1990 Jose DeJesus DW 7 wins, 3.74 ERA,  22 starts, 130 IP

1979 Steve Busby DW 6 wins, 3.63 ERA, 22 games, 12 starts, 94.1 IP

1937 Spud Chandler D 7 wins, 2.84 ERA, 12 games, 10 starts, 82.1 IP

(by the way, this post and the research was inspired by a posting on APBA- Between the Lines.  Check it out for some good insight).

There are reasons why, in the past, APBA had downgraded pitchers. 

• limited appearances and innings
• to bring the team’s overall strength within the scope of its actual potential
• and to some degree, to compensate for control ratings

Mostly though, it appears that those pitchers in past seasons suffered the most when they pitched a very low amount of games and/or innings. If a starter such as Chandler was given a B grade, perhaps it was thought that he would be used as such throughout the season as a full timer, giving his team an unfair advantage.

But it seems there was a change in recent times.  Those Spud Chandlers of today would be given their due grade.

Why the change?

The APBA fans had more than likely made it known that the true grade was what they wanted.  Let’s face it, baseball fans are more savvy now when it comes to baseball replays.  They have better access to schedules, actual pitching rotations, and lineups and the like.  If I’m doing a 1979 replay, I can quickly go to sites like Baseball Reference and get a quick read on how KC used their pitching staff.

More importantly, APBA fans want to be in control of the replays.  It’s their business who they play and for how long.  In APBA’s formative years, perhaps they attempted to “guide” us by downgrading pitchers who pitched well in a small sample size.  By now, we’re ready to take command of our replays. 

As a side note, the downgrading of pitchers in past years really hurt those who were in leagues with these pitchers.  If I had Jose DeJesus on my team in 1991 (the year after his 1990 season), it would have been disappointing.  Most leagues already implement some sort of limit system to prevent any sort of over use.  So the idea, of downgrading a pitcher because of low actual innings was beyond the point. 

That’s not to say some pitchers don’t still get downgraded but APBA realized this and started giving more representative grades.  It’s a good change and one that most APBA replayers welcome.

By the way, if you can think of other egregious D pitchers wondering what they did to deserve their fate, pass them on.

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I’m opening this up to the wide (snort) audience here.  I got this question over at The Baseball Zealot. 

I have the greatest teams of the past from 1967 and Roger Maris is rated a 3 in the outfield. Could any 67 season owner tell me if he was rated a 3 in the 67 set?…I have a downloded adobe set from 67 and Maris is a 2.

Unfortunately, I have the 1969 and 1970 seasons but not 1967. 

anybody know?

and while you’re at it, go ahead and pipe in about whether he DESERVES his rating.  I know a few hard-core baseball fans who have definite opinions on Maris’ fielding ability. 

-tbz

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For each dice roll number on the card, I’ve determined the most common result number using the card data from all the position players in both leagues.  Then I made a composite card out of it.

This card won’t win any MVP awards, that’s for sure. 

I gave him an OF-2 since there were more players with that rating than any other (save pitchers).  There were 105 OF-2s in the 2009 set. 

I even toyed with calling him Young since I believe that was the most prevalent surname (don’t quote me on that). 

I was a bit surprised on the 35-13 and the 42-13 quite honestly.  I guess the XBs and other bench players lowered the standard. 

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We’ll start with a couple of team comparisons today.  Then I’ll look at a few hitting card anomalies (or maybe the lack thereof). 

Finally, we’ll apply some stat filters and see who’s left standing. 

Teams that can field three OF-3

Only one team that can put a Fielding One player at both shortstop and secondbase.  The Toronto Blue Jays have Aaron Hill who is a 9 at 2B and John McDonald who is a 9 at SS.

Three teams have three B (MG grade 10) or better starters

The Cardinals get the advantage here.  Carpenter and Wainwright are both graded A. 

Teams with at least three graded A or better relievers

I’m amazed at how many there were.  The Dodgers even had four on their team.

Wow, St Louis has quite a pitching staff!!  They have one more C starter (Mitchell Boggs) to along with Carpenter, Wainwright and Piniero.  Not only that, add two more B relievers to go with their three A*s. 

And here’s a little bit of miscellaneous stuff for individual players.

Which players had a 42 AND a 22?

LaRUE	Jason	STL
DELGADO	Carlos	NYM
BLANKS	Kyle	SD
UTLEY	Chase	PHI

Which (F) players had the most 24s? 

I always thought there was a inverse correlation between the speed of a player and the number of 24s but it almost doesn’t seem the case this year.

