OVERVIEW

- General Game Info

PLAYER RATINGS

- Defense

- Offense

- Pitching

ROSTER CONSTRUCTION / TEAM LINEUP FORM

- Pitching Chart

- Manager Tendencies

Player Tendencies

- Offensive Tendencies

- Pinch Hitting Tendencies

- Pitcher Tendencies

- Catcher Fatigue

OVERVIEW OF ERAS

- General

OVERVIEW

PLAYER RATINGS

DEFENSE

Range

This rating indicates a player's ability to reach balls hit in his direction and turn those batted balls into outs. Most baseball announcers use the "range" to mean the ability to cover ground, and that's certainly an important part of what goes into our range ratings. But it's not the whole story.

Our range rating (which takes values from Excellent to Poor) measures each fielder's overall playmaking ability (minus his tendency to commit errors, as we have a separate rating for that). Playmaking ability is not just about range, it's also about positioning, handling the ball cleaning, throwing quickly and accurately, and making good decisions about where and when to throw the ball.

For modern seasons, we carry out very extensive studies of play-by-play data when assigning our range ratings. We look at each player's individual performance on the balls hit his way, overall team defense, the effects of neighboring fielders (3B often take balls that the SS could have handled anyway, so we don't punish the SS for failing to make those plays), and ballpark effects.

Unfortunately, good fielding data can be hard to get for past seasons. The best sources we've found are the team section of the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and the STATS All-time Major League Handbook.

By comparing putouts (for outfielders) and assists   (for infielders), and adjusting for playing time, you can get an idea how a player compares with his peers. These types of measures (commonly known as range factors) can sometimes be very misleading, however, as they don't take into account the groundball/flyball nature or left/right mix of the pitching staff. The more of these factors you can take into account when assigning range ratings, the more accurate your ratings will be.

Error rates

This rating is a percentage indicating how this player's error rate compares to the average fielder at his position in the era in which he played. A rating of 100 means the player is average -- that is, he makes 100% of the errors expected of someone at that position. A player who makes only 50% as many errors as his peers is rated 50. Someone who makes twice as many errors as his peers is rated 200.

The following table summarizes how error rates have changed over time, in five-year intervals. Each entry in the table is the number of errors made per 100 full games (or 900 defensive innings).

This table shows the errors per 100 games over time by position.

For example, to assign an error rating to a shortstop from 1912, determine how many errors that player made per 100 games. Suppose the player made 39 errors and was the shortstop about 80% of the time. Based on a 154-game schedule, that's about 123 full games. In 100 games, he would have made 39 x 100 / 123 = 32 errors. Looking at the rows for 1910 and 1915 in the table, we can estimate that the average shortstop in 1912 made 43 errors per 100 games. Our shortstop's rate is 32, which is 74% of 43, so his rating is 74.

Outfielder throwing

The strength and accuracy of an outfielder's throwing arm are indicated in this rating, which is used whenever a runner tries to take an extra base on a single, double or fly ball. These ratings takes values from Excellent to Poor.

When we assign throwing ratings for modern outfielders, we use detailed information about the number of extra bases opposing runners took on singles, doubles and fly balls hit to that outfielder. We also look at the number of runners thrown out, but outfielder assists can be misleading. Some outfielders pick up meaningless assists on plays where one or two runners score on a weak throw to the plate, and the batter is retired when the throw is cut off.

If you are assigning throwing ratings for past seasons, we suggest you compare assist totals across the league. Generally speaking, the higher the assist total, the better the throwing arm. This is not always true, of course, because some outfielders have such a great reputation for throwing that nobody tries to run on them (meaning their assist totals are low). So you will need to use some judgment here.

Catcher throwing

This rating indicates the strength and accuracy of the catcher's throwing arm and is used whenever a runner tries to steal second or third. It has values from Excellent to Poor.

When we assign catcher throwing ratings for modern seasons, we use detailed studies of play-by-play data to see how often opposing runners challenged each catchers arm and what percentage of those runners were thrown out. Our studies take into account any SB that were credited to trailing runners on double steals and how often a runner was caught stealing as a result of a pickoff throw by a pitcher. Most importantly, we look at the performance of each pitcher-catcher pair, an approach that helps us determine whether it's the pitcher or catcher who deserves the credit or blame for the results.

When assigning throwing ratings for past seasons, you can start by comparing assist totals across the league. Unfortunately, the best throwing catchers often don't have high assist totals because opposing runners don't run on them in the first place, so you will need to use some judgment.

