[Timofmars]

I just care about overall ability of the player, regardless of whether that is offense or defense. Though I go according to my own ratings, not the game's current ability rating. I take what the game gives me.

I usually find some catchers that are too good offensively compared to the alternatives to worry about their relatively poor defense. Sometimes I'll even find a player like a good hitting but poor defense 3B or 1B that has the catcher abilities (relatively poor) but no catcher experience, and I'll train them up to be a great offensive catcher.

I usually look for one lefty batting catcher and one righty, and I judge them mainly on their ability against just the one side. Then I can platoon the catchers and allow them regular rest with minimal disadvantage in resting the better one, who is ideally the lefty.

I tend to favor offense overall though, because I believe more offense is multiplicative, not just additive. Each out avoided is worth more if your other players getting an extra AB are better. Each hit is more valuable if your other players are more likely to be on base or to hit you in after you are on. If I had a weak overall team, maybe I'd favor defense (and speed) more to keep scores low to be able to grab wins from minimal offense.

I also think good pitchers give more value when the defense is weak. Good pitchers may often do more than they need to prevent runs scoring. They can often afford to allow some more runners due to poor defense and errors, and they will still be likely to end the inning with those extra runner left on base. In other words, you get full value from the pitchers if the defense is weak. So I think having good pitching is another reason to favor offense on position players.