lmao, its really too bad that uncleal never did that video that he said he would do.  lmao what a maroon!

A lefty 2nd baseman will make a lot of minus plays. Earl Lawrence played 2nd base in season 7 and managed to produce 25 minus plays.

Posted by dedelman on 10/13/2010 4:51:00 PM (view original):

1)  He'd make a very nice LF... does your current LF have a better arm?
2)  The number of (-) plays lefty 2Bs make is not as high as it should be, and while I think you lose some DPs it may not be huge.  I played this gentleman at CF, but another owner played him at 2B.  Check out the stats-- with a range in the high 70s, glove of 89,and arm ratings in the 60s, he was on pace to make "only" about 25 (-) plays in a full season, with 85 or so DPs.

And it's even less of a penalty at 3B; check out this "left-handed SS" type, only about 12 (-) plays per 160 games at 3B (although with those ratings he'd have a bunch of (+) if he were right handed).

Long story short, I think if you've got a guy whose bat will support giving up 20-30 or so extra runs you can get away with this.  I'd try not to, though; usually you'll get better results by changing positions around with your other players.

EDIT-- to be excrutiatingly clear, I view the lack of an adequate penalty as a bug and would love it if as part of an update the penalty for a playing LH infielder were increased.

dedelman how is 25 minus plays not an adequate penalty? Those minus plays are on top of the errors he would make so to me that is a huge penalty. Plus that guy you mentioned above is rated very highly so if you consider an average rated LH 2B (80 range 75 glove) you could probably expect to see about 10 more minus. The 25 plays was bad enough but 35 plus the additional errors he would make it impossible for anyone to consider reasonable to play a lefty at 2B. The penalties are fine the way they are currently.

@timf--
1)  I don't think there are any additional errors that come from being a lefthanded IF; the guy who played 3B had a sick .989 fielding pct. at 3B, perfectly in line with his very high ratings as if he were right handed.
2)  The 2B had range of 79 and 76 in the 2 seasons he was played at 2B, so he was slightly below recommended range.  His very high glove is matched by his .996 fielding pct at 2B.

My sample size is small, and it's not a proper experiment, so there's reasonable difference about the magnitudeo f the penalty-- but I stand by the inference I'm drawing from my tiny sample.

I also wonder how many plays at 2B are so routine that even an LHP can make them; that is, maybe 25 plays is really the right number to match real life.  It seems small to me but I have no evidence to support that at all.

2B is actually one of the most overrated defensive positions in real baseball, so perhaps they do have it right.

I'm guessing you missed the Braves-Giants series.

tropicana:  What do you mean?  I have never heard anyone say such a thing, and so am unfamiliar with the argument for why the importance of quality defense at 2B is overrated (I assume that is what you meant by "overrated defensive position").