[frangipard]

Okay, so maybe I'm completely wrong here, but the ratings for some of the international leagues look pretty completely nerfed. Basically, the pitchers are fine, but the batters in the Japanese and Korean leagues (and maybe some others) are wildly overrated.

Let me quantify this. There are 240 major-league starters (8*30, we'll ignore the DH), and 360 major-league position-player jobs. When you sort all MLB players by current OVR (scouting off, 20-80 scale, all compared to MLB), there are 242 players rated 44 or higher, and 370 rated 37 or higher. Thus, if all MLB talent was perfectly evenly distributed by team and position a rating of 44 makes you a starter, and 37 gets you on the active roster. Let's bump that up a bit just to be conservative, and say that 50 means you can probably be a major-league starter, and 40 means you likely belong on an active roster.

By that metric, there are

23 hitters in Japan who are pretty clearly major-league starters (>50)
65 hitters in Japan who would make a major-league active roster. (>37)

Again -- that's just the hitters. Does that sound at all accurate? (Pitchers look fine; about 4-6 guys who could make MLB rotations right now and a handful more in the bullpen).

Just looking at the two of the three top-rated players :

Seiichi Uchikawa has a lifetime .816 OPS in Japan; according to the editor, his ratings would produce a .838 OPS in the majors. I don't know a damn thing about Seiichi Uchikawa, but I think it's pretty unlikely that at age 32 he'd do better in the majors than he ever has in Japan.

Jose Lopez had a ML career OPS of .688; in two years in Japan, he's hit .795. The ratings project him for this year -- in the majors -- at .836!

It's not universal: Wladimir Balentin looks fine, as do Lastings Milledge and Tad Iguchi and a few other well-known names. But the problem goes on down the line with the less-well-known players:

Luis Cruz
ML: .590
***:.687
Ratings projected ML: .733

Keiji Obuki
***: .671
Ratings projected ML: .689

etc. etc.

Note that it's not just the hitting ratings, it's the defensive ones, including several specific positions. The roster lists 14 players in the majors rated 65+ at 2B … and 18 with the same rating in Japan! The numbers aren't quite as bad at other positions, but there still seems to be inflation at LF, RF and 3B as well.

And the picture looks just as bad in some of the other leagues; going by the ratings, there are 12 batters in the Korean league who could be starters in the Majors right now, and another 40 who could probably make an MLB active roster. That sounds completely wrong from everything I've read about the KBO.

The numbers for Taiwan are 1 and 7, Cuba 8 and 23, Mexico 0 and 12. Those don't sound out of whack, depending on what your opinion is of the level of play in those leagues.

But then again, when I sim out the Korean and Japanese leagues, they don't look as hitting-dominated as the ratings show they should be ... i.e. it's not like the Japanese league is averaging six runs a game.

What's going on here?




I was just getting ready to start a global fictional league using the real rosters -- basically throwing every player in the world into one big fantasy draft -- but at this point I'm holding off.