Oh, in case you were wondering, there were no (F) catchers (Russell Martin and Joe Mauer both had a 12 speed rating). 

Nor were there any (S) players with a first column 11 (the close APBA got was Atlanta outfielder Matt Diaz who had one 11 and had a speed rating of 9). 

Fielding, Speed and a little bit of Power

These are the only players in this year’s set that can say they are Fielding One, have a (F) rating, and have a first column 1.

BARMES	Clint	COL
CANO	Robinson	NYY
PHILLIPS	Brandon	CIN
KINSLER	Ian	TEX
UTLEY	Chase	PHI
HILL	Aaron	TOR

LONGORIA

Evan

TB

ROLLINS

Jimmy

PHI

YOUNG	Chris B.	ARI
JONES	Adam	BAL
SIZEMORE	Grady	CLE
GRANDERSON	Curtis	DET
PENCE	Hunter	HOU
KEMP	Matt	LAD
CAMERON	Mike	MIL
WERTH	Jayson	PHI
GUTIERREZ	Franklin	SEA

Superstar Cards?

Taking this a bit further, these are the only players with a (F) rating, a Fielding One rating, a first column 1 AND at least 4 EBH #s

*drum roll*

If you haven’t seen the rest of the articles in the 2009 APBA baseball set by the numbers series, check them out. 

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But first, let’s look at the Speed breakdown.  Nothing too exciting…

Speed Ratings

I had a request from the APBA BTL forums to break down the catchers’ ratings.  Here they are.  These are all 74 players that had a ‘C’ rating.

Catchers’ Th ratings

Who had the biggest (or at least most accurate) cannons behind the plate at least according to APBA? 

Highest Individual Th ratings 

Plenty of Th –4 catchers to choose from but Boston fans will have to play Jason Varitek over 100 games.  I can sympathize because I have him on my team.

Now, let’s look at some pitcher ratings.  I’ll start with the move to first (MF) rating.

Pitchers’ MF ratings

Homerun ratings are always interesting…

The highest graded pitchers with an M rating were Brett Tomko who was a 7z starter and Dan Wheeler who was a 12xz reliever.

Scot Shields who was a 2w, still managed an H rating.

Pitchers’ Wild Pitch (WP) ratings.

And here are the all-or-nothing Balk (BK) and Hit Batsman (HB) ratings.  Among the 442 pitchers this is how many got rated 0.

That’s about it.  If you haven’t seen the 2009 APBA Position Players by the numbers or 2009 APBA Pitchers by the numbers, check them out.  I love crunching numbers and had fun doing this. 

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Let’s start off with a simple breakdown of the graded pitchers. 

Some of those grades overlap since they belong to split grade pitchers.  Speaking of…

Who were the best graded pitchers?  Those in the know already dug this info up by now.

Let’s take a look at the strikeout and control ratings.

I was a bit surprised at the number of XY pitchers to be quite honest.

And a little bit of fun…

I’ve listed the best pitcher grades already (kudos to Rob Moore for picking Hughes as a rookie, btw) but I haven’t gotten to the worst.  A little bit of morbid fun on my part.  There are tons of Grade 1 pitchers out there but if I had to pick the absolute worst, it would have to be a tie between Dontrelle Willis and Rich Hill.  Both are Grade 1 starters with a W rating.  From the bullpen, there is Logan Kensing and Josh Wilson who are also 1s with a W and have an M homerun rating to go with it.

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Today, I’m strictly looking at the position players.   Maybe tomorrow, I’ll break down the pitchers. 

The Best

The Worst

Least Hit #s
Diory Hernandez	Atl	5
Chris Gimenez	Cle	5
Aaron Cunningham	Oak	5
Greg Norton	Atl	5
Worst OF Arm
Johnny Damon	NYY	26
Lowest Speed #
Bengie Molina	SF	2
Yadier Molina	StL	2
Most 13s
Brian Bixler	Pit	17
Most 24s
Tommy Everidge	Oak	7

Breakdown of the Best and Worst Fielding Ratings

Random Stuff

and just for kicks:

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One of the highlights of the offseason in APBA-land is the release of the disc for the just-finished season. I don’t even use Baseball for Windows anymore, and yet I still buy the disc. This year, for the first time, I pre-ordered it and received it via email. After an hour or two hunting down utilities on the web that would allow me actually make sense of the data contained on said disc, kind of like a kid trying to get the packaging off of a new toy, I was able to finally get at the numerical goodness at the center.

