About Talent Ratings - The Baseball Cube

Page Notes

Talent Ratings are statistically-generated ratings for batters and pitchers based on yearly comparisons against their peers. The ratings are not based on a pre-determined benchmark such as the scouting ratings used by scouts. This is not based on actually seeing a player's physical skills. These ratings are based exclusively on statistical history and can be used to help predict a player's fantasy usefulness and possible career projection.

A player is ranked compared to peers in each league type for each season he has played predicated on a minimum number of at-bats or innings pitched. Ranked players are assigned a number ranging from 100 to 1 with equal distribution to each score. The worst player receives 1 while the best receives 100. Depending on the number of players eligible, there could be more than 1 or more 100 assigned. For a player's career (including the college data we have), the rankings for each rating is averaged providing a final score. Since all scores are averages, there is not equal distribution between ratings.

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About the Talent Ratings

Active player scouting scores are also weighted towards recent seasons. Therefore, a player's success in the current season will be weighted higher than 2 years ago and 3 years ago. All years starting 5 years ago are not weighted. The purpose of the weighting is fairly obvious. A player's recent statistics are more indication of his skills than earlier seasons. Inactive or retired players do not have weighted ratings since they would serve no functional purpose. Its also important to note that there is no greater weight assigned to major league stats. A player who only played college ball might have a rating of 100 in power whereas Ryan Howard has a rating of 96. It does not mean we think this player has greater power than Ryan Howard. These ratings are only Indicators and are compared only against his cohorts. College stats are compared against college stats, minors against minors. etc

The following list indicates the factors included in each scouting category:

HITTING Talent Ratings

Speed: Number of stolen bases per trips to first base. Does not consider whether there are other runners on base blocking his path.
Power: Extra Base hits compared to balls put in play (AB-SO). Considers home runs at a full point and doubles and triples at half the weight.
Contact: Number of times a player does not strikeout compared to plate appearances.
RBIs: Number of Runs Batted in compared to number of plate appearances. Is not normalized per opportunity.
Runs: Number of runs scored per time on base. Does not consider quality of players behind him in batting order but instead may highlight a player's propensity to score runs.
Hitting: Batting Average versus the league.

PITCHING Talent Ratings

Strikeouts: Strikeouts per 9 Innings vs the rest of the league.
Walks: Walks per 9 innings vs the rest of the league.
Hittable: Hits per 9 innings vs the rest of the league.
vs Power: Homers allowed per 9 innings vs the rest of the league.
K/BB Ratio: Strikeout to Walk ratio vs the rest of the league.
Pitcher Hitting: OPS (on-base + slugging) compared to the rest of the qualified pitchers in comparison. Excludes pitcher with insufficient at bats.

GENERAL Talent Ratings

Durability: Number of games a player has played compared to the numbers of games his team played. For pitchers, uses a formula that compares number of games pitched versus number of expected games pitched if pitched for a full season with this team. Bench players may not appear to be durable.
Team Success: Gives a rating of 100 for first place team (Winning percentage) and a rating of 0 for last place team. Ratings are distributed evenly between 0-100 depending on the number of teams in the league.

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