Fielding Ratings

[Black Death]

Forgive me if this has been addressed before, but a couple of questions:

1—Why do almost all of the older players have absolutely awful fielding ratings?
Not talking players from the dawn of time either. 70s and 80s guys generally rated in the pooper for fielding too.

2—How important is fielding in PT?

Any solid info will be appreciated.

[CrazyWR]

Fielding is as important as you want it to be really. I mean, if you field a whole team of 1b, you could probably still win a bunch of games 10-9

[ArcAngel]

Defense wins championships.

'Nuff said.

[Black Death]

I know this, and I usually work towards getting the good D. I see a lot of winning teams with fairly poor D though.

What I'm really, really curious about is why so many of the pre 2010 players have awful error ratings.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Black Death

Forgive me if this has been addressed before, but a couple of questions:

1—Why do almost all of the older players have absolutely awful fielding ratings?
Not talking players from the dawn of time either. 70s and 80s guys generally rated in the pooper for fielding too.

2—How important is fielding in PT?

Any solid info will be appreciated.

1 - I haven't found that with 70's and 80's guys. I've got a Wade Boggs right now who is rated so well I'm converting him to SS. Terry Pendleton is learning 2b. I've not seen any 80's catcher who doesn't have a rifle arm. Who have you seen from that time period who is really inaccurate?

Of course, past a certain time period, guys committed more errors. Either that's not being normalized at all, or the formula doesn't quite work right. I agree with you that this could be adjusted better.

2. In PT I've tried defense first in the beta and offense first now, and both styles work well. IMO you just need to match up your staff with your defense. A crappy defense needs a staff that strikes people out. A great defense needs pitchers that don't walk people.

PT rewards lean toward strikeout pitchers and big offenses though. You'll win just as often playing defensively, but you won't earn as much pp.

[Dogberry99]

80s players seem to have high/good error ratings. This issue seems to start (or end? POV is hard ) in the 70s.

I personally think that the error ratings are designed to approximate the fielding percentages the players had in the year their card represents. In another thread, someone brought up the fact that these percentages used to be lower due to a number of factors, including field quality, glove quality, and trends in official scoring (ie much more lenient with errors now). I don't know if all this is true, but it makes sense in my head.

[Black Death]

One example is Willie Wilson at a pathetic 44 for OF Error. In his day, Willie was a pretty fair fielder. Not a legend, but above average for sure. I also notice Kaline getting a 38. Not exactly what's expected for a ten time Gold Glover.
While field conditions could account for the corrections to many pre-50's era players, Wilson played most of his days on turf, Kaline in a very well groomed stadium. I'm just trying to think it out a bit...if I'm thinking too much, tell me. It wouldn't be the first time.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Black Death

One example is Willie Wilson at a pathetic 44 for OF Error. In his day, Willie was a pretty fair fielder. Not a legend, but above average for sure. I also notice Kaline getting a 38. Not exactly what's expected for a ten time Gold Glover.
While field conditions could account for the corrections to many pre-50's era players, Wilson played most of his days on turf, Kaline in a very well groomed stadium. I'm just trying to think it out a bit...if I'm thinking too much, tell me. It wouldn't be the first time.

I had forgotten Wilson when I made that post. Yeah, he's horribly underrated. Perhaps he had an awful season defensively that year, but I don't think that was the case.

What year is that Al Kaline? I had him in the beta and I'd swear he was above average all around defensively. The card I'm talking about is a diamond (or was it a high level gold?). There are some cards of historical players that are way past their prime. Like the only Dizzy Dean I've ever seen is from 1938, when his arm was completely shot.

[mess]

Originally Posted by CrazyWR

Fielding is as important as you want it to be really. I mean, if you field a whole team of 1b, you could probably still win a bunch of games 10-9

To be fair, the 2015 Blue Jays played Chris Colabello in the OF quite often and he was absolutely horrible. The ball would get hit out to him and the entire ballpark would go silent cause you'd be afraid he'd let it go over his head or some other unbelievable things.

Still won the AL East though.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by mess

To be fair, the 2015 Blue Jays played Chris Colabello in the OF quite often and he was absolutely horrible. The ball would get hit out to him and the entire ballpark would go silent cause you'd be afraid he'd let it go over his head or some other unbelievable things.

Still won the AL East though.

My general rule is that I can have 1, maybe 2 guys in the lineup where you hold your breath when the ball goes to them, as long as the offense justifies it. More than that, and I feel that you're just counting innings until you give up the whopper to lose you the game.

[Dogberry99]

I am surprised to see my Willie Wilson, who is listed as a CF on his card, slowly gain experience while playing in CF. His card defaults to a 60 positional rating, but this is now up to a 64.

[CrazyWR]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

My general rule is that I can have 1, maybe 2 guys in the lineup where you hold your breath when the ball goes to them, as long as the offense justifies it. More than that, and I feel that you're just counting innings until you give up the whopper to lose you the game.

But I mean, the fans will have a blast watching 15-14 games

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by CrazyWR

But I mean, the fans will have a blast watching 15-14 games

Maybe young fans Give me a 2-1, 3-2 game or something like that.