[Leo_The_Lip]

The all-time MLB records for turning double plays in a season were set by the Philadelphia A's in 1949-1950-1951 with over 200 each year. The SS on all those teams was Eddie Joost.

I suggested PT make a card for him (perhaps others did, too) and they did. However the card was for his best hitting season, 1955, and his defensive skills are unremarkable.

That disappointment aside, I've tried on several occasions to get teams to 200 DPs in Pt and regular OOTP with absolutely no success.

OTOH, I have several times come across odd, game-generated players with very low defensive skills except for maximum turn-DP. (I use the 20 scale so these guys tended to be 2-3 in range and error and 20 in Turn DP). They also had high contact and avoid K while little to no power and walking ability. In the minors they rarely played and at first base, if at all. When I obtained these characters, I put them at second base and got them to 200 out of 200 experience before bringing them up.

In the big leagues, they hit for average, no power and no walks--as expected. In the field, they weren't very good. However, they did turn a bit over 1 DP per game played, and their teams led the league in DPs turned.

Now a lot is going on here in the game. These guys let far more balls become hits, which meant the other infielders (later in the inning) got more balls hit to them to try for DPs. These secondbasemen then had greater chances of turning two. And did.

So I think what we are seeing in OOTP is that the effect of higher Turn DP ratings on second basemen in big league quality infields is not much--and that is to be expected. However, when the second baseman is terrible in everything else, his elite Turn DP rating comes into play.

Bill James wrote about Nap Lajoie turning lots of double plays late in his career--when he should have been getting worse. He investigated and found lots of anecdotal stores that Lajoie used to play very close to second base at this point in his career so he could quickly get to the bag to turn two. Balls in the hole he never even tried to get to.

So IMO, OOTP is correctly modeling the crap range, elite Turn DP second basemen by, in essence, allowing them to play close to the bag and easily turn two while allowing the gap between them and the first baseman to be gaping.