How each strategy differs
Fair Play
Purpose: Rotate batting-order opportunities across the season while maintaining a workable batting order.
Fair Play considers:
Contact, speed and power
Previous average batting position
The player’s Fair Play batting-opportunity score
Some recorded performance appropriate to each batting role
A player who has regularly batted lower in the order receives additional priority. A player with no batting-order history receives a neutral first-opportunity score, allowing coach ratings to guide the initial recommendation.
What Fair Play is trying to achieve
Fair Play is not trying to create the mathematically strongest batting order for one game. It is trying to prevent the same players from always batting near the top while still placing players into reasonably suitable roles.
A coach could describe the strategy as:
“Fair Play considers who is suited to each role, but it also looks at previous batting positions and gives additional consideration to players who have spent more time lower in the order.”
Important clarification
The current opportunity calculation also includes bench and premium defensive-position history. That broader opportunity score is useful for defensive planning, but it is not a perfect measure of batting-order fairness by itself.
The most directly relevant batting metric is the player’s average previous batting position.
Balanced
Purpose: Produce an all-round lineup without heavily favouring one particular batting style.
Balanced considers:
Contact
Speed
Power
OPS
Role-specific OBP, SLG and recent performance
It adds no major strategy-specific bonus beyond the role calculations. This allows the normal leadoff, contact, all-round, cleanup and run-producer formulas to do most of the work.
A coach could describe Balanced as:
“Balanced looks for a combination of players who can reach base, make contact, run and drive the ball. It does not strongly favour one characteristic.”
This is a sensible general-purpose selection when the coach does not want a heavily specialised approach.
Competitive
Purpose: Prioritise the strongest current lineup for a difficult or important game.
Competitive places additional value on:
Contact
Speed
Power
OPS
Fielding
Throwing
Catching
Role-specific recorded batting performance
The basic batting ratings receive a stronger multiplier, OPS receives additional weight, and defensive ratings also contribute to the final score.
A coach could describe Competitive as:
“Competitive gives greater priority to current performance and stronger overall coach ratings. It is designed for a game where the coach wants the strongest available order rather than batting-order rotation.”
Why defensive ratings appear
The existing Competitive calculation includes fielding, throwing and catching because it is intended to value stronger all-round contributors.
However, this is worth discussing with the coaches. Batting order and defensive ability are not necessarily the same thing. A brilliant shortstop is not automatically the best leadoff hitter.
My recommendation for a future refinement would be to make Competitive batting rely primarily on:
batting performance;
contact;
speed;
power;
recent form.
Defensive ratings could remain relevant to team selection, but not strongly influence batting position.
On-Base & Speed
Purpose: Put players who reach base and create running pressure higher in the order.
It strongly values:
Speed
On-base percentage
Contact
Recent on-base performance
For general ranking, speed receives approximately three times the weight of contact, with a substantial bonus from OBP. The leadoff and second-batter role calculations also naturally support this strategy.
A coach could describe it as:
“On-Base & Speed prioritises players who are likely to reach base and then create pressure through running.”
This strategy may suit a team that wants to:
manufacture runs;
pressure the defence;
take extra bases;
avoid relying entirely on extra-base hits.
Contact First
Purpose: Prioritise putting the ball in play and reducing strikeouts.
It strongly values:
Contact rating
Lower strikeout rate
On-base performance in the position-specific calculations
Recent form
For the general ranking, Contact receives a very strong weighting, while strikeout rate reduces the player’s score.
A coach could describe it as:
“Contact First prioritises players who are more likely to make contact and put the defence under pressure. Players with higher strikeout rates are moved down relative to stronger contact hitters.”
This strategy may be useful when:
facing a pitcher who throws strikes consistently;
runners need to be advanced;
the coach wants more balls put into play;
the team is striking out too frequently.
Power
Purpose: Prioritise extra-base potential and run production.
It strongly values:
Power rating
Slugging percentage
OPS within relevant roles
RBIs for the cleanup role
Contact as a secondary factor
For general ranking, Power receives a strong multiplier and SLG adds a substantial performance bonus.
A coach could describe it as:
“Power promotes players with stronger extra-base-hit and run-producing potential. The strategy is more willing to accept less speed or contact if a player has greater power.”
This does not mean the app simply puts the strongest power hitter first. The role formulas still try to reserve major power for the third, fourth and fifth positions.
Development
Purpose: Place greater emphasis on coach-observed potential and opportunities rather than relying heavily on established statistics.
It considers:
Contact
Speed
Power
Fair Play batting-opportunity score
Broader opportunity history
Coach ratings when statistical history is limited
Development adds weight from the player’s opportunity debt, giving more consideration to players who have received fewer opportunities.
A coach could describe it as:
“Development gives additional consideration to players who need opportunities and relies more heavily on coach ratings, particularly when players do not yet have much recorded game data.”
It does not mean that Developing-position eligibility directly controls batting order. Defensive readiness and batting development are separate concepts.