Borealis wrote:I, for one, am not a fan of changing the relative point for evaluation players - we have played 19 seasons evaluating players the way we have, and temporarily or not (due to migration), we will see differing values on players - because that reference point is now different. Sure, there may be a post-migration bounce back - but it seems to me that a changed reference point will not allow most players to bounce back to where they were. This is not about their 'under the hood' potential remaining the same - this is about how we view the players. There are 198 players in the PEBA with a Current Contact of 10-7 in v17. There are 93 such hitters in v18, and another 80 at 6. Will a simple 'correction' of time even those numbers out - even accounting for some 'random' change?
'Relative to PEBA' scouting? I had always assumed that's what those numbers meant, so I am confused by the idea that 5 is average. Hasn't it always been a middle of the road kind of a score? I'm sure it was explained earlier, but how do the 'now and then' mechanisms differ? Maybe I'm just not getting it...
Just part of that Codgery Desert-Hills, you know... Sorry for the rant - just feeling very confused... Bob, pass me a glass of agua, por favor...
Not a problem, Mike, a change like this deserves an explanation.
I think the main difference is the global versus league-specific perspective of the two systems. With the old 'absolute value' global ratings, the game is taking a snapshot of all players at all levels, with the ratings displayed relative to the entire population of baseball players at all levels. I think where these 'absolute' values run into trouble is at the margins. At low levels, where all players have cruddy looking numbers and look very similar, and at the ML level, where players all tend to have what look like above average ratings, even when they are not necessarily above average major leaguers.
With ratings displayed relative to each league, you now have several different lenses you can employ to look at each level of play. You get to look at a player's abilities (according to your scouts) relative to whichever league you choose. Handy for judging players' abilities relative to minor league levels, as it gives you a much better look at relative abilities. To put it in codgery terms, the old system is a single prescription lens, and the new system is trifocals.
When moving from the 'absolute values' system to the league-specific system, you would expect the numbers for players at the low end of the spectrum to rise a bit, and at the high end to fall. I'll show you what I mean.
Here's a group of SS-A hitters in the old system. All of them half stars overall and with ratings mostly below 5 (except Chae-cho Chang, whom OSA scouts have a crush on for some reason):
peba3_2026-01-19_11-06-17.jpg
Here's that same group of hitters with player ratings displayed relative to SS-A. None are exactly going to light the Surf and Snow Amalgamation on fire, but you see both more differentiation between them and a general rise in ratings. Some of them have above average skills (according to OSA scouts) relative to their league.
peba_2026-01-30_11-06-45.jpg
When shifting focus to the PEBA, you again see greater differentiation between players, and an overall
drop in displayed ratings. Let's look at some ML batters. Here they are under the 'absolute values' system:
peba3_2026-01-19_11-40-40.jpg
And the same group with 'Ratings relative to: PEBA':
peba_2026-01-30_11-28-38.jpg
Numbers generally go down. Why should we expect that? Because we are comparing ML players to ML players, and not to the global population of baseball players. It's sort of like the difference between average standardized test scores, and average test scores for college bound seniors. 'Average', in this case, a '5', becomes harder to achieve at the high end of the scale, ML, but easier at the low end, SS-A, when looking at players in these respective leagues. A '5' in the old system is
not equivalent to a '5' in the new. Your scouts don't necessarily think your players are now trash, they're just judging them on a different (in the PEBA, harder) scale.
For new GM's, the old ratings system is actually more difficult to learn than the new one and it takes some time to get a feel for what 'good' ratings for ML players actually are. With the new system, you know that anything above a '5' is going to be good, and below a '5', not so good, relative to the league you are comparing the player to.
As for the fog of war, that's still in place. Nobody's scouting system is perfect, and the OSA is very far from perfect. From the manual:
The accuracy of player scouting depends on a number of factors:
- Your scouting director's ratings in the appropriate area
- Your Scouting Budget in the appropriate area
- The age of the player (older = more accurate reports)
- How many times this scouting team has scouted the player
- Whether the player is in your organization or not (in your organization = higher accuracy)
In general, this means that the longer you have the same team in place, the better your scouting will become, with better scouts with bigger budgets producing more accurate results. Older players and players in your organization are also easier to scout.
A bit about star ratings, from the manual:
By default, OVR ratings are based exclusively on underlying actual ratings only. These are compared to the average actual ratings for all players at that position or role within the league. POT ratings are based exclusively on your player's underlying potential ratings, compared to the average underlying potential ratings for all other players at that position or role within the league.
In some cases for pitchers, the OVR rating is calculated using the current role of the pitcher, whereas his POT rating is calculated using his projected role in the future. So, when a pitcher is currently a decent reliever, but projects to a below-average starter, the OVR rating may be lower than his POT rating.
Relying too heavily on star POT ratings could get you into trouble, since these are relative to the current quality of ML players at that position/role. If the PEBA happens to be having a down year at shortstop, for instance, the POT ratings will read as unusually high for prospects at that position, and by the same token, if there are a lot of all-star caliber shortstops in the PEBA, shortstop prospect star POT ratings will be depressed.
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