Stat SOO

SOO (Strength of Opposition)

We created SOO to provide some reliable indication of how tough a pitcher's opposition has been stretched over his season pitching assignments. This number ranges from 3.1 to 6.2. The higher the number the tougher his opponents have been. SOO's most reliable use is for comparing pitchers on one's own staff. It helps us to understand whether a pitcher's performance has been affected by disproportionately easy or tough assignments.

How do we derive SOO?

When a pitcher exits, the sim calculates the average runs per game (RPG) of the opposing team and then weights it by the exiting pitcher's TBF (total batters faced) for the outing. The results of every outing are stored and accumulate through the season.

This formula is applied after each outing such that the numerator and denominator grow throughout the season.

 (RPG * Pitcher's TBF) / TBF

No opponent's RPG is permitted to go below 3.1 or rise above 6.2. This keeps the SOO rating from gyrating wildly in the early part of the season. Why 3.1 and 6.2? Because these numbers when projected over a 162 game season will represent roughly the highest and lowest team run production totals we'd expect to find in a league of distributed talent (6.2 * 162 = 1004 total runs, while 3.1 * 162 = 502 runs).