First Base - Defense

[bflood36]

I am really enjoying OOTP 25 so far. However, after play about 70-80 games, there were at least 3 instances where the first baseman had multiple errors caused by dropped throws. This led me to looking at the defensive ratings for the first baseman in the league. A majority have error ratings around 35-40, even with an overall defensive rating around 50-60. It has gotten to a point where I am trading for 2B or 3B and moving those players to first base for their superior defense. Anyone else run into this?

[Sweed]

On anything like a continual basis? No. It can happen and when it does it sticks in my head, but at least in my game, I'd say it's purely dice roll randomness.

I've put some pretty bad (by MLB standards) defenders there to get the bat in the lineup without issues bad enough to make me rethink that decision.

[md40022]

One thing that is worth saying..... you never want to rely on the graphics or the play-by-play text too heavily because it can be misrepresentative. For example, if you rely on the graphics then you would think that 75% of balls hit to the outfield are diving catches by outfielders. Obviously that's not representative of real life.

The most common 1B error per the play by play text is "dropping the throw" and that leads all of us to say "WTF, how are MLB athletes dropping so many throws". We visualize the play in our mind as the first baseman dropping this picture perfect throw that would have hit him in the chest and that can be misleading. You kind of have to just ignore the reason for the error given by the play-by-play and just focus on it being an error, regardless of "why" it was an error.

Ignoring the "drop the throw" portion of it, does the overall number of errors at 1B differ from the overall number of 1B errors in real life? I've never done any study on it, but just based on my opinion as someone who has played the game for years it doesn't seem like the number of errors at 1B is that far off from real life..... and in the end, that's what counts.

[Jasper70]

I think if you really look at this, 1B dropping a throw is more likely a throwing error on the 2B,SS,3B. Threw it in the dirt, sailed one across the diamond

[Syd Thrift]

First base is very, very commonly a place where teams dump poor defenders. The proof of the pudding here is in the error rates at first, not the ratings that are assigned.

My own experience is that they aren't super off. However they happen, in 1973 for example (just looking at this year because I have it up and because things like error rate are easier to check in situations where there are more balls in play) teams averaged 13 a year there, a little under 1 every 10 games, for a .992 FA. A few guys had a lot of them: Chris Chambliss had 14 in 151 games started, Tony Perez had 13 in 150, Gene Tenace had 13 in 132.

Is the issue we're looking for that we want more of these errors to be from muffed ground balls? I have to say here, there aren't that many grounders hit to first and so if we're wanting to go that route you're going to see guys with pretty, pretty low rates of making plays on balls hit in their direction. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be though; it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to learn that Cecil Fielder from 1990-93, when he committed 42 errors over 4 years as a starter for the Tigers, had like an .800 FA on balls hit to him. I agree generally that a good defensive 1B can lower errors across the diamond and I think that is also incorporated into the game.

I think what I'd really prefer to get my hands on are stats based on plays in the field, as in, what percentage of 1B errors come from dropping balls / taking their foot off the bag on throws vs dropping grounders? My guess is that the vast majority of them are the latter but we need data. If we can show the devs actual data, they can tweak the engine so it produces the right results. Does anyone know where that kind of data is?

[md40022]

^^^^^ I agree with all of this.

My only thing with accumulating data would be it kind of seems like "he dropped the throw" is the only error ever given to the 1B on thrown balls. To your point, the 1B pulling his foot off the bag for example would be another possible type of error to be made on a thrown ball, but I don't recall ever seeing that from the play-by-play text. If that is even in the repertoire of possible errors, it seems to be farrrrrr less often than the good ole "dropped the throw". That's why I suggested to the OP to just focus on the amount of errors in comparison to real life as opposed to the type of error, because that dropped throw error seems to pretty much be standard or generic text used whenever the 1B commits an error on a thrown ball..... For that reason, I'm not sure that it would even be possible to break down the data regarding errors on thrown balls.

I do agree with everything you said about the ratio of errors committed by 1B on ground balls vs. thrown balls and dumping bad defenders at 1B though.