Another successful season ending in a game 7 defeat to the Washington Nationals, but this very well could be the greatest showdown team to ever be made. With the name of the site being greatestmlbshowdown this team fits the bill in every possible way. This lineup is going to need high rolls all the time to get through it, and if you make a mistake the bases may be getting cleared. Finishing with a 107-55 record winning the AL West and were the first team since the 02-04 Yankees to have three consecutive 100 win seasons.
Lineup: The lineup as noted above is full of deadly talent. AL Rookie of the Year Yordan Alvarez, potential AL MVP Alex Bregman, not to mention starting off with George Springer and his 10 on base, 17+ home run power. Jose Altuve follows him up and drops his OB from last seasons card, but bringing the boom with a 16+ home run compared to not having one on his chart last season. New addition Michael Brantley and then the real scare in Alex Bregman. It feels like every batter has someone behind him protecting them in the lineup through the first 7 batters. Alvarez is hitting 6th while most teams that draft him will be having him hit 3rd or 4th. The depth on this team is unreal and your dice better bring its A+ game when facing off against the the Houston Astros batters.
Bench: The bench provides what you would hope the bench to provide, speed and defense. Marisnick can slide into the outfield after pinch running with his 23 speed to help keep a lead, while Maldonado can do the same at the catchers position adding a slight upgrade in defensive help.
Rotation: If that order wasn't enough to make you worry, here is the rotation looking to keep you from scoring anything at all. 3 foils in the rotation of Cole, Verlander, and Greinke provide stability and dominance for atleast the first 6 innings of a game. The back end is held up by Wade Miley who is a very reliable 4th starter and in case of emergency Aaron Sanchez, whom was picked up at the trade deadline.
Bullpen: Okay you survived the starters and lineup, kept the game tight looking forward to getting to the bullpen to really take advantage of this team right? Wrong, Will Harris, another foil brings his 5 control out through 17 as a great setup man, Ryan Pressly and his 6 control as a guy to come get the high OB hitters and then Roberto Osuna to close out games. You start getting a break when you get to the end of the bullpen which is hard to get to in a close game. Biagini and James are decent options if tight on points for the last spot in the bullpen as they don't give up a home run on their charts, you just need some high rolls. Last member of the bullpen is Hector Rondon, who in spot duty is another good reliever to have as a fourth option, his 2 doubles and home run on his chart will scare some owners off though as well.
Conclusion: Coming in at 6920 points this team is taking owners into the luxury tax. They average 300 points per player which is quite the lofty asking price considering there are 23 players while the average league team is 250 points per player for a 20 player roster. One of the most expensive teams we have ever seen plus a healthy chunk of players to fill out the roster. In a team vs team match-up they could be the best team ever assembled in showdown, along with the 2016 Cubs, 1998 Yankees and the rest of the all time greats, unfortunately for Astros fans this team doesn't have a World Series on its resume to boast about. Tons of draft able potential in this team. What does everyone think of the 2019 Houston Astros?
Can you explain how stats for cards are made. Verlander had a .8 whip this year and cole had a .89 whip. Snell had a higher whip than them last year and got a 6 control 1-16 out. I feel like they got gimped with their cards.
ReplyDeleteThis year was made by a template with calcs that Bob made vs last year with different calculations. However, each year is made in a vacuum from other seasons for a complete "set," which explains why there's variation year to year (a guy may be much more valuable compared to his counterparts one year than another and get a better card).... We also do it with WHIP + ERA to determine pitchers, as we don't just assign control and then fill in outcomes like with hitters (we split pitchers into tiers and then assign control within that tier). Obviously there's arguments against utilizing ERA with the WHIP, but over the years of trying it both ways, we've found that going strictly by WHIP can lead to some "meh" results where guys who had mediocre seasons were suddenly better than all stars because they had a 1.017 WHIP vs a 1.019 WHIP... At some point, it's a game that we want to reward guys for their super seasons (this is where art vs science comes into play). For example, by straight whip, Yu Darvish would have a better card than Mike Soroka this season, but obviously other factors are in play that made Soroka a much, much better pitcher and we seek to reward that. ..... On my personal cards, which you can see on twitter and All Decade Astros, I had Cole as a C4 with no doubles, on at 18 (which is usually best starter in the set, barring a sub-3 ERA+WHIP season) and Verlander is a C5, on at 18 who gives up a HR. Snell's ERA+WHIP last year was better than both of him and he did it over the long haul.... and even though they gave up less baserunners per inning, Verlander and Cole got torched more, which we seek to also incorporate into gameplay.
DeleteI'm not sure the calcs were used for the template, but if Cole/Verlander earn C6, they would be on at 16 in this set... why Verlander gives up two doubles and why Cole gives up a double is beyond me. Obviously this may not be incredibly satisfying, but I hope it explains the process a little more!
