Billy Hamilton, "Absolute" Attributes, and Potential Game-Breaking Speed

[tbbucsfan001]

Quote: Originally Posted by twinsfan34

I'm not sure I buy the weakest arm of all the STL OF...after all he IS in RF. Scouting grade here has his arm as a "plus" (60 grade). I'd say 55 is probably just fine tho. But the Cardinals have him in RF and he isn't a much better hitter at this point than Piscotty or Tavares would be - Jay is playing primarily because of his defense. Tho Piscotty has a cannon. But your 2nd point is definitely on.

That report also said that he "is good at taking a walk." Last year was his first above league average (8.3% compared to 7.9%).

-15 arm runs in UZR (awful) and -11 arm runs in DRS (awful) in his career (4 years). Fans scouting has him at 46, 34, 38, and 17 out of 100 in the last 4 years.

The only reason he is in RF is because Matt Holliday has never played an inning anywhere but LF and Bourjos is better than Jay.

[torpidbeaver]

Quote: Originally Posted by sydrogerdavid

It's interesting to bring this topic up. It's a similar situation that Madden had a few years ago with Devin Hester. They bumped his speed up to 100. I don't think the Show needs to do that though. Now off topic, regarding the sac fly... Spoiler I don't know why people are making a big deal out of it. 1. Jon Jay has the weakest arm out of all Cardinal outfielders. Nobody (all these baseball blogs) even mentioned that he bounced it to Yadi from that distance. 2. He also threw it without any momentum. He got under the ball too quickly.

Ah, okay. I guess that should factor in to it. On second look, the ball's a little further out than I first thought it was too.

Nevertheless, I don't think 95% of the MLB would even try to make that play, much less make it successfully. Or... that's what I imagine to be the truth, anyway.

Quote: Originally Posted by Heroesandvillains

Interesting read. When I spoke with Brian SCEA last year about attribute diversity (I was basically saying that for MLB 13, I personally wanted to see the higher ratings have more of an impact; same with the lower), Brian immediately showed me and Nomo a little taste of what 'the code' looked like and how some players actually had ratings above 99; which the game needed to represent visually as a 99. Now, I personally cannot speak to the details on this or how it works. And I can't pretend to remember whether what he showed me was an individual rating or an overall rating. He basically used it as a demonstration on how he and the team are aware certain players transcend caps and how the Devs go about getting that portion of the player into the game. But beyond that, someone at their studios would need to expand upon that. I'm basically just saying that I'm almost positive circumstances like these are discussed and probably addressed behind the scenes.

This is really, really interesting to me - that some real players have attributes that don't fit well inside the box they've created for a game, so the Devs do some tinkering behind the scenes and make them (game-wise) super-human. I mean, if they're actually above the "cap" that represents the "best" in the game, that's pretty cool.

That also makes me wonder about bringing in Legends, and how they'd handle young Mantle's or Bo Jackson's power, Ted Williams' contact, Tim Raines' or Vince Coleman's speed, or Rollie Fingers' mustache attributes. Like... where would they fit on that scale?

I really like the idea that only a few players ever even approach the perfect "Absolute 99 Attribute," and that most of the rest of the field that we'd normally consider "Great" is somewhere in the "Great but not Amazing" category. It's also why I don't come on to complain when some of my favorite players are hanging around the mid-80s overall - I like to reserve those 90s-and-above for the truly life-changing players.

After all, how do you make someone with Hamilton's "A++" speed feel unique if the next-highest guy is an "A+-+"?

[Jr.]

I'm gonna start this by saying I'm completely biased because he is a friend of mine.. but Tony Campana got the shaft in the speed/steal ratings department.

6.3 60 runner, 62/69 SBs in his career... he should be in that 90/90 club.

Okay, off my soapbox


Good topic and discussion going on.

[steveeee]

Quote: Originally Posted by twinsfan34

I'm not sure I buy the weakest arm of all the STL OF...after all he IS in RF. Scouting grade here has his arm as a "plus" (60 grade). I'd say 55 is probably just fine tho. But the Cardinals have him in RF and he isn't a much better hitter at this point than Piscotty or Tavares would be - Jay is playing primarily because of his defense. Tho Piscotty has a cannon. But your 2nd point is definitely on.

his point about Jay having the weakest arm in the OF for the Cards is most definitely true and has gotten worst the last couple of years. most Cards fans constantly rip his arm for the last couple of years and already want him dropped from the team this season already because of it. don't believe me just go to the stltoday cards forums and you will see over half the topics on the page discussing how bad Jay's arm is and he shouldn't even be on the team. With that said... Hamilton has freakish speed and is a very smart base runner as well. He just isn't a guy blessed with great speed that doesn't know how to use it.

[Cavicchi]

What is Billy Hamilton's potential?

[underdog13]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jr.

I'm gonna start this by saying I'm completely biased because he is a friend of mine.. but Tony Campana got the shaft in the speed/steal ratings department. 6.3 60 runner, 62/69 SBs in his career... he should be in that 90/90 club. Okay, off my soapbox Good topic and discussion going on.

As a cubs fan I absolutely love Mr.Campana boy can he run.

[Double Deuce]

This is a really interesting topic. The problem is you can't use SB totals to rate these guys' speed very accurately, since a requirement for a stolen base is to REACH base in the first place, so a guy could be fast as all get out, but if he's a terrible hitter/cannot take a walk to save his life, he'll have low SB totals. SB% may help with that, but one season of it isn't a very big sample size. Also, guys' speed can vary drastically at any point based on current nagging injuries, etc.

Plus, some guys can have high SB totals or a high SB percentage not because they are particularly fast, but are just better at reading pitchers. Sadly, it's difficult to accurately reflect all that kind of stuff with only a few player ratings.

I don't know if teams keep track of their players' 40m sprint times or anything, like if they time them all at the beginning of spring training or something, but that'd seem like the best data for just straight Speed rating. Then Steal rating would probably have to be a combo of their Speed rating combined with their SB% over the last 3 years or so.

I'd say you could just time the player's speed in game situations (home to first etc) but then you get problems with whether they're in a full hustle or not going full speed for whatever reason.

This is fun to think about though.

[Scott]

Not sure how Craig Gentry doesn't have 90s speed...