Power Pros Forum

We drummed up interest in creating real-life players over the summer, filling in those players that debuted from 2008 onward with MLBPP 2008 representation. There are still quite a few left to do - at least 30-40 that had significant impact on baseball from 2010 onward. I thought I would jot down my process in quick form.

The Setup

Getting the beginning pieces correct is fundamental. If you spend 5 hours creating a guy, then find out you misspelled his name, it's all a waste. You can use wikipedia, baseball-reference, or fangraphs to get a simple snapshot of the player - most importantly their full name and handedness for batting/throwing. Never assume this data - I was just working Doug Fister, who pitched in the AL his whole career, but bats Lefty. Important trait! Also, these sites have a picture of the character's face so you can get the right skin tone out of the 5 selections. They roughly correspond to ethnic heritage (european/caucasian, asian, latino, light african, dark african) but give it a good look and make your best judgement. Remember Carlos Pena and how 'off' his appearance is in the game? That can annoy people.

Picking a player's main position can be tough - sometimes guys play out of position, or have split positions - or got moved to a position they never played before, like Daniel Murphy and Neil Walker. There are a few ways to do it, but I typically put a player at the position they've spent the most time in while in MLB. This meets with people's expectations - they can import the player and put him at his main position. But try to spend a few gambles to get secondary positions when they matter.

For pitchers this is easier - if a guy has been a reliever, but has also started, like Alfredo Aceves, Brandon Workman, and so many others - go with the one they did more. If its a tie, then its up to you - maybe you want to represent them as they were in 2008, or maybe as they are today. Both are fine - I generally use 2008 as a point of reference, since the goal is to have people import the player and put him on his correct team as of 2008.

Next is selecting the batting stance or throwing motion. This is easy to figure out - video highlights are everywhere, so just find your player and get a good head-on shot of him batting/pitching to see how he does things. For pitchers, delivery is important - most will be three-quarters or overhand, and the two honestly look pretty similar. Try to take certain information points in - where is his glove when he gets the sign, does he wind his hands over his head or not, how far does he fall off the mound - and then find a match. Batting stance is the same - note where the player holds the bat, if he crouches, how far apart his legs are, and how he kicks before the swing - then find a match.

None of this has to be dead-on - finding a 100% match is tough, even when you have every form available unlocked - just have it be a close approximation. I usually spend 5-10 minutes on this at the beginning - it means I can't reload for a great start, but I know my foundation is solid.

During Success Mode

I won't cover the middle part - there are innumerable guides on this. With realistic players, however, the goal is usually to AVOID an abundance of blue abilities and super-powers. It's nigh impossible to make it through success without a few, sure, but make sure they are meaningful and tied to this player - and then adjust elsewhere. I basically use the justification rule - when I got stuck with Power Hitter on Daniel Murphy, I hated it, but then he did lead the Mets in homers one year...so I accepted it and left his power a few points lower than I might have otherwise.

Because you may end up with blue abilities or hot zones that aren't perfect matches for the character, and because our Success mode players tend to dominate a bit anyway, AND because the game starts off in 2008 and some of these players didn't debut for years, you will see I am CONSERVATIVE when handing out abilities. I don't want everyone having 200 power or 15 speed or 15 contact; ideally, these guys would develop for a season or two in the minors, then get the full-time job. MLBPP doesn't have that sophisticated a growth pattern, however, so it is what it is. I try to get MPH and SPD spot on with reality, since those rarely increase during a career. Other abilities, like pitch breaks or contact, I might go a point or so under where they are today, to allow for growth, or the fact that these guys may not stay at an elite level for long.

Players can deflate and lose their everyday role pretty easily - when we created Colby Rasmus, he looked like an all-star, so we gave him D contact and B everything else. Nowadays he fights for playing time. So if you have a decision to make between a 9 or 10 rating, go for the 9. If someone plays out season mode with him on their team, they can practice his skill up to where they want it to be.

Endgame

It's happened - you've spent a few hours (or maybe days) on a guy, his abilities are done and you made it through the frustrating scout/coach/spy-friends/dead-parents-resurfacing-and-working-against-you storyline. Great. Now it is the MOST important time to make sure everything is right! If you did all that work, and now get the DOB off by a few years, well that isn't going to make you happy!

Jersey number is cosmetic, and can be changed or set later when a guy is imported to a team, so its not too important. Still, if you can, choose the jersey number that player has worn most often. Some guys will keep the same number from team to team, others will bounce around.

Date of birth, again, can be found on wiki, fangraphs, or B-R. The month/day is good, but the actual age is important. I set all my guys to the age they were as of 2008 - so if I import them into a beginning Season Mode, they will be the actual age they were in February/March of 2008. I got one wrong one time, so I know the pain of putting in all that effort just for a silly mistake.

