What is the difference between range and fielding? Obviously I know that one is getting to the ball and the other is properly fielding it, but what is better or more used in the sim?

If I have a B/D- guy, is he actually a worse fielder than someone who is a C/C or D+/B?

Funny that you post this question today: I was getting ready to ask a very similar question.

Specifically, what is the best configuration for OF fielding/range tradeoffs? I know CF will get the highest percentage of balls, so you want greater (A+++) range where economically feasible, but is A+ range useful if the fielding rating is D? I tend to use a formula with PA (for durability), RRF, and FP% and then rank the outfielders CF, LF, RF, which means RF is basically a throwaway fielder. I know MikeT had an experiment in HBD where he was sticking anyone with a pulse (and a good bat) into RF, essentially punting RF defense.

What is the prevailing attitude out there?

It is hard to gauge. A plus play may simply be keeping a double to a single, or a triple to a double, or it could be robbery of a single, double or triple. An error or a minus play in the OF, unlike in the IF, can let the hitter get to any base. Somehow I think, without having ever checked into it, that a bad play in RF would be more likely to end up with the hitter on third base than a bad play in LF, due to the shorter throw.

My understanding was that Arm strength is calculated into Fielding, and has nothing to do with Range, is this incorrect?... There's no possible way that guys like Vlad Guerrero should have a C- in range if it had anything to do with arm strength. From my understanding, Range is how well a player moves on the field. Rather, his fielding "range" and not his arm range. Whereas his fielding stat is his ability to make the tougher players...Is this incorrect? If not, than I am beyond disappointed with how Whatifsports does their calculations, as some of the best arms in the history of the game are rated VERY poorly in the range department.

Quite frankly, it seems that all my players who have low Range, make far more errors than they do if they have poor fielding. I'm not sure how true that is, just my experience.

Posted by lilspike0738 on 2/22/2016 9:28:00 AM (view original):
My understanding was that Arm strength is calculated into Fielding, and has nothing to do with Range, is this incorrect?... There's no possible way that guys like Vlad Guerrero should have a C- in range if it had anything to do with arm strength. From my understanding, Range is how well a player moves on the field. Rather, his fielding "range" and not his arm range. Whereas his fielding stat is his ability to make the tougher players...Is this incorrect? If not, than I am beyond disappointed with how Whatifsports does their calculations, as some of the best arms in the history of the game are rated VERY poorly in the range department.

Quite frankly, it seems that all my players who have low Range, make far more errors than they do if they have poor fielding. I'm not sure how true that is, just my experience.

"Arm" for outfielders is really a single stat: Assists (effectively how many runners were thrown out by the OF). It affects both fielding and range, but in both cases to a fairly insignificant extent, especially as Put Outs are almost always much much greater than Assists for outfielders.

There is no "Arm" rating used in the SIM for fielders other than Catchers and real-life arm strength has zero application here.

Posted by skunk206 on 2/22/2016 10:38:00 AM (view original):
There is no "Arm" rating used in the SIM for fielders other than Catchers and real-life arm strength has zero application here.

That is quite unfortunate. As outfield assists are a known stat (and in fact furnished to us) it would seem that that portion of a baseball game would be implemented somehow. It is done with steals obviously. It would seem to me that outfield arms and baserunner speed/aggressive setting should be implemented into the "event tree" somehow. It would likely much improve realism and add to the total game experience.

Am I missing something?

Posted by toddcommish on 2/19/2016 12:15:00 PM (view original):
Funny that you post this question today: I was getting ready to ask a very similar question.

Specifically, what is the best configuration for OF fielding/range tradeoffs? I know CF will get the highest percentage of balls, so you want greater (A+++) range where economically feasible, but is A+ range useful if the fielding rating is D? I tend to use a formula with PA (for durability), RRF, and FP% and then rank the outfielders CF, LF, RF, which means RF is basically a throwaway fielder. I know MikeT had an experiment in HBD where he was sticking anyone with a pulse (and a good bat) into RF, essentially punting RF defense.

What is the prevailing attitude out there?

With very good dead ball pitching I target B/A- in CF. there aren't too many errors and get very few if any minus plays. At the same I am not paying for plus plays I don't really need.

