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Forum >> Suggestions >> Range Factor  

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function
#10744	10/12/2014 2:41:20 pm		Ignore
Seca Joined: 05/05/2014 Posts: 5199 Waterloo Dinosaurs Legends	Range Factor (commonly abbreviated RF) is a baseball statistic developed by Bill James. It is calculated by dividing putouts and assists by the number of innings or games played at a given defense position.[1] The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs in which a player participates is more relevant in evaluating that player's defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage. I've been trying to figure out how much benefit range on my defenders is providing. Been calculating this manually, and comparing to lower range competitors. Its pretty easy to calculate, and the source data is already there. Might be nice to have it on the player cards & stat page. On the downside, the player card & statistics pages are already pretty robust. This stat can also be pretty subjective (ie., if your pitchers get a lot of strike outs, your defenders* will look bad). * your catcher wouldn't look bad. He'd look awesome.
#10925	10/18/2014 11:26:36 pm		Ignore
MukilteoMike Joined: 08/09/2014 Posts: 3294 Inactive	I don't see the point of Range Factor here. It's great with MLB because it helps quantify a players range. Here, though, a player's range is already perfectly defined.
#10948	10/19/2014 7:21:06 pm		Ignore
Seca Joined: 05/05/2014 Posts: 5199 Waterloo Dinosaurs Legends	I see your point. I would counter by saying we keep track of HRs even though power is perfectly defined. We keep track of fielding % even though fielding skill is perfectly defined. My interest in the stat was passing. Was just trying to get a sense of the value of range in the game. Scribbled it all out.
#10964	10/20/2014 9:25:31 am
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	Range isn't perfectly defined, because your players effective range will also depend on position experience too. A newbie SS will have less effective range than an experienced SS with the same range skill. In terms of compiling range factor as a player statistic, the game engine tends to handle defenders range in aggregate rather than individually, so I'm not sure how accurate a statistic would be with the current game engine. Steve
#10967	10/20/2014 1:34:45 pm		Ignore
newtman Joined: 11/02/2013 Posts: 3343 Inactive	"the game engine tends to handle defenders range in aggregate rather than individually" Very interesting, and good to know. So we can think of it in terms of the odds of a ball dropping in for a hit versus being caught for an out being influenced by the total range of all the guys in the field instead of any individual players? I'm guessing the importance of some positions are just weighted more heavily than others to keep a high range catcher from making up for a low range shortstop?
#10976	10/20/2014 7:26:52 pm		Ignore
MukilteoMike Joined: 08/09/2014 Posts: 3294 Inactive	Seca, while I don't think seeing RF is very important here, I am extremely interested in trying to quantify the importance of defense. What Steve said about it being aggregate, though, makes it sound as if that's going to be quite difficult to determine. Pity. I guess we're back to the stone ages, which is like a whole fifteen years ago or something. But this is even worse because we don't have our eyes to give us hints (well, except for the scouts comments, and those don't tell us what a player's defense is worth.).
#10979	10/20/2014 10:59:38 pm		Ignore
solace36 Joined: 01/10/2014 Posts: 60 Inactive	My feeling on what is missing here is agility. Range is clearly a product of speed. Speed is already a well defined skill. Agility on the other hand is not. Agility can come from a player playing a position over time and learning the position shortcuts, as well as a natural inherited player trait. We continue to have these conflicts over speed and range and in reality they are the same skill set. It makes sense to alter the range skill to agility as much of what Steve talks about in aggregate totals defines agility, not range. If the change was made to agility skills,I'm sure with a slight computer alteration for the probability of natural skill this would better define the players ability. Plus, it would remove the constant speed/range skill conflict that exists.
#10986	10/21/2014 9:17:48 am		Ignore
Seca Joined: 05/05/2014 Posts: 5199 Waterloo Dinosaurs Legends	Definitely hard to quantify since both pitching and defense are contributing to runs allowed, and its difficult to "control" the pitching variable. Its certainly very important to have good defense; most of the teams that rise to Legends are predicated on a strong defense. The aggregate information is helpful understanding the numbers I came up with. My sample size was far from scientific, and the stat itself is subjective. What I took from my own little study was that I am probably putting a little too much emphasis on range and not enough on fielding. (not saying range is unimportant ).
#11000	10/21/2014 4:24:28 pm
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	"the game engine tends to handle defenders range in aggregate rather than individually" In terms of this implementation...that's just the way it is now. I don't think its the best implementation and given time & priority, I think I'd probably change how it works. Steve

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