Draft Guide Part 2: Reading the Ratings

[John]

From 5-Star Stud to Super-Sub: Getting the Right Mix of Ratings
While most of the basic player ratings are fairly self-explanatory, a few of them may be less clear in purpose. Here's a run-down of exactly what each ratings affects in-game:

Contact – Affects balls put into play. Bear in mind that balls in play != hits! A number of factors affect whether a BIP becomes a hit, including the speed of the player and how hard the ball was hit. All things equal, though, BIPs will become hits about 30% of the time.
Gap – Affects doubles/triples. It may not be quite as simple as that, though. If you play in a park with fairly neutral power alleys, gap shots will indeed turn into doubles/triples if they fall. In parks with odd dimensions, however, a gap shot could turn into a single (if hit off the wall) or even a HR. Consider your ballpark template when gauging how important gap power is to you.
Power – Affects HRs. Again, the dimensions of your park factor in here. If you play in a cavernous stadium, you may be better off with a good contact hitter with solid power to the gaps. Laser-beam doubles are more valuable than long and loud fly outs!
Eye – Affects walks. Always a nice trait to have; however, it becomes much more valuable when combined with speed.
Avoid K’s – Self-explanatory. Anybody can benefit from a good rating in this cat. A strong Avoid K's rating will cause your batters to foul off balls and run up opposing players' pitch counts.

Stuff – Affects K’s. Who wouldn't want a pitcher who racks up K's? But sexy as the K's are, this shouldn't always be your #1 priority. While a reliever with great stuff is optimal, a starting pitcher wants to keep his pitch count down... and throwing enough pitches per bat to get a K doesn't help with that. For SPs with borderline Endurance ratings, great stuff might actually be a curse.
Movement – Affects HRs allowed. Keeping the ball in the park is a good plan for your pitchers, obviously. However, sometimes a weak Movement rating is acceptable. If the pitcher you're looking at has good Stuff and Control, most of those HRs he gives up are likely to be less damaging solo shots.
Control – Affects walks allowed. Like Avoid K's for batters, always a good quality to have. It's more important for some than others, though. Pitchers with great Stuff for whom the strikeout is a reliable weapon have a little more wiggle room to walk hitters since they're more likely to work themselves out of jams.
Velocity – Self-explanatory. Consider this your pitcher's "margin for error". If two pitchers blow their location and groove their fastball down the middle of the plate, the one who touches 100 MPH is more likely to get away with it than the one who barely cracks 90.
Endurance – Affects how long a player can pitch before becoming tired. You'll certainly want your #1 and #2 starters (and possibly your #3 as well) to have strong ratings here (70+). For back-of-the-rotation starters it's more acceptable to have lower Endurance ratings. One thing to keep in mind is that some MRs and CLs actually have borderline SP Endurance ratings and might be worth using as starters.

The other thing you want to understand are the numbers themselves. It's not like high school where < 60 = a failing grade! The number grades break down like this:

81-100 = Excellent
61-80 = Good
41-60 = Average
21-40 = Poor
0-20 = Awful

So how do you put all these numbers together into the players you want? Obviously it'd be great to grab guys with 81+ ratings across the board, but those guys are going to be gone by the end of Round 2. What you want to do after that is look for players with ratings that compliment each other. Synergy is the key!