Posted by laramiebob on 2/22/2016 2:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by skunk206 on 2/22/2016 10:38:00 AM (view original):
There is no "Arm" rating used in the SIM for fielders other than Catchers and real-life arm strength has zero application here.

That is quite unfortunate. As outfield assists are a known stat (and in fact furnished to us) it would seem that that portion of a baseball game would be implemented somehow. It is done with steals obviously. It would seem to me that outfield arms and baserunner speed/aggressive setting should be implemented into the "event tree" somehow. It would likely much improve realism and add to the total game experience.

Am I missing something?

Outfield assist totals are likely too low in a season to get meaningful reflections on arm from them, especially when you consider that a part of real-life arm is not even running for the base, and thus no assist is recorded.

Posted by uncleal on 2/22/2016 9:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by laramiebob on 2/22/2016 2:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by skunk206 on 2/22/2016 10:38:00 AM (view original):
There is no "Arm" rating used in the SIM for fielders other than Catchers and real-life arm strength has zero application here.

That is quite unfortunate. As outfield assists are a known stat (and in fact furnished to us) it would seem that that portion of a baseball game would be implemented somehow. It is done with steals obviously. It would seem to me that outfield arms and baserunner speed/aggressive setting should be implemented into the "event tree" somehow. It would likely much improve realism and add to the total game experience.

Am I missing something?

Outfield assist totals are likely too low in a season to get meaningful reflections on arm from them, especially when you consider that a part of real-life arm is not even running for the base, and thus no assist is recorded.

Strat-o-matic does it, and it'd be easy to implement something of the sort here... You're not running to 3rd nearly as much on a Reggie Smith caught fly ball. You're not stretching a single into a double if you have Dwight Evans in the OF throwing the ball.

They have a formula for Stolen Bases and all these advanced stats for every other facet of the game, but cannot put together a reasonable arm strength formula to factor into base running...etc? That's absolute garbage... Hell, they even have the arm strength factored in for Catchers, so why not extend it to, at least, the Outfielders?

Sounds like WiS is lazy, not that it can't be done effectively... There's 3 other sims I play in, that all factor in arm strength. They all work off of percentages and/or dice, must like WhatifSports... Half the reason players with poor fielding were even in the outfield, was because they had cannons.

Look at Jeremy Burnitz and Vlad Guerrero. Never excelled defensively, but they had rockets for arms and utilized RF fairly well.

OK...please explain EXACTLY how you would do it. What stats would you use, and how would those stats translate into an arm rating?

If you use "assists" you're going to run into a huge problem...assist numbers for OFs are so small, and vary so much year to year, that you're going to end up with absolutely silly results. And has been pointed out, we have a massive statistical aberration...base runners often stop trying for the extra base against outfielders with strong arms.

This is not a problem with catchers, because we have SB and CS and can look at percentages. We can also look at how often runners tried to steal against certain catchers. None of that data exists for OF for most of baseball history.

I took a random year from one of my favorite players as a kid...1982 Dwight Evans...who had the best, or 2nd best (Dave Parker) arm in baseball at the time. He had 9 assists that season...because after about 1979 no one ran on him any more. That was not anywhere near the top of the league. Players with more assists than Evans that season (just looking at the AL) include Jim Rice, Dave Henderson, Harold Baines, Larry Parrish, and Ben Oglivie. Are you going to give those guys a better arm rating than Evans? If so, you've just introduced a massive inaccuracy into the game.

Bob Meusel is another good example. Bill James and others have noticed that based on what was written at the time, Meusel was considered to have far and away the best arm in baseball in the 1920s...in his first full season he threw out 28 runners, then 24 the next season, then people stopped running on him. By 1925 he threw out 9 runners. Not even close to the leaders...there were many players who threw out 15+ runners that season, some as many as 24. Does Meusel now get a D+ arm because he's not throwing anyone out?

Are you going to use other stats? Exactly which ones? Stats like how often runners tried for the extra base - a much better indicator of arm strength - weren't available until very recently. So we don't have them all in 1982.

Or are you going to do it by "reputation." Personally, I find this the least appealing option. Thousands of people in baseball history played OF, and we have "reputational" data on a very small number comparatively. And how are you going to decide whether someone is a B- or a C+ based on reputation.

In my opinion, it's not WIS who is lazy about this. It's the games that incorporate an arm component without any valid statistical criteria on which to do so that are being lazy.

