I noticed my SS was getting a little old to play SS. His ratings were below with minimum requirements. 80-85-85-85

I went through our league and noticed that there are only 13 SSs in the ML that meet the MINIMUM requirements for SS.

Does this strike anyone as odd?

Always been tough to get shortstops with really solid defensive ratings, who don't hit .220. At least in my world.

In many Worlds, owners sacrifice defense for the bigger bat, so the light-hitting defensive players aren't developed the same way and never get a shot at the bigs.

So no one thinks that there are not enough SSs of proper fielding potential being created?

I see great hitters who can't catch a cold all the time trapped in the minors, they developed.

You're generally right...there aren't many SS's in most worlds that meet the recommended defensive ratings.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You get a little edge if you've got one, you work around it as best you can if you don't.

How many legit defensive SS's are in the majors that can hit?

I think it's right, many HBD owners just choose below average SS's for their bat.

Remember one of the developer chat suggested in HBD that Derek Jeter would be a below minimum requirement defense SS in this game. That basically tells you a real life star SS in this game would not be a legit player at his position based off a defensive suggested rating chart.

Who in there right mind would ever reject having Derek Jeter play SS for them? I sure would'nt.

it was in the Thursday, January 10, 2008 developer chat.

The Jeter mythology persists. From a purely team-performance point of view, there's no doubt the Yankees should've moved Jeter to 3B, LF or 1B years ago. He's NEVER been even an average defensive SS, and for the last 4-5 years he's been among the worst in the majors. Of course, his offense has made up for some of that. ML teams consistently do a lot of things for reasons other than team performance, though.

Quote: Originally Posted By swamphawk22 on 7/05/2009

So no one thinks that there are not enough SSs of proper fielding potential being created?

I see great hitters who can't catch a cold all the time trapped in the minors, they developed.

Players created in your world is heavily dependant on how players are drafted/developed by your world. There have been several threads to this effect and I'll try and find one for you with some relevant discussion on the matter. Basically, if you & your leaguemates don't ever draft defensively productive players and develop them like you would any other star player you draft, then you are going to run out of players capable of handling the positions.

EDIT: Bumped a couple of threads in the hopes you can find some useful info in them. One is about player creation (although I think it goes on about ID numbers) and the other is about developing defensive ratings in SS.

Lets look at this from another side then. It seems that if you do not use a SS of minimum requirements you get really bad stats from there. My guy played bad at SS. If he played like Jeter I wouldnt be posting!

swamphawk i tend to look at admins minimum requirements as what an average defensive player should be to field that position not as what the worst player should be. With this view 13 players at or above versus 19 below isnt so far off consider a handful of teams probably have a MiLer that meets the standards but they opt for offense instead.

Swamp, this is balanced somewhat in that the "recommended" ratings actually produce a relatively small number of errors for what you would expect to be "below average" players.

A lot of this also has to do with the lack of fielding instructors.

Quote: Originally Posted By swamphawk22 on 7/05/2009Lets look at this from another side then. It seems that if you do not use a SS of minimum requirements you get really bad stats from there. My guy played bad at SS. If he played like Jeter I wouldnt be posting

I think what you are missing is that Jeter plays bad at SS too. Seriously, go look at his numbers - if they gave out (-) plays in MLB, he'd have led the league at SS for most seasons of his career.

Quote: Originally Posted By swamphawk22 on 7/05/2009
So no one thinks that there are not enough SSs of proper fielding potential being created?

Probably a lot of people think there should be enough All Star shortstops for everyone ... superior Fielding Instructors for everyone (there was a thread on this one) ... 90/90/90/90/90 pitchers for all teams ... home field advantage given to them (a thread on this one, too) ... etc. Plenty of people go through life with their hand held in front of them, palm up.

But if we limit our conversation to HBD ...

Quote: Originally Posted By clutch19 on 7/06/2009
swamphawk i tend to look at admins minimum requirements as what an average defensive player should be to field that position not as what the worst player should be.

Bingo!

I'm a little surprised at this thread. All the 4th place teams I've had -- yet getting a decent major league SS, or several of them, has never been one of the problems.