job314 was generous enough to send me the following post. He has been invited to become a regular contributor.
Here’s a general observation/question about rest and playing a guy every day, and here's a specific example of one high profile star in our world…
So the recent injury to rockstar T.J. Benoit has me thinking lately about the effects of fatigue. I’ve long been of the opinion that if you play a player fatigued his chance for injury is increased. How about a player’s production? Does his production go down too or stay pretty much the same?
I get pretty scared when I see less then 100% next to one of my players names. I had the liberty of clinching a playoff spot early, so I was able to rest my players often. Many other owners are still chasing playoff spots though and can’t send out a AAA call up at this point in the season. Lately I have been seeing many of my opponents with lineups containing multiple players below 100% fatigue. I think a lot of owners don't comprehend the risks or the effects it has on their players.
Case study: Take a look at Tampa Bay's 1B Daniel Giovanola. I have been watching this guy mostly because he is Danny York's biggest threat in the race for the NL MVP. Giovanola's durability is a lousy 71. His bat is spectacular but he clearly can not play a full season with that durability. How many games has he played? 162 games, and with very little rest as he had 639 ABs. This guy is hitting HRs like a juiced up Barry Bonds, with an incredible 76 of them. If you go back to the point in the season where Giovanola’s fatigue level dropped below 100%, it was after game 95. He hit 47 HRs during these 1st 95 games while playing at 100%. His home run rate during this time was 0.49 per game. He has hit 29 HRs in the 67 games since then, while playing at less then 100%. An HR rate of 0.43 per game, a slight drop you might say. However, Giovanola’s fatigue level has progressively dropped from game number 96 to game 162. Currently he is playing at an 85% fatigue level. Want to know how many HRs he has hit in last month? 10 HRs in 31 games, or about 0.32 HRs per game. So in the other 131 games this season he has hit 66 HRs or about 0.50 HRs per game. Clearly the more fatigued Giovanola is the fewer Home Runs he hits.
My intent is not to pick on Tampa Bay or Daniel Giovanola. I don't know all the circumstances behind Tampa Bay's linup decisions. This was simply an observation I noticed looking at stats for only 1 player.
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3 comments:
I think moose was forced into playing him because he is always in a tight race for the NL south title. Giavanola has always had to play beyond his means and to this day hasn't had a major injury. I think when he gets some more players in the system you will see his AB drop to keep him more potent. starbuckdc
Like job, I am not picking on TB, but his example is the one that we're using for this discussion (I'm sure every team has a similar situation). I don't pretend to know what the "best" thing to do is for my own team, let alone someone else's.
Danny G hit 76 HRs this season in 162 games. As job pointed out, his peak output came in the first 95 games when he was at .50 HR/game. How many games could he have played at 100%? 130? 150? Say 144 games as a guess. At his torrid pace of .50 HR/game, he would have hit 72 HRs for the season. Say that TB had to play an average 1B in the other 18 games. The average 1B has hit 34 HRs a year in our world (.21 HR/game). In the other 18 games, TB could have expected to get about 4 HR. His first basemen would still have a total of 76 HR for the 162 game season. That's the same as DG posted by himself, but there was definitely some increased injury risk that DG was exposed to by playing at less than 100%.
Since one was never used, it's hard to say who TB's replacement 1B would have been. Maybe it's someone who could do better than .21 HR/game, in which case an always healthy DG and his replacement might have eclipsed the 76 HR total that a tiring DG posted without the injury risk exposure to one of the top players in our world. If his organization just doesn't have a good replacement right now, the production from an always healthy DG and a powerless 1B might have come nowhere near the actual 76 HR total.
mattfurjan
I understand that this isn't a debate on how poorly I manage my team - we can start a whole new blog about that one later. But, I had a couple of reasons why I drained Danny's tank.
First, I was trying to catch up in the Wild Card race. So I put my best players in the line up. I rolled the dice. Not terribly uncommon in baseball to see posistion players play all 162 games. However, I know this is WIS...these little caveats we have with player RATINGS and such. In DG's circumstance-- having an exceptional 95 Health Rating and being at; lets say even 90%... means what? Does anyone know? I'm sure it's not some random variable WIS uses in their SIM software. An equation is used. However it can't be so sophisticated that it gives you the same output and the same result for every situation. The game would be no fun. Anyway, IMO I think the Health Rating of any given player outweighs %healthy. I usually sit players with an average Health Rating when they hit 96% or so.
Now one could argue that DG's decline in production, in the last 60 games, could be attributed to strenght of schedule, pitching and the size of park he was playing in. Or maybe the SIM Gods take 5-10points of the players health, power, L/R split...etc.
Lastly, I was hoping he'd win the MVP award. When I took over this team it was terrible--no depth. Believe me I almost wanted to lose this year and rebuild. They kept plugging and sniffing around... even through all the injuries(not one of them due to the fatigue factor). My thinking is that SOMEONE will see the value in a 72 rated player, that can put up those type of numbers, in trade for some good prospect(s).
moose
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