Is a 14 better than a 9 — Finding Out the Monte Carlo Way (Intro)

My APBA playing involves a solo league I put together 16 years ago.  The premise is I make either 6, 8, 10 or 12 teams out of that major league season and play a 30 game schedule using the Master Game and the approximately one million innovations I’ve added through the years.  So far I’ve played 35 seasons with every season since 1996, most of the 60s, and some scattered years from the past.  One of the things I have to do is come up with the base lineup(s) for each team.  In the modern area, it usually involves two lineups because of the more pronounced platoon splits.

One decision I had to come up with this year for a team is the rightfield position that came down between Jay Bruce and Torii Hunter.  Normally I would look at a formula that is essentially modified OPS (with an addition/subtraction for SB/CS) and make sure the platoon situation wasn’t terribly weird in one way or another.  My formula had a very close call between the two, showing that classic tough call on do you go complete player over raw power.

St-E29 Sp-10 Ar-37
Jay Allen
BRUCE
Outfielder (3)
11- 5 31- 9 51- 14
12- 25 32- 26 52- 27
13- 14 33- 5 53- 15
14- 30 34- 31 54- 32
15- 10 35- 40 55- 8
16- 28 36- 33 56- 13
21- 32 41- 26 61- 29
22- 6 42- 13 62- 13
23- 12 43- 29 63- 32
24- 13 44- 8 64- 13
25- 9 45- 14 65- 25
26- 13 46- 13 66- 1
J-1 PR-6/+1
St-F-34 Sp-13 Ar-35
Torii Kedar, Sr. “Spiderman”
HUNTER
Outfielder (3)
11- 0 -1 31- 8 -1 51- 9 -1
12- 25 -7 32- 26 -7 52- 27 -7
13- 22 -6 33- 0 -1 53- 19 -6
14- 30 -6 34- 31 -6 54- 32 -6
15- 10 -1 35- 9 -1 55- 8 -1
16- 13 -6 36- 14 -6 56- 13 -6
21- 40 -6 41- 24 -8 61- 24 -3
22- 7 -1 42- 9 -6 62- 13 -6
23- 12 -6 43- 29 -7 63- 31 -6
24- 13 -6 44- 7 -1 64- 22 -5
25- 8 -1 45- 14 -6 65- 35 -8
26- 13 -6 46- 13 -6 66- 0 -1
J-2 SA +2/-2

So I began to wonder: what is the true value of an 9, or a 14, or a penalty for a 24, in the context of runs?

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Introduction

I’ve been playing APBA since I was 10.  Over the years, I’ve noticed things that sometimes fall in the space of “do I ignore it and keep it real” or “do I take advantage of it and have it be a little odd.”  Setting up your outfield based on the other team’s error numbers, playing high shot forwards during penalty kills, etc.  Since I don’t want to clutter my regular blog with this, I’ve set up this one to be the place for my brain droppings when it comes to APBA.