Passed ball rating

This number indicates how many times a catcher will allow a passed ball in 1,000 plate appearances with runners on base. The formula is similar to that for wild pitch ratings for pitchers:  rating = (passed balls * 1000) / (batters caught * .43)

Official statistics don't include batters caught, so you'll need to estimate it. For example, if a team's pitchers faced 6300 batters and this catcher was behind the plate 72% of time, he caught about 6300 * .72 = 4536 batters.

The .43 factor indicates that about 43% of all plate appearances occur with runners on base. This number rises and falls with the level of offense in the league.

Playing out of position

You can use a player at a defensive position for which he is not rated, but his performance will suffer. How much? It depends.

Players can make a relatively painless transition to an easier position that is similar to one they're already rated for. The penalties are much greater for moving to a very different position that is also more difficult to play.

For example, a CF can play LF or RF without suffering much at all. Both positions are similar and easier than the one he's rated for. A LF or RF moving to CF has a more difficult time because there's more ground to cover. Similarly, a move from SS to 2B won't cost you too much, while a move from 2B to SS will hurt more. And the moves that will hurt the most are (a) from any position to catcher, (b) a catcher moving to any position except 1B, and (c) a 1B moving to CF or another infield position.

How will these penalties show up? In lots of ways. More balls in their zones will go for hits. They'll make more errors. Guys without outfielder throwing or catcher throwing ratings will be easier to run on. Unrated catchers will have more passed balls. Unrated middle infielders won't start as many double plays on balls hit to them, and they won't turn two as often when they're the pivot man on the play.

You might ask why we apply penalties even when a player is moving to a less difficult position. Couldn't a top-rated SS play 2B as well or better than the average 2B? In the many years that we've been assigning fielding ratings, we've seen a lot of players get higher ratings when they make the transition from a harder position to an easier one (especially SS -> 2B, 3B -> 1B, and CF -> LF), but we've also seen plenty of cases where the player needed some time to learn how to play the new position.

Every position requires mastery of a different set of skills. A CF moving to RF needs to learn how to play the caroms on balls hit down in the corner. A 3B needs great reflexes to handle the hot smashes that come his way, and that might not be the strong suit of a middle infielder moving to 3B. A SS moving to 2B must learn how to make the pivot with his back to the runner.

If our out-of-position adjustments assumed that every player could instantly adapt to a new position, even an easier one, we think it would create too many opportunities for managers to abuse the game by moving players around in ways that real-life managers would never get away with. So the game imposes penalties of varying degrees on all out-of-position players.

OFFENSE

Sacrifice bunt rating

The Sacrifice bunt rating indicates the player's ability to advance a runner with a sacrifice or squeeze bunt.

In real-life games, bunt singles are quite rare in sacrifice and squeeze situations (about 10% of the time), but the runners advance over 80% of the time when the batter gets the ball in play. But a significant percentage of bunt attempts are fouled off, putting the batter behind in the count and significantly reducing his effectiveness. The ability to get the ball in play is often the thing that separates the best bunters from the worst.

When we assign bunt ratings for modern seasons, we study pitch-by-pitch and play-by-play data from every real-life game to determine which bunters have more success getting the ball in play and advancing the runners.

The ratings range from Excellent to Poor. The better the rating, the fewer the number of foul bunts, and the higher the success rate when he does get the ball in play.

Bunting for a hit

Most of what we just said about sacrifice bunts applies to bunting for a hit, except that this rating applies only when the batter attempts to bunt with the bases empty or with two out.

In real-life games, bunt singles are fairly common in these situations. The best bunters are successful over 40% of the time. But because the hitter often tries to get a running start on these bunt attempts, two-thirds of them are fouled off, putting the batter behind in the count and significantly reducing his effectiveness. As with sacrifice and squeeze bunts, the ability to get the ball in play is often the thing that separates the best bunters from the worst.

The ratings range from Excellent to Poor. The better the rating, the fewer the number of foul bunts, and the higher the success rate when he does get the ball in play.

Running rating

The running rating measures the player's ability to take extra bases on singles, doubles, and caught fly balls. It measures both running speed and the player's judgment about when to take the extra base. Some slow runners have good ratings because they know when to try for the extra base. Some fast runners have low ratings because they don't read the ball off the bat very well or because they're too aggressive and get thrown out frequently.

When we assign running ratings for modern players, we use detailed information about the number of extra bases a runner takes on singles, doubles and fly balls, and the number of times each runner is thrown out on the bases.