Eyes - most important here is getting rid of the big anime eyes and using regular eyes. Look at the player's pic on their bio pages - some guys have squintier eyes, some guys big open eyes, others more laid back, half-closed eyes. Approximate! I stick to the first 10-15 choices since they get weird after that, replacing the whole head. There are only two eye color choices, so if they have light green/blue eyes, go blue; otherwise, go brown.

Glove and Bat - I google images of the player, and find what color glove and bat they are photographed with most often. Some guys always use the same exact shade, others mix it up, so just go with whatever you find most common in the pics. No one is grading here, but the realism helps!

Wristbands - looking at those same pictures, how often did the player have a band on his wrist or forearm? If he constantly wears one, same shade, same arm, then throw it on! Chris Johnson wore a black band on his left arm in over half the pics I saw, so I added it to him. Otherwise - don't!

Hair - guys change styles all the time, so again just go with what you see most often. Some guys have real weird facial hair, big beards and stuff - or mohawks under their ball caps. Most don't so stick with the normal hairstyles at the bottom, in the normal human shades of brown to dark brown. Redheads and blonds are rare, but if you're guy has it, do it up!

Other - don't go overboard, adding shades or eyeblack or earrings or anything...those things are rare. Only if your guy has them on all the time should you add them. Its too bad tattoo options aren't in the game, since so many guys are covered with them now, haha. Keep it real...the more your player blends in with the hundreds that are in the game from the start, the better.

When you're all done, take a picture or two of the guys' abilities, then the password, and upload them (in cropped, resized fashion) to the board. I'll add to the wiki, and guys that discover this game in 3 years will be able to find your post and import your player. Plus, I'll import him into my game, with my eternal thanks.

It's really a shame that height or fitness aren't things you can set, since that would differentiate these guys more. I'd like to see Bartolo Colon and Pablo Sandoval appear thicker than the average player, and guys like Doug Fister or Randy Johnson appear to tower over the average player. But until Konami issues a 2015 or 2016 version of the game, this is the closest we get!

Nice post, AOW. I have a question: why do you want these real-life players made do bad?

Well its a hobby for me - gives me some drive to play the game. MLBPP is one of the best MLB games around, IMO, in terms of playability. Its not quite a sim-level experience like Baseball Mogul or OOTP, but it can be more fun since you can play and control the action.

A lot of the big holes in the game (aside from bugs with controlling fielders) is exposed when you play season mode - teams run down their pitchers, relievers are starting, everyone is fatigued and useless. Well, if every team had a few more pitching arms in AAA...maybe the AI would solve that. Maybe the MLBPP experience could rival OOTP or baseball mogul if teams were given some more depth options...and if you remove the silly/useless drafted players with 84 top speed and G/F everything, and instead had a good crop of FAs available all the time.

I basically want to fill my file with real-life players, assign them to the right teams they were on in 2008, and then start up a Season Mode to end all Season Mode games. Turn off draftees, turn off the underbar, and just go to town on the toughest setting with a loaded team like the Athletics (Brett Anderson, Cargo, Trevor Cahill, and a ton of closers)...or on the other hand, try to carve out a team of nobodies from the FA pile, or guys that were out of MLB at the time pile, (Bruce Chen, Ryan Vogelsong, Colby Lewis, Jesse Chavez, Russell Branyan, etc) and try to compete against the now-more-loaded MLB squads out there. Or, do an expansion team of all scrub nobodies and get beaten badly for a few years by all the talent floating around the league, haha.

Really I just want to take MLBPP 08 as far as it can go with full rosters, and see how rewarding the experience is. I'm sick of having games where BJ Upton leads the league in homers or average, or Derek Jeter and Arod are still all-stars in 2018, or where the Indians can't find a pitcher who isn't dead tired to start a game. Who knows - maybe I can use video and logs to show the MLBPP creators that bigger farm systems and more realistic player growth would boost their product quite a bit in the eyes of the long-time serious player.

What do you plan on doing once guys retire (HAH!) and need to be replaced?

Yeah not an issue. Since season mode only goes 10 years, and most of the players are ~30, and all the additions we've done are players ages 18-24...the league will be fine.

I'm more wondering, if you fill up the teams and FA, will more players retire? Wondering how the game code works, if guys retire when there's too much competition for playing time or if they are stuck in AAA.

Posted this a while back, but this is what contacts correspond to what batting averages.

.199- =3
.200~.214=4
.215~.229=5
.230~.244=6
.245~.259=7
.260~.274=8
.275~.289=9
.290~.304=10
.305~.319=11
.320~.334=12
.335~.349=13
.350+ =14

One more note on this - the board already has 56 success mode players on the Wii that debuted in 2011 and beyond. So when players retire, I could simply import a wave of success players into the game...either as FAs, or onto my team and then trade them to their correct historical teams. I only have a few of those guys on my current arrange teams (Alex Cobb, for example).

