Big Changes in Official MLB 15 The Show Roster Update, Designer Explains the Details

[Steve_OS]

The official weekly MLB 15 The Show roster update is available now. The update adds 11 players and includes 160 player movements. It also includes big changes that are typically done between yearly releases, as explained by Nick Livingston, Game Designer for MLB 15 The Show.

• Overall Rating is just a made-up number that exists to give a high-level idea of a player's ability at a given position. There are unique formulas for each position that value certain skill sets differently depending on a player's primary position. This is why a position change can cause a pretty substantial shift to a player’s Overall even though their attributes haven't changed at all, like Ben Zobrist from 2B (86) to RF (81) earlier this year. The Overall Rating is not something we look very closely at when we are attempting to accurately represent our players.
• Attribute Ratings are what drive the simulation results in our game and set players apart from each other (Hits per 9, Contact vs Left, Fielding, Speed, etc). Unlike the Overall Rating, Attributes are HUGELY important to the way the game plays. They are NOT just a reward for a player performing well recently, they are the fabric of how results are decided when you make a pitch, swing the bat, track and dive for a ball, make a throw, and so on.
• Though we have a couple drastically different methods for constructing or reconstructing our players attributes, our foundation is a sabermetrics approach similar to what you might find in the yearly baseball prospectus. We love advanced stats, particularly the stats that are good for analyzing a player’s performance independent of the team or stadium he is working with.

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Before Today... All of the previous weekly updates were the result of rigorous analyses from a couple of stat-head designers that manually identify players whose expected future production may have changed drastically. The designers then tweak any questionable Attributes by hand. Obviously this can be quite subjective, sometimes leading to some spirited debate within the studio when it comes to our cherished homers. ...It's an algorithmic approach that assesses all players and almost every one of their attributes based on predictive statistics. What's great about the algorithmic approach is that it covers a much, much larger pool of players and does so in great detail, considering only objective statistical data. Situations like positions changes or playing through injuries can be misleading out of context. For these, our stat-heads comb through and straighten them out. What's unfortunate is that the first step in the automated rebuilding of our rosters is to overwrite the very specific manual changes our guys spent significant time on in past months, all of which was carried out while balancing development on the features they are working hard on for MLB '16. After Today... I, for one, hope that this is the first step towards super-comprehensive ultra-frequent league-wide updates, but for now we are still ironing out some things. Until we develop an algorithm that doesn't require any manual tweaking, we would have to repeat work for our stat-heads every time we push an automation, and that's not the most efficient use of their time...

With all of that said, Daddy Leagues have posted the attribute changes for the big roster update, some of the changes include Paul Goldschmidt +1 (98), Bryce Harper +1 (96), Jose Fernandez +3 (95), Max Scherzer -2 (95), Buster Posey +2 (95), Felix Hernandez -1 (95), Andrew McCutchen -2 (94), Giancarlo Stanton -1 (93), Jose Altuve +3 (92), Anthony Rizzo +2 (92), David Price -1 (91), Matt Harvey -2 (91), Jake McGee +6 (91), Kenley Jansen +1 (91), Manny Machado -1 (91), Johnny Cueto -2 (90), Madison Bumgarner -2 (90), Corey Kluber -2 (90), Koji Uehara +7 (90), Carlos Gomez +1 (90), Robinson Cano +1 (90), Joey Votto +1 (90), Chris Archer -1 (90) and much more.

Check out all of the other details below.

[Dylonus]

I fail to see how McCutchen regressed when his power numbers are on point to match or break his numbers last year. It's still hilarious how Starling Marte isn't 90+ speed. Or how he has only average fielding (that alone is laughable) and ONLY 83 arm strength? Yikes.

[Don Jon]

So I could argue every single update they did, but I'll stick with a few. I would like to know what about Koji's season, at age 40, deserves a 7 point upgrade to a 90? That honestly deserves an article by itself. Especially when you downgrade all the younger pitchers having career years (chapman, archer?, sonny gray??)

Ok next up is my boy jake McGee, he's having a very good year, but idk how you can bump him up 6 to a 91, when wade Davis is haing a year for the record books, and stays at a 89. Delin Betances is having another amazing year stays at 89. All while Andrew miller gets downgraded??? Compare miller's, chapman, and Koji's stats and tell me who should be rated higher at CP

And lastly, the Kiermaier disrespect continues. #39 kevin kiermaier is one of the fastest players in the league, and having a gold glove year in CF. But yet his speed goes from a 56 to a 73. And his fielding and arm goes up a little. If you didn't focus on OVR I get it, but you can't tell me you've used all this advanced data while keeping his ratings that low compared to other players in the league

This update really is challenging to understand, and their explanation didn't really help either. I'm just glad I didn't wait for this and used OSFM to start my chise.

[StraightEdge]

I don't really understand some of these ratings either. What in the world has Stephen Drew done all year to warrant a six point ratings increase?

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[Don Jon]

I tried to look at their roster without judging OVR, and it's still wrong in many areas. Chris Archer has a 88-92 mph slider with curveball dip but in this game it's at 85 mph.

Delin Betances reaches 99-101 with his fastball, but it's only around 96 in the roster, and if Aroldis Chapman doesn't deserve 99 velocity, then who does?

[thescottyglasgow]

Can the developer explain to me, an orioles fan why machado was downgraded and the players on our roster are never correct. Why do I have to move chris davis to 1b and take a ratings hit when he hasn't played right field in two weeks. Why was Gerardo Parra downgraded in a career year and moved to the wrong primary position left field when he is our right fielder. Can they explain how Ubaldo takes a huge decrease and Tillman and Gausman get a increase. Adam Jones gets a decrease please explain how he is any different than any other year actually he is a little better this year. Off the orioles now can they explain how Gomez was increased and is still faster and a better stealer than altuve on his own team. Cruz has lead the majors in hrs for well over a year but is no where near the best power hitter. Done sorrry for the rant.

[queman11]

Just a few of several qualms with these updates...
PUIG is extremely overrated. IDGAF that he's the cover athlete. He has underperformed in every area.
Players like Howie Kendrick and AGon should be rated higher
Why is Ian Desmond so highly rated when he has been one of the worst defensive players of this generation?
Same goes for Starlin Castro who can't hit a lick but is extremely overrated in hitting and fielding
Cano is also overrated in hitting; he should have mid-60s contact and high 40s power.
I know these edits are usually undertaken by the community, but it would be nice to see SCEA legitimately re-rate players. Just look at the rosters put out by community members. They are rated more accurately and objectively than SCEA's.

[TonyDanzaFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Don Jon

I tried to look at their roster without judging OVR, and it's still wrong in many areas. Chris Archer has a 88-92 mph slider with curveball dip but in this game it's at 85 mph. Delin Betances reaches 99-101 with his fastball, but it's only around 96 in the roster, and if Aroldis Chapman doesn't deserve 99 velocity, then who does?

I never understood Chapman. How does he not get 99 velocity? He hits above 100 mph. I understand not to look at overall, but most of these were ridiculous. Arenado gets a decrease in power and his arm, fielding, power all are underrated. It's almost like they decreased all the people that deserved to be upgraded and vice versa. I'd rather have no update than this one.