Anybody ever play somebody with defensive ratings like this in LF?

6/26/67/63

I've had a lot of success playing 1B-types in LF, but this might be pushing it. I'm looking for real examples if anyone has tried this. Thanks!

The Mets tried it in 1998.

That didn't turn out so well.

Check out Trevor Holmes

He played right field exclusively for a few seasons. You will see a ton of negative plays, and a terrible fielding percentage, but don't see much sacrificed in terms of range factor.

Quote: Originally posted by chadw09 on 9/17/2009Anybody ever play somebody with defensive ratings like this in LF?6/26/67/63I've had a lot of success playing 1B-types in LF, but this might be pushing it.  I'm looking for real examples if anyone has tried this.  Thanks!

I have several times. I don't have any links and they won't win a gold glove but I think it's fine. - plays seem to be minimal.

I would certainly do RF before LF, since there are more chances in LF (so the range and glove hurt you more than in RF) and the arm plays in RF.

EDIT: Only about 6% more plays in LF than RF (per green's data in the SS thread). With this guy with the 60/60 arm I'd still do RF, but it's not a huge deal.

Along these lines, what's the general opinion of the value of defense at 1B vs. LF? Is a guy like that more a liability at 1B? Or in LF? I've been playing a similar guy at 1B, and his numbers are not too bad, but I'm wondering how he is affecting my other IFs since both my SS and 3B seem to underperform based on their ratings.

So, what do people think? better to stick him at 1B, where the poor individual defensive numbers seem to be less than in the OF? or better to stick him in LF where he may accumulate more minus plays but will not impact other positions?

I'm tempted to switch my LF (who would be an above-average 1B) to 1B and stick the offensive C I've been playing at 1B to LF. Bad idea?

I'd leave him at first, but realistically you are talking about maybe 25 bad plays + errors over the course of a season at either spot.

i do this quite often, but I make sure that if they play OF I have a CF with good range, and if i play them at 1B my 2B has good range

my high level analysis in the SS thread tells me you won't "see" the defensive effect of a poor 1B in the stats that WiS tracks

you may notice the minus plays in the OF more than the errors that get charged to SS in the case of the 1B

If you play a catcher in the OF, I'd pay close attention to the box scores ... take a look at the pbp for things like runners scoring where the throw was late ... runs scored because the OF let a routine single become a double with poor range

All of these "I played a guy way out of position" threads seem to have conclusions like "it didn't seem to have much effect" ... except that I've never seen someone present any quantitative evidence to support the observation ... I think that if you've made the decision to play the guy, you've already justified in your mind that the offense is better then the defensive cost ... I think you'd have to lose 4 games in a row on walk-off errors by the guy before you'd ever decide he's costing you too much defensively

and I have no idea whether he would or wouldn't cost you too much

This guy has 3 World Series Rings as the Starting LF/RF against Righties, backup(Last couple of seasons) Catcher when the starting catcher needs rest, and full time DH when we travel to the AL Ballparks.

Lawrence McKnight

Quote: Originally Posted By 98greenc5 on 9/17/2009
my high level analysis in the SS thread tells me you won't "see" the defensive effect of a poor 1B in the stats that WiS tracks

you may notice the minus plays in the OF more than the errors that get charged to SS in the case of the 1B

If you play a catcher in the OF, I'd pay close attention to the box scores ... take a look at the pbp for things like runners scoring where the throw was late ... runs scored because the OF let a routine single become a double with poor range

All of these "I played a guy way out of position" threads seem to have conclusions like "it didn't seem to have much effect" ... except that I've never seen someone present any quantitative evidence to support the observation ... I think that if you've made the decision to play the guy, you've already justified in your mind that the offense is better then the defensive cost ... I think you'd have to lose 4 games in a row on walk-off errors by the guy before you'd ever decide he's costing you too much defensively

and I have no idea whether he would or wouldn't cost you too much

Thanks for the thoughts. You're right, I've pretty much decided that, based on what I see from his defense at 1B, I'm confortable with the trade off to get his bat in the lineup. What has me curious is what might be occurring within the game that I can't see in his stats (i.e. impact on other positions) and whether his defense would be better hidden in the OF.

After looking at my defense last season all the way around and some stats from poor OFs in the league, I think he's better off at 1B. But this at least got me thinking about it.

"http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=664927"

I used this guy in in OTT in LF for a few seasons, I thought it was worth it to get his bat in the linup

This guy spent most of his time in RF and hit 552 HRs in OCD.

http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=94689

Wow I never knew you could sacrifice defense so much in LF

For you guys that are willing to accept 15-20 "-" plays per season in the outfield (just a cursory glance) from one player, I'm curious how your team's run prevention and total "-" plays compare to the rest of the league....