Batters and Their Abilities

How well a player performs is based on his/her/its abilities. Each batter possesses 6 basic skills measured on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst.

• Finesse: basic hitting ability
• Power: hitting home runs and doubles
• Speed: stealing bases, hitting triples
• Control: Walks
• Adaptability: How well they perform in pressure situations (late innings, extra innings, men in scoring position, etc.)
• Fielding: Basic fielding expertise (on a scale of 1 to 7)

Batters are also assigned a basic position and a left/right/switch batting preference. The age of a player also influences how well they perform.

Here is an example of a batter’s basic abilities:

[Dorothy] Parker is an original member of the 1901 New York Curmudgeons.

• Finesse: 10 (.341)
• Power: 5
• Speed: 8
• Control: 8
• Adaptability: 4
• Fielding: 3

Parker’s first year was 1901 and her natural position is a catcher. These ratings were randomly generated by a program I wrote to create a whole team from scratch.

With a finesse of 10, Parker is a very good hitter. Players with a finesse of 10 will have a basic batting average of between .341 and .400. The range for players with a 10 finesse is a larger range of possible averages: players with a 9 finesse range from .331 to .340; players with an 8 finesse range from .321 to .330, etc. Mitra (Wheeling Friends, 1902) is the only player to have an average of .400. I made the range larger for players with the highest possible finesse to create possible eilte batters with very high natural averages.

With an average of .341, Parker walks to the plate with a 34.1% basic chance of getting a hit. Pitcher statistics offset batting abilities. Any pitcher at the beginning of a game will offset the batter’s average to some degree. A pitcher with great control and great power will offset it dramatically. As the pitcher gets tired, this offsetting number will decrease and the batter will gain the advantage. Depending on a number of circumstances, this percentage can go up or down. If it is a very good pitcher, the number will go down. In a pressure situation, the number will more likely go down because of her relatively low adaptability rating (4). In a large ballpark, the batter will have better chance of getting a basehit.

She has moderate power (5), very good speed (8), and an ability to get on base pretty frequently by walks (8). She is not great in important situations (4) and she is an average fielder. With a speed of 8, she is not fast enough to attempt a lot of steals, but she is fast enough to take an extra base while running the bases and occasionally steal when she is up against a team with a weak catcher and a pitcher who has trouble keeping runners held at first. Parker's adaptability also indicates that she has a better chance of hitting into double plays.

The age of a player is very important. Rookies tend to perform poorly though it is not impossible or unheard of for a young player to do well. Players in their prime (years 4 to 12) will have a better chance of performing well. Players past their prime (12+ years) will begin to see their skills decline with a greater probability of playing poorly each year that they age.

These basic skills are an indicator of how well a player should do in an at bat, but the ultimate outcome is based on a randomly generated number for each at bat. Of course, a batter with a .350 average has a better chance of getting on base than a batter with a .230 average. What happens all comes down to a complex series of formulae that roughly replicates what usually happens on a baseball field, boiled down to percentages.