[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Garlon

This is not true and not how the fielding ratings are handled in the game.

For example, in my current game which started in 1871 and is in the 2004 season, Mark Belanger won 13 Gold Gloves and Brooks Robinson was 10 Gold Gloves and did not play for the Orioles with that pitching staff.

You should look at EFF, which is defensive efficiency, when looking at fielding results. Players with a 1.000 EFF are league average are not going to accumulate ZR being league average regardless of how many PO or Assists they accumulate. If anything, being on a pitching staff with low strikeouts will drive up PO and Assists, but that still has nothing to do with EFF, which is the rate relative to the league average at that position of turning a ball in play at your position into an out.

In my current game Tovar had 1.073 EFF combined across LF/CF/RF, Belanger had a 1.083 EFF at SS (300 ZR), and Brooks had a 1.042 EFF at 3B.

There are times when you can have two SS who both have say a 1.05 EFF, but different ZR totals because difficulty of the plays and also base-out situations will be different for those two defenders which will factor into the ZR evaluation.



You are also greatly overthinking the effect and strength of the pitcher BABIP ratings which are extremely subtle. Striking batters out, which prevents a ball in play entirely, is always going to significantly outweigh a few points of pBABIP in terms of run prevention.



Consider a league where the average team allows 1300 hits on balls in play with a .300 BABIP.

Team A strikes out 100 more batters than average and plays average defense.
Team B strikes out 100 fewer batters than average.

If team A strikes out 100 more batters than average, then they have already saved 30 hits against them by not allowing the ball to be put in play an extra 100 times (100 * 0.300 = 30).

If team B strikes out 100 fewer batters than average, then they are going to allow 30 more hits than average over the season if they play average defense, simply because there are more balls in play against them.

How good does the defense of Team B need to be in order to make up the difference of 60 hits allowed between them and team A?

If there is an average of 1300 hits on balls in play per team, then team A with average defense will allow 1270 and team B will allow 1330. For team B to turn that 1330 into 1270, they will need to have an average defensive efficiency at each position of 1330/1270 = 1.047.

If the league BABIP is .300, then the league DEF is .700 (1.000 - 0.300 = 0.700). Their team DEF would need to be .700 * 1.047 = .733. This would be elite defense.

We are not even getting into BB allowed either, which also effects run prevention.

Originally Posted by Garlon

This comes down to the fact that you are not understanding that Range (PO + A)/9 innings is a completely antiquated and meaningless statistic. It should actually be more accurately titled Range Factor in the game though.


Your answers as to why Felix Millan is going to win the Gold Glove is right there on that page at the bottom right. Millan has a Defensive Efficiency of 1.099, which means he turns 9.9% more balls batted to him into an out than the average 2Bmen that season. Beckert has a Defensive Efficiency of 0.982, which means he is below average at turning batted balls to him into an out. Beckert is 1.8% below league average.

Millan made 360 Assists, and 360/1.099 = 328. 360 - 328 = +32 outs made. This makes sense considering he has a +18 ZR for the season.

Beckert made 459 Assists, and 459/0.982 = 467. 459 - 467 = -8 outs made. I expect Beckert will be about -4 or -5 ZR for the season. You said he was -9.8 ZR, and that may just be due to the base-out situations of the balls he fielded. Missing a groundball with nobody on base and 2 outs is going to be less detrimental than with the bases loaded.

The difference between Millan and Beckert is 40 defensive plays (+32 for Millan and -8 for Beckert). The difference between their ZR is 27.8 (+18 for Millan and -9.8 for Beckert). This makes sense because 27.8 runs over 40 plays = 27.8/40 = 0.695, and infield defensive plays are generally worth about 0.70 to 0.75 defensive runs per play.

There is no coincidence about it when Millan has 85 range rating and Beckert has 54 range rating.


You are getting caught up on the raw totals of Assists and PO. These are not meaningful. PO for 2B are going to go way up if a team allow more baserunners because there are more force plays at 2B. They will also go up with more flyballs to the infield. They will also go up with more balls in play in general. None of this has anything to do with pBABIP ratings.

Basically, you should completely ignore RNG because it is just an old stat that has always been reported in baseball fielding statistics and has never meant anything because the balls in play are very different from team to team, the balls in play to each position will vary from team to team, the GO:AO rate will vary from team to team, and so forth.

What is important is how often a fielder turns a ball in their zone into an out and that is reported as their EFF.

For outfielders, the most important rating is their Range. Outfielders do not make a substantial number of errors or assists, but they do make hundreds of PO.

For a 2B you will want to look at their combination of Range and Error.

For SS Range/Arm/Error all need to be very good.

For 3B Arm is going to be more important than Range.

Thank you Garlon. Evaluating my fielders has been the weakest point of my game. Your detailed explanations of fielding in this thread, and another on the same subject not long ago, have really helped me in looking at my fielders with a better understanding of what matters most.