If you do not have this information, you can assess a player's running ability based on statistics and other factors -- triples, stolen bases, defensive position, batting order position -- that suggest speed or lack of it. This method isn't foolproof -- our studies always uncover fast players who don't seem to succeed on the bases -- but it's a good method when you don't have play-by-play data to work with.

The running ratings range from Excellent to Poor. We rarely assign a running rating better than Average for pitchers and catchers, but there are exceptions from time to time.

Jump and steal ratings

The jump and steal ratings work together to indicate how well this player can steal bases. The jump rating measures his ability to read the pitcher and get a good jump on a steal attempt. The steal rating measures how successful he is on those attempts.

When we assign jump and steal ratings, we look at the player's stolen base and caught stealing totals, but we also examine the play-by-play data to see whether these statistics are telling the whole story. Some players pick up a few bonus steals as a trailing runner on double steals that were really earned by the lead runner. Others are very selective, trying to steal only against the weakest catchers and pitchers. So we don't rely on a strict formula when developing these ratings. However, because most people don't have access to this type of information, we've put together some guidelines to use when creating your own players.

One way to calculate the jump rating is to divide the number of steal attempts by the number of times the player reached first base (singles + walks + hit by pitch), using the following table:

Excellent stealing ratings are reserved for players who succeed at least 83% of the time. Average stealers are successful about 67% of the time. Poor stealers are thrown out more than half the time.

Hitter type

This rating indicates whether the batter is a pull hitter or spray hitter. A right-handed batter is considered a pull hitter if he hit theball to the left fielder, third baseman or shortstop at least 50% of the time in real life. The same rule is appliedto left-handed batters, but the right fielder, first baseman and second baseman are used instead.

Power rating

This rating doesn't appear on the ratings form, but we'll mention it because it's on the player profile and in other places in the game. It indicates how well a player hits for power (doubles, triples and homers) against left- and right-handed pitching, and it is automatically calculated by DMB whenever you create a player or modify a player's event table.

This rating, which has values ranging from Excellent to Poor, does not determine the outcome of any plays. Its purpose is to give you a quick indicator of how much power is represented in the player's event table, and is therefore a useful companion to the player's batting average.

Statistically, the rating represents a batter's rate of extra-base hits after adjusting for park.

PITCHING

Durability as a starting pitcher or reliever

These ratings (which take values from Excellent to Poor) are used to determine how quickly a pitcher gets tired.

A player who was not used as a starter in real life does not have a rating. If he is used as a starter in DMB, he tires more quickly than a player with a Poor rating.

A player who was not used as a reliever in real life does not have a relief rating. If he is used in relief, he will have above-average durability in that role, since his arm is accustomed to long outings.

There are three ways to determine how durable a pitcher was. The best way, which can only be used for recent seasons, is to look at the average number of pitches thrown per appearance. These days, only the most durable and effective starting pitchers throw an average of 110 pitches or more. Most are in the 90s.

The second way is to compute the average number of batters faced per start. As you can see from the following table, which shows the average number of batters faced per appearance, pitchers are being used very differently today than they were 100 years ago. Back then, relief pitchers were used only in emergencies. Today, a complete game from a starting pitcher is unusual.

The third way is to look at a pitcher's complete game percentage compared to the norms for his era.

We consider all three of these pieces of information (when we have them all) when assigning durability ratings to starting pitchers. But keep in mind that there are some other factors that you may also want to consider:

• bad pitchers don't last long, but it's not necessarily because they tire out. For a pitcher like this, you may want to assign a better durability rating than would normally be assigned based on batters faced per game. On those rare occasions when he's pitching well, this pitcher might indeed be able to go deep into the late innings or even throw a complete game.

• it follows from the previous point that starter durability rating is most important for good pitchers. It doesn't matter much if a bad pitcher is allowed to stay in your games too long, but if a pitcher was very effective but didn't consistently pitch into the late innings, his starter durability rating is the only thing that will stop him from completing too many games.

• a pitcher on a bad team may also be more durable than his batters faced numbers indicate if he's frequently removed from games for a pinch hitter

• today's pitchers throw an average of 3.8 pitches per batter. Historical data of this type is not available, but we estimate that pitches per batter have risen over the past 100 years from the a low of 3.0-3-2 to today's much higher levels.

• the values in the above table are averages, not maximums. In any given game, a pitcher can usually face 5-6 more batters than these tables indicate without getting tired. The values in the table reflect an average of the pitcher's short outings (the ones where he got pounded and he left the game before he could get tired) and his longer ones.