It’s interesting that no one is ever too concerned about the hitting cards; once you’ve been doing this a while you get a pretty good sense of what kind of card a hitter is going to get based on their stats, and while there is some variance in the specifics, they’re never that big of a surprise. The big questions are always “what are the pitching grades” and “what are the fielding numbers.” This is certainly the case for me.

I always look to see what my rotation is going to look like first, and to see if there are any unusual grades in the pitching ranks. Those things get hashed out all over the place, though, so I won’t go over that well-trod ground. Fielding, on the other hand, is always interesting, because our understanding of fielding is so nebulous. APBA also is said to use fielding as a bit of a fudge factor to nudge a team’s overall performance one way or the other – I’m not 100% sure I buy into that, but in theory it would be pretty easy to use small bumps in catcher or first base defense ratings to push a team up or down, as those ratings don’t affect play results in the same way that ratings at the other positions do. The game company also seems to be slow to recognize the advancements in fielding metrics that have started to gain ground in the world of baseball analysis, meaning that often the fielding ratings are hotly contested.

Mike Lowell is a good case in point; he is a 3b-5 again, APBA’s top rating for a third baseman. In the past he has deserved that rating, but this year coming off hip surgery (what is it with 3b’s and their hips this year?) he was considered to be a few steps worse than usual. Going be UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating, available at www.fangraphs.com), he was the second worst in MLB, although his Range Factor and fielding percentages weren’t terrible.

Another oddity; of 76 players with second base listed as their primary position on the disc, 27 (36%) are 2b-8 or 2b-9. Compare that to 3b-5 (10 of 64, or 16%) or SS-9 ( 15/65, or 23%). I wonder if that is consistent over the years…

Another good barometer is the Gold Glove winners. I’ve known lots of APBA players who have felt that if their guy got a Gold Glove, they should get the top rating. I’m not in that camp; firstly, the Gold Glove voting is pretty haphazard in quality; secondly, being the best doesn’t mean you’re actually any good. We’re not grading on a curve here, folks. I think. The gold glove winners are fairly accurately represented, with all of them getting top ratings. Derek Jeter, who gets some flak for his defense, got his SS-9, and while most agree that while he isn’t the best shortstop in the AL, he has improved his defense over the past couple of years. Elvis Andrus, who probably IS the best defensive shortstop in the AL, got a rare rookie SS-9 as well.

And by the way, my team did OK. My infield is Adrian Beltre (3b-5), Miguel Tejada (SS-8), Howie Kendrick (2b-8), Lance Berkman (1b-4) and Miguel Montero (C-7). My outfield will likely be Johnny Damon (OF-2), Justin Upton (OF-2), and Gary Sheffield (OF-1). With a little defensive substitution (Ivan Rodriguez and his C-8, Chris Young and his OF-3) I should be able to swing a Fielding One team.

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The big story among pitchers is the re-appearance of split grades.  And I mean SPLIT grades.  Phil Hughes is rated a 3 (24*) or a D (A&C*).  That’s a 21 point difference, something I don’t think we’ve seen for a while. 

Even Chan Ho Park managed a 1 (16*).

Park’s ERA for 2009 was 4.43 so I had to look up his splits.  Sure enough, his ERA as a starter in 7 starts was 7.29.  His ERA in 38 relief appearances was 2.52.  In my opinion, the split grade he was given fits.

Here are the A starters for the 2009 set:

Greinke 18 XYZ
Hernandez 18 X
Carpenter 18 YZ
Lincecum 17 XY
Jurrjens 15 Y
Wainwright 15 XZ

With thanks to JDRushton from the APBA Between the Lines forum, who complied this list, I’m posting the starting pitchers’ grades (indexed by grade):

18 – C. Carpenter, Greinke, F. Hernandez

17 – Lincecum

15 – Jurrjens, Wainwright

14 – Cain, Halladay, Kershaw

13 – Hanson, Happ, Lester, W. Rodriguez, Sabathia, Vazquez. Verlander

12 – Haren, E. Jackson, U. Jimenez, Jo. Johnson, C. Lee, J. Santana, Jer. Weaver

11 – Beckett, Bedard, Lilly, Millwood, Nieve, Peavy, Pineiro, R. Wells, Wolf

10 – Bergesen, Danks, Dempster, Gallardo, Niemann

9 – Buehrle, Burnett, Feldman, Haeger, Lackey, Outman, Porcello, Rzepczynski, Washburn

8 – Arroyo, Correia, Duensing, Garza, D. Hudson, Lannan, P. Martinez, Ohlendorf, Pettitte, Richard, Rowland-Smith, Stauffer, Zambrano

