Hey Curtis. Glad I could help.
Actually, I start the league off on a three year option. I don't like the career option for obvious reasons to do with aging, injury, etc.
Why edit from there? A few reasons
* fielding stats often miss the mark in representing a player's true talent. I think its fascinating that in OOTP we KNOW a player's true range and fielding talent. Yet, how often is that talent misrepresented on the leader boards? And OOTP is a much less complex system that real life.
* Take the case of Derrell Thomas, SF Giants infielder. He plays SS, 2B, 3B, CF. His lifetime fielding % at 2B was .970. in 539 games. In 1977, he played only 23 games at 2B and sure enough, had an anomalous year where 7 errors led to a .948 percentage. I believe that number had more to do with playing time than talent level. So, that year isn't really representative of Thomas' ability at 2B, no more than George Brett hitting .228 in 96 ABs would be representative of his talent. So, why throw that abberation into the mix? I'll rate Derrell what I believe was his true talent level and let the game engine work it from there.
* Throwing arms. Joe Ferguson, the catcher-rightfielder for the Dodgers, Astros and Cardinals had a rocket arm. I read a story where he stood at the centerfield wall and fired a no-hopper right to the plate. The stats don't show that (although games like strat do). The same was true of Dwight Evan's arm rating. He had a gun among guns. Didn't show up at all in the 3 year calc.
* I also look at minor league fielding stats where guys got plenty of playing time. Another example is Frank White, the gold glove 2B for the Royals. His first three years he had limited playing time at SS and 2B, which seems to have hurt his ratings. He's rated as average to low-- and higher as a SS-- which, wasn't really the truth at all. He was a much better 2b, regardless of what limited fielding numbers suggest. So, I rate him in a way that would make the Royals want Frank as their 2B, instead of trading SS Freddie Patek to make room for Frank there.
* I am very familiar with the 70s and the reputation of various players. I grew up in that era an avid baseball fan. And I rely some of strat-o-matic's defensive ratings which are highly respected (I believe the strat creator was invited to the big Bill James defensive pow-wow a few years ago).
* I look at how the players were used by their managers. For example, in OOTP, the Pirates SS Frank Taveras consistently is rated more highly than his long-time defensive replacement, Mario Mendoza. In fact, in this last upload, Frank was in the top five in range out of 24 starting shortstops....mmmmm, I don't think so.
So, basically, I'm augmenting the fielding stats with other research. And I can change ratings from year to year. I give each piece of evidence the emphasis I believe it deserves. I will say this: Version XI made great strides in defensive ratings, far as I'm concerned. I spend much less time editing than I have in previous versions.
And, as you can probably tell, I actually enjoy the editing process.