I'm focusing on players already drafted prior to 2008, just to reflect the teams' full systems at that time. So I could do an 'update' of sorts each year, importing 10 or 20 success guys already on the boards - japanese imports, dominican imports, etc - and let things keep developing. If a lot of OFers retire, I import Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Cespedes, Nori Aoki, Rusney Castillo, etc. Pitchers, then I import that Masahiro Tanaka, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Odrisamer Despaigne, etc. IFers and catchers will be tougher, but I bet we can find guys.

We can find a way to make MLBPP08 playable long term! If people are still playing NES games today, anything is possible!

Just an FYI, that's a lot easier in theory than in practice

I know - i could do it for a season, then in season 2, no one wants the guys anymore. Im in June of year 2 in season mode and can't trade Nava to the BoSox or Bailey to the A's. No clue why! Im trying to trade them for 1 friggin point!!

thats why having the rosters loaded as much as possible is a better alternative.

Pitching Abilities:

Top Speed
Range: low 80s (Tim Wakefield) to 104mph (Joel Zumaya, etc)
This is pretty easy on its face - go to FanGraphs, check out pitch velocity, and get the guy close to his top speed shown (prbably for 4-seam fastball, or FA). FanGraphs has three columns - minimum, maximum, and average. So you want Top Speed to roughly equal the maximum velocity they've thrown with - UNLESS they threw at a top speed way outside the norm one time, or threw a higher mph as a reliever and you're making them a starter.

Don't undercut here - the game will have the pitcher average a few mph below their top FB speed, and even more when they are in 'poor form' and such. If your player's top speed reached is 93.7mph, round it up to 94. If you need more information, you can check out the actual graphs that show where a player sits for their pitch velocity.

Control
Range: 80 (Rick Ankiel?) to maybe 190? (Maddux in his prime)
I start at the BB/9 metric. Let's go with something like this:
1.8-2.0 - 190
2.0-2.2 - 180
2.2-2.4 - 170
2.4-2.6 - 160
2.6-2.8 - 150
2.8-3.0 - 140
3.0-3.2 - 130
3.2-3.4 - 120
3.4-3.6 - 110, consider adding Walk
3.6-3.8 - 100, consider adding Walk
3.8-4.0 - 90, consider adding Walk
4.0+ - 80, consider adding Walk

Now this can be adjusted - if the pitcher is known to work the corners, if scouting reports give you good control, then feel free to adjust as needed. Sometimes BBs can be related to tough hitters, tight umpiring, or bad luck.

Stamina
Range: 30 (one inning reliever) to 190 (Roy Halladay)
If the pitcher was a starter, I try to find a few seasons where their games total is equal to the games started total (so no relief appearances mess up the numbers). Then, divide the IP total for that season, by the number of games pitched. For instance, for Dillon Gee, in 2013 he started 32 times and racked up 199 IP.
199 / 32 = 6.218, or roughly 6 and a third innings. So Gee is pitching into the 7th most of his starts. A few CGs to his credit (3 career) so he's legit.

So I would put a guess around this, for innings pitched per start:
8.2+: 190 (Could see up to 20 CGs)
8+: 180 (Should see 5-13 CGs every season)
7.5+: 170 (you should see 4-10 CGs every season from this guy)
7.2+: 162 (should still see 3-7 CGs)
7+: 157 (still seeing 2-5 CGs)
6.6+: 152 (Maybe one CG a season)
6.2+: 147 (maybe a CG every other season or so)
6+: 142
5.5+: 138
5.2+: 133
5+: 128
4.5: 120 (anything under this is probably a swing man or a starter that implodes)
Swing man: 80-120
Middle reliever: 50-80
Closer/setup: 30-50

Special Abilities

Positive:
Dr K - consider adding when K/9 IP rate is over 9, definite when over 10
Durability 4 - no missed time or DL stints, majors or minors
Gd Pickoff - racked up > 5 pickoffs per season?
Release 4 - low rate of steal success - CS% over 30%, or total SBs kept to single digits in a season (100+ IP)
Str Finisher - high save success rate
Vs Lefty 4 - the bane of all righty pitchers! This should be something lefties have if their career platoon splits show it. Righties, shouldn't have this unless they have some kind of weird reverse platoon split (James McDonald, for instance).
w/RISP 4 - check out LOB %. League average is 70-72%, so if they are SEVERAL points higher than that, consider w/RISP 4. There's lots of fluctuation tho!
Groundball P - this article says only GB rates over 50% (consistently) are really Groundball P
Gd Delivery - useful when scouting reports indicate that they hide the changeup well, use consistent motion, etc
Spin 4 - if the pitcher's breaking balls have low BA against?
Fastball Life 4 - fastball has extreme movement or a very low batting avg against

