Can someone point me to a thread or post that details ideal fielding ratings by position, i.e. 85/85/60/65 for CF? I know there was a post like that years ago but I can't find it for the life of me.

GM's Office ---> Roster Management ---> Edit Rosters, then click on any player's position.

I mean ideal or targeted fielding ratings for each position. In other words, what fielding ratings do you look for in each position? For example, does the ideal CF have 85 range, 85 glove, 60 arm strength, and 65 accuracy?

I remember a table from way back when that detailed these ratings by position. Getting back into HBD after probably seven or eight years away, so I'm trying to recall previous knowledge.

For example, does the ideal CF have 85 range, 85 glove, 60 arm strength, and 65 accuracy?

No, the minimum CF has 85-85-60-65. The ideal CF is 99-99-70-70. The ideal SS is 99-99-99-99 but that's obviously not a thing, the best you can really do is 95-90-99-95

There's not really an "ideal" anything, you just want to exceed the par value as often as possible

I'm not sure I've ever seen a SS with 95-90-99-95. That might be the best fielder all time in HBD if he exists.

Let me rephrase then... what are good peripherals to look for at each position?

Edit Player settings - click player's position and then popup window shows you suggested/average.

Feel free to disagree with any of this. These are my observations, plus some advice given in these forums from other owners along the way.

What I like about the Defensive Ratings, there are only four of them, and they do exactly what they say they do.
Unlike Hitting or Pitching Ratings, there aren't combinations which can add to or subtract the effectiveness of each other. A player has an 85 Glove, it's an 85 Glove no matter what his Range is.

Range Factors per position are individually dependent on how your team is made up, including your pitching staff, but one thing they actually show is which positions get the most chances, and that can factor into your positional assignments.

Glove and Arm Accuracy correspond to Errors; Range and Arm Strength correspond to Plus or Minus plays.

At SS I want a player with 85+ in all four categories. I will play a weak hitter in this spot. The SS handles the most chances of any position, so over time the difference between an 80 and an 85 Glove is noticeable, and so is the difference between an 85 and 90.

In CF I want 90+ Range and highest Glove possible. Depending on the rest of the team, I have played a weak hitter here, but I have also used a better hitter with Range as low as 80. But I won't go below 80. When you go too low on Range at any position, the players don't even get minus plays, they just start letting more hits drop. You might not even notice it but your pitchers will suffer.

LF, Range and Glove. It's been pointed out that OFs in this game don't make throwing errors. But Arm shows up in plus and minus plays, and the opposition's baserunning. Which leads to...

RF. Arm is more important than Glove. It's why MikeT23 came up with the C in RF strategy, which I have used with my NL team. It answers the question of what to do with a slugging DH or C who can't field a position, a Kyle Schwarber type. The RF handles the least chances per game, usually less than 2. If you put a Catcher/DH out there with terrible Range and Glove, he'll get minus plays, but an amount you can live with, and much less than playing him at 1B which is what some owners try. And Mike also found after much trial and error that success in RF correlated to Arm Strength and Accuracy.

At 3B and 2B all four ratings matter. But someone else... can't remember who, sorry, pointed out that with 2B handling more chances, you can actually profit in plus plays from the stronger arm playing 2B rather than 3B. That's what I do now.

At 1B, more is better. The recommendations suggest 50s across the board. If a player is a great slugger you can go as low as 40s; if you get up to 70s you're talking potential Gold Glove.

I kind of go with the old reason they said Jimmy Johnson revolutionized defense in college football in the 80s. He moved corners to safeties, safeties to linebackers, all to get more speed in the defense. I move baseball players "up" one position in defensive assignments where I can.

Thanks, damag! and everyone else chiming in.

redmike... I now understand your post. Thank you! Same to you dschang.

Commenting on damag's excellent post:
SS-- I rate all four roughly equally. I will rarely play a bat there with all 4 in the low 80s but for the most part I want a guy who averages high 80s to low 90s. But I won't play a complete non-hitter; I'd rather have a guy who averages 85-87 whose hitting ratings are in the low 50s than a guy who averages 89-92 whose hitting ratings are in the high 30s.

CF-- agree with damag.

LF-- agree with damag, and would add that I think fielding is underrated at this position. The LF makes about twice as many plays as the RF, for example.

2B/3B-- agree with damag, except that I think fielding at 3B is underrated and I generally have GG or near-GG players here with ratings averaging close to 80.

1B-- range and glove, and the game engine comically overrates the importance of these things at 1B, so you have to, also. If you play a classic 1B (all ratings in the 30s) at 1B the bat has to be MVP-caliber.

RF--Partially disagree with damag in that I think range and glove do matter here, but there seems to be a floor below which they don't; if you're going to play a 40/40 range/glove in RF you might as well play a catcher.

For 1B, glove doesn't even matter at all, I think it could be a programming glitch. On my Toronto team I used a guy who was like 55 range 29 glove 60/60 arm and he only made 1 or 2 errors per season for a .999 fielding percentage same as everyone else. Range is the comically overpowered attribute there.

1B must be a good hitter, putting a 75-70-50-50 fielder with .700 ops is a losing move overall

LOL yeah, the fielding thing at 1B is funny. Last season I platooned two former studs, 36 and 37 years old, at 1B. Their fielding ratings were 36/49/34/58 and 26/43/34/43. First guy had six plus plays! Second guy had two errors and three minus plays . Combined 27 hrs, 101 RBI, .790 OPS. I think it worked out. 1B is where you hide the old dude who can still rake.

Posted by pjfoster13 on 11/1/2018 10:16:00 AM (view original):
For 1B, glove doesn't even matter at all, I think it could be a programming glitch. On my Toronto team I used a guy who was like 55 range 29 glove 60/60 arm and he only made 1 or 2 errors per season for a .999 fielding percentage same as everyone else. Range is the comically overpowered attribute there.

1B must be a good hitter, putting a 75-70-50-50 fielder with .700 ops is a losing move overall

The guy you describe above will have about 35 plus plays a season at 1B. Even if they're all singles (and they're not; there are doubles down the line and caught throwing errors that would have gone for an extra base), that's about 120-140 points of OPS saved on defense. So yeah, putting a guy with a 700 OPS and those defensive ratings at 1B is a loser, but at a 750 OPS it's about average for a starting 1B.

Also, I'm not certain that glove is reflected in the 1B's own stats, but instead in reduced throwing errors for the infielders. So I'm not convinced that pjf's example tells me that glove does not matter at 1B, although it might be range that reduces infield throwing errors.

I am fairly new to the game. What exactly are plus and minus plays? Thanks in advance.