LINEUP SPREADSHEET DEMO version copyright 1995 Strat Research Associates. All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION This product represents over 8 years of development effort. We hope that you find LINEUP to be as useful as we at SRA have in taking the guesswork out of lineup formulation in SOM baseball. Hardware/Software limitations You must have MS Windows and either MS Excel 5.0, 123 for Windows 1.0, or Quattro Pro 5.0 (or later versions) in order to use LINEUP. Since LINEUP is a rather large spreadsheet, if you are running with the minimum recommended Windows memory configuration (about 4MB) we suggest that you quit all other applications when running LINEUP. This will minimize hits on your Windows swap file and maximize performance. Calculation times will of course vary with processor type and clock speed. As a guide, on a 486DX running at 66Mhz calculation takes less than 2 seconds. We recommend that you set recalculation to manual for your spreadsheet application when using LINEUP as that will make the player swap macro (described below) work faster. INSTRUCTIONS ON USING LINEUP LINEUP tells you the actual OB%, TB%, BA and runs created for each player in a pair of opposing lineups in a given ballpark. Team summary values are also given, including winning % values ! All Super advanced game effects are included except base stealing, fatigued pitcher, and closer rules. it's all there - L/R factors, W/N power, x-charts, DPs, even base running speed ! The Display Area LINEUP's main display area is at cell A1 of the sheet. When you want to get back to the main display, hit a1 to get there. Contents of the Display Area The first three columns on the left and the last three columns on the right are self-explanatory. Note that in LINEUP errors are modeled as hits, and the pitcher range rating is actually his PHC#, since range for pitchers is fixed at 2. The first three columns include the effect of clutch situations as a weighted component (assuming that clutch situations arise about 12% of the time - this factor can be altered at the user's discretion). The forth column (from the left) gives the batting average for that player in clutch situations. The fifth column gives offensive runs created by that player if he were to be the entire lineup. The next column to the right gives three probability of victory estimates. The top value is an estimate based on applying a gaussian statistical model to the difference between estimated runs for the two teams. The next two values below are based on the sabermetric `Pythagorean formula': "the ratio of wins to losses is equal to the ratio of runs for squared over runs against squared (W/L=Rf^2/Ra^2)". The top value is derived from the basic OB% and TB% estimates and the bottom value is based on a small refinement in estimated TB% based on some esoteric statistical considerations. Summary measures of team batting average, OB%, and TB% are given two columns to the left of the player names while the two different runs created estimates for the team are given below in the same column. The impact of player running speed is included in these values (it isn't included in the per player estimates in the leftmost four columns in order to preserve the difference between the pure 'hitting card' and overall player capabilities). The cell marked with the greek letter 'sigma' is an estimate of the standard deviation of the gaussian RC measure. The two values labeled `Def OB' and 'Def TB' give the amount of OB% and TB% points that this team's defense adds to the pitcher's card (i.e., a 200 card OB% would become a 245.8 card OB% with a Def OB of 45.8). The cell marked `trnmnt:' (H1) is a switch that enables (1) or disables (0) the TBA 1W pitcher batting rules. If you don't know what this means just leave it at 0. The cell marked `ninn:' (J1) is a parameter that specifies the number of innings these two lineups will be opposing each other - it impacts the runs created and winning % outputs. This should never exceed 9 but in some situations it makes sense to set it lower when using LINEUP to decide on who to start, such as when you expect one (or both) lineups to change early in the game. For example in TBA play this number is guaranteed to be at least 5 as there is a TBA rule prohibiting substitution for the first 5 innings. The smaller this number, the lower the runs created values and the closer the winning % values will be to .500. Batting order is not taken into account in LINEUP (team values are straight averages) since to do so would make direct tradeoffs between players more cumbersome as it would force the user to specify a new order each time players are substituted. LINEUP also presumes that you have entered a valid team - it doesn't check position coverage. Thus you can arrange field players anyway you wish in the first 8 positions of each team - they don't need to be in any special order. IMPORTANT - You must always place the pitcher in the bottom row of the respective teams in column K (cells K10 and K20). This is because LINEUP assumes that the pitcher's data is in this row. If you should accidentally place a field player here the outputs will make it pretty obvious that something is seriously wrong. How LINEUP works To change players, simply select the cell (i.e., drag the mouse to that cell and click) with the name of the player that you wish to change and hit -M. This invokes a macro procedure that prompts you for the name of the player that you wish to substitute. There is a standard format for player names: last name + first initial (not to exceed 8 characters) + '.' + 3 character team extension. If the player's last name is less than 7 characters his name is filled out with '_' characters before the '.' to make 8 characters. For players with more than 7 character last names the first 7 characters are used. The team extension are identical to the SOM computer game extension which are: ATN SLN CON MON CIN LAN NYN CHN SDN PHN HON SFN FLN PIN NYA CLA TEA BOA CHA OAA TOA MNA CAA DEA KCA SEA BAA MLA For example, Jeff Bagwell would be 'bagwellj.hon', Ozzie Smith would be 'smitho__.sln', and John Valentin would be 'valentij.boa'. Note that this demo version contains only the carded 1994 players from Boston and Cincinatti. If you can't seem to get a player's name right after invoking -M, hitting a series of escape () keys will get you out of the -M macro with no damage. You can then peruse the pitcher and field player data bases below cells a100 to determine the correct spelling. Once you've got the correct spelling, hit a1 to get back to the display area. Each player is given a default position in the data base that generally corresponds to his main position on his SOM card. You can alter his position by selecting the corresponding cell in the 'Position' column (column L), typing the desired position, and hitting . Upon recalculation the 'Range' and 'E Rating' columns will be updated with the correct values for that player. Note that should you enter a position that the player in question did not play the 'Range' and 'E Rating' cells will show 0 upon recalculation and several output cells will show errors. Entering a valid position and recalculating will correct this situation. Defense Ratings - The alternate e ratings from the team roster sheet are used in LINEUP. Also, the optional alternate rules for players out of position are NOT used in LINEUP. If you wish to change these you will have to edit the player data base manually. The columns for defense ratings are marked in the field player data base starting around row 510 or so. The pitcher e-rating column is D in the pitcher data base at row 100. NB: Players without any position rating (i.e., DHs) are given a Fb-5 e30 rating to correspond with the TBA rules. Once you have the desired player combinations entered into the respective teams, recalculation () will update all the displayed information to reflect the selected players. To change ballparks, simply select the current ballpark name (cell A21) and hit -M. The 28 major league parks are preloaded into the ball park data base (starting at cell A25) and are given with the standard 2 or 3 letter abbreviation (e.g., tex for texas, la for Los Angeles, etc.), with the two New York and Chicago teams being NYN, NYA, CHN, and CHA. You can always enter weather modifications or a design your own park by simply typing in the desired BP dimensions into the appropriate cells - these are B21 for LSI*, C21 for RSI*, D21 for LHR, and E21 for RHR. Remember to recalculate to see the effect of ballpark changes. IMPORTANT - Never invoke -M when the cursor is not on a player name cell (cells K2 through K10 and K12 through K20) or the ballpark cell (A21). Doing so could overwrite formulas in the spreadsheet and render it useless ! Also, putting a player in the ballpark cells would have the same effect !