BaseballHQ definitions - 2 questions

[dfraenkel]

I am new to BasseballHQ and fantasy baseball and have 2 questions:

1. In BasebalHQ, what is mean by LIMA rating?

2. In the reliability index, consisting of three letters, what does each letter represent' i.e., is it: health, experience,consistency, inthat order?

Thanks.

[RAY@HQ]

Welcome, dfraenkel...

1. LIMA ratings assess a player's suitability for the LIMA Plan, a long-time staple strategy here at BaseballHQ. You can read more about it in some archived articles at the bottom of this page.

From the Baseball Forecaster, we find the following two definitions of the LIMA grades:

hitters:

LIMA PLAN GRADE: Rating that evaluates how well a
batter would fit into a team using the LIMA Plan. Best
grades go to batters who have excellent base skills, are
expected to see a good amount of playing time, and are in
the $10‐$30 Rotisserie value range. Lowest grades will go to
poor skills, few AB and values less than $5 or more than $30.

Pitchers:

LIMA PLAN GRADE: Rating that evaluates how well that
pitcher would be a good fit for a team employing the LIMA
Plan. Best grades will go to pitchers who have excellent base
skills and had a 2008 Roto value less than $20. Lowest
grades will go to poor skills and values more than $20.

2. Yes, you've got the order of the Rel Grade components correct. And while I'm pasting in definitions, here's the full Rel Grade entry from the glossary:

Relibility Grades (REL)
Health: "A" level players would have accumulated fewer than 30 days on the Major League DL over the past five years. "F" grades go to those who’ve spent more than 120 days on the DL. Recent DL stays are given a heavier weight in the calculation.

Playing Time and Experience: For batters, we simply track plate appearances. Major league PAs have greater weight than minor league PAs. "A" level players would have averaged at least 550 major league PAs per year over the past three years. "F" graded players averaged fewer than 250 major league PAs per year.

For pitchers, workload can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, small IP samples are deceptive in providing a read on a pitcher’s true potential. Even a consistent 65-inning reliever can be considered higher risk; just one bad outing can skew an entire year’s work.

On the flipside, high workload levels also need to be monitored, especially in the formative years of a pitcher’s career. Exceeding those levels elevates the risk of injury, burnout, or breakdown. So, tracking workload must be done within a range of innings. The grades capture this.

Consistency: "A" level players are those whose runs created per game level (xERA for pitchers) has fluctuated by less than half a run during each of the past three years. "F" grades go to those whose RC/G has fluctuated by two runs or more.

Remember that these grades have nothing to do with quality of performance; they strictly refer to confidence in our expectations. So a grade of "AAA" for Jason Marquis, for instance, only means that there is a high probability he will perform as poorly as we’ve projected.