While i understand what your saying i personally think whip is the most important indicator of how good a pitcher is. If you look at your example yea Darvish had a lower whip than soroka but a higher era but he also gave up more than double the HRs that soroka allowed which means when people got on base they scored more often because of the hrs he allowed hence the higher era. But this can be mitigated by putting a hr on his card. So yes soroka might give up more hits on his chart but darvish gives up hr so Soroka is the better pick. I know this isnt always the case but i think it happens rarely because if you have a low whip but a rather high era and your not giving up hrs then you probably ran into a lot of bad luck and big innings over the course of the season. Verlander had the 5th lowest whip in mlb history going back to 1880 and i just dont think his dominance is reflected in his card this year.
DeleteNot reflected in the card made by this 2019 set anyway, he's a Tier 1 in the original and has a card like 00 Pedro in my calcs (and gives up a HR, to your point on Yu Darvish). So this really is a Template problem imo.
DeleteI think my idea while coming through this is to use WHIP to hand out Control (similar to how On-base is used) and then use the ERA to determine how many outs on are on the chart (which is how we use average)... by and large, the guys with the best WHIP will either be Tier 1 or Tier 2.... etc etc etc! The only downside to that is you lose variety in the set, as it'll be like 1 C6, on at 17 guy, 10 C6, on at 16 guys, 3 C5 on at 17 guys, a bunch of C5 on at 16 guys followed by C4 on at 17 and 18.... there wouldn't be anymore variety/interesting cards.
I did do relievers completely based on WHIP in the last set though, so it's possible, but I found it...... a mixed bag success wise in terms of representing people's seasons.
Also the difference between a 0.8 WHIP and a 1.0 WHIP is a HUGE difference in how we perceive pitchers, but for the sake of creating charts, is very difficult to quantify since that works out over 6 innings to be 1.2 more hits (which is extremely slim pickings)... or in the case of the earlier 1.107 vs 1.109, a difference of .012 more hits. It's difficult for me to justify drastic changes in a pitcher's chart/control based on such a small difference... and it's especially ahrd because a pitcher's Tier results in essentially an extra ERA.... like Tier 1 guys typically finish with ERAs between 1 and 2; Tier 2 between 2 and 3, etc etc. in my simulations (against regular competition, not super teams).... Thus, it's hard when the cards naturally spit out numbers that correlate STRONGLY to ERA not to incorporate it and honestly that's been the thing I hate mostly about my using WHIP solely for relievers in 2018 set (I think it did some guys dirty based on giving up .03 less hits plus walks or whatnot in their one inning of work). .... I agree on real life WHIP being a great metric, but it's just hard in a game with a 20 sided dice determining the outcome, i.e. everything being determined by 5% stuff.
DeleteOn base doesn't have quite the same quandry because even the OB 10 guys are not getting their chart 65-75% of the time and it's easy to calc "versus the average pitcher, how many times will a guy get onbase with X OB and Y outs on his chart" and then plugging it in. Consequently, this is why there are higher On-Bases in the 2019 Set (and moving forward) than ever before -- properly reflecting a guy's OB vs the average pitcher
How does Verlander not give up a homer on his own chart? I thought he led the league in homers allowed
ReplyDeleteWe go by hr/9ip. A 1.50 ratio gets you a hr on your chart, Verlander was 1.45, ge got lucky by how many innings he pitched
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ReplyDeleteThe only thing that worries me is that all the 6 controls 1-15 outs all had over 1 whips. And yeah its going to suck not having as much variety. I feel like last years set was pretty accurate to what the pitchers did in the regular season. But i guess its all trial and error until we find out what works best.
ReplyDeleteWell good, because last year's set is my calcs vs this year's set, which is the template! So my normal method is probably pretty satisfactory
Deletewould they have still be 6C 1-15out with ure calcs? Only thing that would change would be the XBs etc. Which in Verlanders case was the trade off for not have the HR.
DeleteIs there a reason you guys changed the template from last year?
ReplyDeleteHypothetically, a template means you just paste the numbers in and then BOOM, you get a set. Bob had a lot of formulas and, at least according to him and his calcs, these cards are the *most accurate* versions of players. You'll have to ask him why these pitchers are this way.
DeleteHowever, Showdown is as much art as science, which I think the template's cards really demonstrate that reality. BUT the template is a great experiment in pushing towards being able to easily make sets for literally every baseball season ever in a snap.... however, I don't think we're there.
Essentially, we switched because (a) efficiency, (b) purported accuracy, (c) possible future benefits far beyond one year's set if it worked.
Yes all a test at this point. trying to get Peters calcs into an algorithm so that we can just insert the data for a year and produce the stats. This would save a good portion of time and make the cards very accurate along with very accurate salaries. I think we are very close. Only thing i see being a little off is the XBs on pitchers.
DeleteWhy did Rendon and Soto both have 15-17 double but Rendon had 12 more doubles than him on the year?
ReplyDeletePeep the All Decade Nationals -- Rendon is 14-17 2B and Soto is 15-17.
DeleteThats your template?
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