7 – Blackburn, Blanton, Boggs, Braden, Chamberlain, D. Davis, W. Davis, De La Rosa, T. Hudson, Kuroda, Laffey, LeBlanc, Maine, Marquis, Padilla, Price, Ramos, Romero, J. Sanchez, Saunders, Slowey, Tomko, Volquez, Wakefield

6 – B. Anderson, H. Bailey, Baker, Billingsley, C. Buchholz, Cook, Davies, Duke, Floyd, Gaudin, Harden, Hunter, Kawakami, Latos, Lerew, Looper, Matusz, Norris, Sadowski, A. Sanchez, Scherzer, Shields, Snell, Stults, Zito

5 – Adenhart (RIP), Cahill, Cecil, Cueto, Garland, G. Gonzalez, Hamels, Hammel, Huff, R. Johnson, Kazmir, Lehr, Lowe, Martin, Martis, McCarthy, A. Miller, Milton, Morton, Moyer, Niese, Nolasco, Oswalt, Owings, Pavano, Penny, E. Santana, West, C. Young, Zimmermann

4 – Bannister, Bonine, Colon, Escobar, Figueroa, Fister, French, F. Garcia, Guthrie, Hampton, Harang, Hart, L. Hernandez, Lohse, R. Lopez, Maholm, Maloney, Mazzaro, McCutchen, Meche, Misch, Moseley, Myers, R. Ortiz, Parra, Pelfrey, B. Ray, Redding, Schmidt, Sowers, Stammen, Tallet, Uehara, VandenHurk, J. Vargas, Volstad

3 – Bucker, Burns, Bush, Byrd, D. Cabrera, Carmona, Contreras, Detwiler, Figaro, Galarraga, Gallagher, Harrison, D. Hernandez, S. Hill, Holland, Liriano, Matsuzaka, Mock, Moehler, O’Sullivan, Perkins, Purcey, Richmond, Rogers, Suppan, Tillman, Torres, V. Vasquez, Wellemeyer,

2 – Balester, Banks, Bastardo, Berken, Eveland, Geer, Hochevar, Manship, Mitre, Olsen, Paulino, O. Perez, Petit, H. Ramirez, A. Reyes, J. Reyes, Smoltz, Sonnanstine, Swarzak, Waters

1 – Augenstein, Backe, Bazardo, T. Bell, Benson, Bonderman, Bowden, Burrez, A. Carpenter, C. Carrasco, Carillo, DiNardo, Eaton, Gabino, R. Hill, Z. Jackson, Koronka, S. Lewis, Litsch, W. Lopez, J. Martinez, Mills, Mortensen, Mulvey, Ortega, Penn, Ponson, Reineke, Samardzija, C. Silva, W. Silva, Simon, Taylor, Tazawa, Walters, Wang, B. Webb, Willis

Most of you are aware of the APBA Between the Lines forum where you can get a lot of great APBA info (including info on the new cards).  If not, get your butt over there and browse around. 

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Kevin writes:

Hi, I am a little confused about the cards in APBA sets. I went to the APBA "Stadium Shop" to look for the latest card set, which I believe is the "2008" set with cards from the 2008 season (as opposed to sets issued by baseball card companies, which at this point would have cards for the upcoming 2009 season).

 

My confusion regards the number of cards in the set. On the APBA Product List page, they list 1999-2007 as "30 teams with 20 players per team", though the card list you posted for 2008 has 30 players per team. If I went to APBA’s Statium Shop and ordered the $39.95 2008 set, would I be getting 600 cards or 300?

 

I appreciate any clarification you can offer.

 

Thanks!

It’s a good question, revolving around the issue of XB’s and the 2008 carded player list he refers to.  Admittedly, the carded list is APBA’s way of catering to those of us APBA veterans who absolutely must know ahead of time who is going to get a card and who won’t (thank you, APBA, btw!)

But I suppose it does create some confusion for those not used to the idea of XBs. 

I replied to Kevin:

Kevin,
The regular set you buy will contain 20 players per team (or 600 for the whole set). 

For those who are serious about doing a replay or whatever, APBA also puts out an extra card set (also as XBs) which total to 10 players per team. 

That’s where the 30 players per team is arrived at. 

…the regular set is enough to get you started but to do anything meaningful, it’s helpful to have the XBs. 

I should emphasize that this goes for the recent seasons (1999-present) only.  The older sets and historical might have different roster sizes and XB availability may vary.

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