Negative:
Fastball Life 2 - if the fastball has a high batting avg against.
Walk - consider adding when BB/9 is over 3.3 (league average)
w/RISP 2 - check out LOB %. League average is 70-72%, so if they are lower than that, consider w/RISP 2.
Fat Pitch - consider this if HR/FB rate > 10%, or HR/9 > 1
Choke Artist - if they blow a lot of saves (5+ a season), or consistently die in the 5th (SP)
Hot Head - ever throws a tantrum on the mound, shouts at his fielders, picks fights with batters, hits batters, etc
Release 2 - high rate of steal success - CS% < 25%, SB total > 13 on a season (min 100 IP)
Durability 2 - several DL stints, Tommy John surgery, missed a season or more entirely
Unlucky - low winning percentage despite a good ERA (or, pitched for the Mariners)
Sandbag - just a good option when WHIP is high (>1.4) without walks or HRs
Flyball P - unattainable, but if GB% is under 35 or 40%

Batting Abilities

Contact

Aar0nat0r already posted this, so I'm rolling with it:
.199- =3
.200~.214=4
.215~.229=5
.230~.244=6
.245~.259=7
.260~.274=8
.275~.289=9
.290~.304=10
.305~.319=11
.320~.334=12
.335~.349=13
.350+ =14

Power
Homers. Homers!! Everyone loves the long ball. But power varies so greatly year to year, it's tough to get it right. Let's look at a guy like Nelson Cruz. It isn't just about HR total - it's about homers per AB. Baseball-reference has a few simple stats in Ratio Batting we can use:
HR % - how many ABs ended in a home run
AB/HR - how many at bats occurred per homerun smacked
ISO - isolated power (SLG minus AVG).

So let's do this:


Speed
So rating this on the slow side is difficult. Once you get below 9, guys don't really steal, so how do you even know what they are? It's a crapshoot, but that's ok! We are only doing our best guess.

My goal is to be conservative. 15 should be for only the fastest runners in the game. If you give a guy 12 speed and Base Stealing 4, he's gonna rack up 35-40 steals easy - and if you control him, more like 100 during a season. Since fielders in MLBPP are given a natural delay for transferring the ball or throwing, speedy guys make out like bandits.

So let's look at raw steals in 2014 and see how that translates to speed:
Steals Speed Comp.
60+ A(15) Dee Gordon
55+ A(14) Billy Hamilton, Jose Altuve
45+ B(13)
35+ B(12)
25+ C(11)
15+ C(10)
10+ D(9)
5+ D(8)

You can see this starts to die right around here. Some guys with <10 steals have good speed (9 or 10?) and just don't steal. some guys like Eric Young Jr. only piled up 30 steals, but that was in 280 ABs (half a season). If there was a SB ratio stat, that would help here...aside from steal success.

In the meantime, aar0nat0r recommended the fangraphs SPD score, so let's look at that. It's a Bill James score, but it's "a bit outdated". Still it can help! Let's look at the 2014 season:

Spd Speed Comp.
9.5+ A(15) Eric Young Jr.
8.5+ A(14) Dee Gordon
7.7+ B(13) Billy Hamilton
7.5+ B(12) Drew Stubbs, Craig Gentry
7+ C(11) Ben Revere, Brett Gardner, Mike Trout, Starling Marte
6.5+ C(10) Jose Reyes, Alcides Escobar, Jacoby Ellsbury, Sam Fuld
6+ D(9) Jackie Bradley Jr, Jimmy Rollins, Anthony Gose, Jose Altuve
5.5+ D(8) Ian Desmond, Ian Kinsler, Ichiro, Charlie Blackmon

And again below that, well you aren't helping the team much so ehh. Still some of these guys seem underrated this way. I hate to expand the top areas...but maybe if SB and SPD are used in conjunction, we can land at a good number? Hmmm.

Special abilities:
Firstball hitter - career batting average on first pitch is .069 or more higher than career batting average
Table Setter - career batting average with none on is .xxx or more higher than career batting average
Clutch 4 - clutch rating on B-R?
Timely Whiff - strikeout percentage of 27% or above

I would also like to note that HRs are more a result of trajectory than power, we should have separate formulas for PWR and TRJ imo

Ah good point. Maybe ISO (since it includes doubles and even triples) goes directly to POW, and AB/HR and HR% go to TRJ?

Sounds about right, we just need to find a formula to reach TRJ from AB/HR

Eric Davis had a formula for TRJ you may just need to search around a bit