In DMB, as in real life, there is no magic indicator to tell you when a pitcher is tired. You must make a judgment call based on his performance in the current game and from his durability rating.

The following tables may help you decide when to remove a pitcher. Keep in mind that these tables are based on how pitchers are used today, so you'll need to make adjustments if you're playing older seasons. And remember that fatigue sets in gradually, so you may occasionally get away with pushing a pitcher beyond the normal limits.

For starting pitchers (pitch counts):

For relief pitchers (pitch counts):

Holding runners

This rating indicates a pitcher's ability to hold runners close on steal attempts. An Excellent rating indicates a pitcher against whom opposing runners attempt to steal with the next base open less than 5% of the time. Poor pitchers allow attempts almost 30% of the time.

When we assign hold ratings for modern seasons, we use detailed studies of play-by-play data to see how often opposing runners challenged each pitcher and what percentage of those runners were thrown out. Our studies take pickoffs into account, along with any steals that were credited to trailing runners on double steals. Most importantly, we look at the performance of each pitcher-catcher pair, an approach that helps us determine whether it's the pitcher or catcher who deserves the credit or blame for the results.

Unfortunately, there is very little information available for past seasons. It's only in recent years that stolen bases against pitchers and catchers were routinely published.

ROSTER CONSTRUCTION / TEAM LINEUP FORM

PITCHING CHART

The pitching chart includes your starting rotation, rules for how your starters are to be used, a list of other pitchers who may start from time to time, and the assignment of relief pitchers to various roles.

Roles

You can assign up to five pitchers to each of the following roles:

• Starting rotation. You identify the pitchers that make up your starting rotation and the order in which they appear. You can use a rotation with three, four or five pitchers -- just leave spots empty if you don't want to use five pitchers. You also indicate whether starting pitchers should be used in strict rotation, in rotation but with the option to jump to the #1 starter if off-days make him available, or in proportion to the number of starts made in real life.

• Spot Starters. If you want a pitcher to make occasional starts, you can designate that player as a spot starter. The list of spot starters parallels the list of pitchers in the starting rotation. If you want someone to start 20% of the time in place of the number four starter, enter this player in the fourth spot in the spot starter list, and enter 20 when you are prompted for the percentage.

• Mopup situations. You can designate up to five pitchers for the mopup role. This role is used for the weaker pitchers on the team. They will normally be used only when your team is winning or losing by a large margin and the outcome of the game isn't really in doubt, though they may appear in close games if other pitchers are not available due to injury or fatigue.

• Long Relief. You can designate pitchers for the role of long relief. Long relievers are generally used when the starting pitcher is replaced prior to the seventh inning, but will also be used in other game situations when required, particularly when a team is losing by a large margin and wants to preserve its better pitchers for future games.

• Setup Men. There are two lists of setup men, one to face left-handed batters and one to face right-handed batters. Setup men are generally used in the seventh inning or later in close games, but will also be used in other situations when required.

• Closers. There are two lists of closers, one to face left-handed batters and one to face right-handed batters. Closers are generally used in the eighth or ninth inning when the team has a lead in a close game, but will also be used in other situations when required.

In most game situations, the computer manager uses the first available pitcher in the appropriate list whenever a reliever is called for (excluding players on the reserve roster). So it is important that you list your players in the order you wish them to be considered, with your first choice at the top of the list.

However, there are other situations where another choice will be made. If the bullpen has been used heavily, the computer manager may use the most rested pitcher. If either team has a big lead, it may choose to use a less talented pitcher to make sure your top pitchers are rested for future games. If a game goes into extra innings, everyone in the bullpen is a candidate to enter the game.

Enter a pitcher on more than one list if you want him to be considered for more than one role. For example, your top setup man may also be your number two closer. However, there is no need to fill up all of the lists, since the computer manager chooses from other lists if nobody in a particular role is available.

MANAGER TENDENCIES

There are twenty tactics for which you can influence how the computer manager makes its decisions:

• seven govern offensive plays: bunting for a hit, sacrifice bunting, squeeze bunting, using the hit and run, stealing, baserunning, and taking pitches.

• four influence how frequently pinch hitters will be used in various situations: for a pitcher, for a non-pitcher, for a platoon partner, and in the late innings of a blowout.

• three affect defensive tactics: holding runners, guarding the lines, and bringing the infield in.

• and six help determine how the pitching staff is used: pitching around hitters, intentionally walking hitters, pitching out, making pickoff throws, using relief pitchers, and using closers.

The values you can set for each tactic are Most Frequent, More Frequent, Neutral, Less Frequent, and Least Frequent.