Posted by contrarian23 on 2/23/2016 7:40:00 AM (view original):
OK...please explain EXACTLY how you would do it. What stats would you use, and how would those stats translate into an arm rating?

If you use "assists" you're going to run into a huge problem...assist numbers for OFs are so small, and vary so much year to year, that you're going to end up with absolutely silly results. And has been pointed out, we have a massive statistical aberration...base runners often stop trying for the extra base against outfielders with strong arms.

This is not a problem with catchers, because we have SB and CS and can look at percentages. We can also look at how often runners tried to steal against certain catchers. None of that data exists for OF for most of baseball history.

I took a random year from one of my favorite players as a kid...1982 Dwight Evans...who had the best, or 2nd best (Dave Parker) arm in baseball at the time. He had 9 assists that season...because after about 1979 no one ran on him any more. That was not anywhere near the top of the league. Players with more assists than Evans that season (just looking at the AL) include Jim Rice, Dave Henderson, Harold Baines, Larry Parrish, and Ben Oglivie. Are you going to give those guys a better arm rating than Evans? If so, you've just introduced a massive inaccuracy into the game.

Bob Meusel is another good example. Bill James and others have noticed that based on what was written at the time, Meusel was considered to have far and away the best arm in baseball in the 1920s...in his first full season he threw out 28 runners, then 24 the next season, then people stopped running on him. By 1925 he threw out 9 runners. Not even close to the leaders...there were many players who threw out 15+ runners that season, some as many as 24. Does Meusel now get a D+ arm because he's not throwing anyone out?

Are you going to use other stats? Exactly which ones? Stats like how often runners tried for the extra base - a much better indicator of arm strength - weren't available until very recently. So we don't have them all in 1982.

Or are you going to do it by "reputation." Personally, I find this the least appealing option. Thousands of people in baseball history played OF, and we have "reputational" data on a very small number comparatively. And how are you going to decide whether someone is a B- or a C+ based on reputation.

In my opinion, it's not WIS who is lazy about this. It's the games that incorporate an arm component without any valid statistical criteria on which to do so that are being lazy.

Strat-o-matic seems to do it just fine. Regardless of the fact that they use dice and probability to determine success, they seem to do a damn fine job at determining arm strength and it being an effective tool in the simulation. It also comes out fairly accurate to real life numbers. There's throwing errors and outfield assists that have been calculated for plenty enough time to determine a relatively accurate arm rating.

Hell, there's no rhyme or reason to their fielding ratings most of the time anyways. There's plenty of players who were considered solid fielders, that are poorly rated here. Heck, there are gold glovers with C+ or B- ratings. 1967 Carl Yaz won the Gold Glove award and is only rated a C+/B-... Strat-o-matic has him listed as a 1e8(-3)... Tell me how a guy wins the Gold Glove, and still makes 20 errors a year in this simulation a fair and accurate representation? Tell me why 1994 Ken Griffey Jr has a 98%+ fielding rating (won the Gold Glove as well), with 4 errors, and has a B/C+ in the outfield, on this site.

The already use "Range Factor", which calculates assists and putouts into a scoring system... They also use Fielding Rating, which calculates assists with putouts and errors... So, for the same reason you've stated, it is incorrectly done to misinterpret some of the best fielders ever.

So by your logic and reasoning, the entire way they determine their fielding and range grade is flawed and inaccurate. To which I fully agree...

Also -- To your comment about reputation... I would venture a good solid guess that the majority of their ratings come from a bit of reputation. How would guys like David Ortiz get a D+/D+ in fielding every year.... Yes he is a horrible 1B, that's why he's the DH, but he puts up relatively reasonable numbers each year, when he does play first, because he has limited attempts.

No idiot in their right mind would give Ortiz a good grade for fielding, but you can't ignore the fact that they just assign him a D+, because of how it's known he's a poor fielder...

Just for sh*ts and giggles... Ortiz is a career .990% Field Percentage, and someone like Derek Jeter is a .976%... Again - we all know that he's not a good fielder, but if there fielding % and range % to determine grades is so flawless, than I'm guessing this scenario wouldn't take place.

You didn't address the issue. Please explain exactly how you think an arm rating should be calculated, and give examples.