher here was Paul Lo Duca, who is a T-11 (a high number -- i.e., he will make a lot of throwing errors), so I don't think I can be accused of underrating the arm's value here. Lo Duca's arm is normally +1. When I changed it to +4, the team in 50 seasons gave up an average of 658 runs, or eight more than it did with nothing altered. When I changed it to -2, the team in 50 seasons gave up an average of 640 runs, or 10 fewer than it did with nothing altered.

So the summary of the arm studies:

C range 1: -13 runs
C range 3 (original): 0
C range 5: +7 runs

C arm -2: -10 runs
C arm +1 (original): 0
C arm +4: +8 runs

LF arm -5: -6 runs
LF arm -2 (original): 0
LF arm +1: 6 runs

CF arm -3 (original): 0
CF arm 0: +2 runs
CF arm +3: +17 runs

RF arm -3: -2 runs
RF arm 0 (original): 0
RF arm +3: +5 runs

My next studies will examine the effect of manager settings. For instance, in the next study, I'll sim the seasons with "very aggressive" and "extra conservative" basestealing settings, and see what SB and CS result.

[cummings2]

Thanks for the data Dean, very interesting.

Just to clarify, when you adjust the arm you do so with the original range, right?

That is when adjusting LoDuca's Arm, his range was 3 -and when adjusting the range the arm stays as the original -meaning the range changes but the arm stays at +1. Am I correct about this?

I ask since I am under the assumption that the effects are not cumulative. meaning a team with a Loduca 1(-2) is not going to average -23 runs over the sims... or is it?

If you answered this Q before I apologize, just came to mind so i thought of asking.

Thanks again Dean.

C2

[Mean Dean]

[quote:b3ad0eaac1="Cummings2"]That is when adjusting LoDuca's Arm, his range was 3 -and when adjusting the range the arm stays as the original -meaning the range changes but the arm stays at +1. Am I correct about this?[/quote:b3ad0eaac1]Yes, after I do each set of studies, I set everything back to the way it was originally. Only one thing changes at a time.[quote:b3ad0eaac1]I ask since I am under the assumption that the effects are not cumulative. meaning a team with a Loduca 1(-2) is not going to average -23 runs over the sims... or is it?[/quote:b3ad0eaac1]Excellent question. I can't think of any realistic way to confirm that this is true; I would have to live to be 200 in order to test all the different [i:b3ad0eaac1]combinations[/i:b3ad0eaac1] of range and arm. But yeah, I guess we [i:b3ad0eaac1]would[/i:b3ad0eaac1] have to assume that if the -2 arm is worth 10 runs as opposed to the +1, and the 1 range is worth 13 runs as opposed to the 3 range, that the defensive difference between the 1(-2) and the 3(+1) is 23 runs. That's my best guess, based on information that I'm confident in, and I don't know how to (realistically) come up with any better way to confirm it.