Where does the value line lie? Are '56 Don Blasingame, '07 Tulo or '73 North worth the money? Could you go with cheaper pitchers because they would make enough plays to make these lesser pitchers as effective as the Madduxes and Martinezes of our world? Or, would a '95 Ozzie do about as well? Or would we better serves by '43 Luke Appling, Rod Carew, and Miguel Dilone? Opinions, please?

It all depends on the position and your pitching. Just like real-life, generally you can sacrifice defense at 1B, 3B, LF and RF.  On the other hand, C, SS, 2B and CF are defense first positions.  The better your pitching, the more potential outs get to your position players and the more (bad) defense can become a factor.  Also modern pitchers can be more easily backed by poor fielders while dead-ball types need higher fielding percentage guys behind them.   


   

Posted by mixtroy on 12/6/2011 10:58:00 PM (view original):
Zube, from I understand, that's SUPPOSED to be how it works, but I've seen no real evidence of it with any of my teams.  I use both modern and deadball pitchers, and have had great and bad fielding with both types while using pretty much the same infielders. 

I have seen a difference, but then I use exclusively modern or (almost) exclusively dead-ball staffs.

Since dead ballers don't get as many K's  as moderns more balls are put into play so better D is needed.  

On the same line of thought I have been thinking about foregoing the use of late inning defensive subs since stud closers also get mucho strikeouts.

Outside of catcher's arm I pretty much prioritize offense over defense just about everywhere all the time unless the league rules suggest I should do otherwise.

Posted by mixtroy on 12/6/2011 10:58:00 PM (view original):
Zube, from I understand, that's SUPPOSED to be how it works, but I've seen no real evidence of it with any of my teams.  I use both modern and deadball pitchers, and have had great and bad fielding with both types while using pretty much the same infielders. 

Try using Jim McCormick `85.  I promise you'll see a difference in fielding, and you won't like it a bit.    He could turn Ozzie's hands to stone.

To answer pfattkatt's original question, I think recent updates have priced fielding almost out of the ballpark.  You can win an OL pretty easily with good hitting and poor fielding; it is virtually impossible to win with good fielding and poor hitting unless you have phenomenal pitching.  I think you can win OL regular seasons about equally with good hitting or good pitching.  Good pitching trumps everything in the playoffs.

I still try to split the difference between hitting and fielding.  You can't generally afford good hitters with good FPCT AND good range in an OL, but you can afford one or the other -- good hitting and good range (Carlos Beltran, Terry Pendleton, Harry Stovey, Jack Doyle) or good hitting and good fielding (Roberto Alomar `92, HoJo, Wade Boggs `95) and teams built intelligently around those cookies almost always do well.

Posted by thunder1008 on 12/8/2011 4:09:00 AM (view original):

Posted by mixtroy on 12/6/2011 10:58:00 PM (view original):
Zube, from I understand, that's SUPPOSED to be how it works, but I've seen no real evidence of it with any of my teams.  I use both modern and deadball pitchers, and have had great and bad fielding with both types while using pretty much the same infielders. 

Try using Jim McCormick `85.  I promise you'll see a difference in fielding, and you won't like it a bit.    He could turn Ozzie's hands to stone.

To answer pfattkatt's original question, I think recent updates have priced fielding almost out of the ballpark.  You can win an OL pretty easily with good hitting and poor fielding; it is virtually impossible to win with good fielding and poor hitting unless you have phenomenal pitching.  I think you can win OL regular seasons about equally with good hitting or good pitching.  Good pitching trumps everything in the playoffs.

I still try to split the difference between hitting and fielding.  You can't generally afford good hitters with good FPCT AND good range in an OL, but you can afford one or the other -- good hitting and good range (Carlos Beltran, Terry Pendleton, Harry Stovey, Jack Doyle) or good hitting and good fielding (Roberto Alomar `92, HoJo, Wade Boggs `95) and teams built intelligently around those cookies almost always do well.

Yeah, really early in baseball history, fielding was beyond bad.  I have estimated that 1885 team in the sim would average 4-5 errors per game.  For 1893 teams that number drops below 3.5.  For 1906 the number was less than 2.  Late 1980s should average less than an error per game in the sim.    

Do players typically commit the same number of errors in Sim that they made in real life? Do they tend to make the same number of assists and putouts? I've noticed OFs typically make less putouts in their performance history stats than they do in real life.  But it seems that infielders often make more assists in their Sim performance history stats than they do in real life.  But perhaps someone has done more solid research on the topic.   

Is there anyway to determine if a pitcher is a "ground ball" or "fly ball" pitcher? 

I have 1999 Ivan Rodriguez in a $100M cap theme league who has 6 passed balls in 85 games.  In real life, I-Rod (B+/A/A+) had exactly 1 passed ball in 141 games at catcher.  (The pitchers have thrown only 4 wild pitches in 799 IP.)

Posted by mixtroy on 12/11/2011 10:15:00 PM (view original):
I know that when you search the different categories in the draft center for pitchers, they have a gb/fb (groundball to flyball) category, but I'm not sure how to get the results for it.

There is absolutely 100% no such thing as a "groundball" or "flyball" pitcher in the sim.  It has to do only with the season of the pitcher and the various hit rates of the batter.

My team Holy Roman Emperors is 131 games into a season where 1885 Ed Morris has pitched 55% of my innings, and my next highest inning pitcher is 1888 Frank Gilmore (about 9%).  So far, I haven't seen much evidence that it's affected my fielding. 

Here are my fielders' % this season with RL % in brackets:

C 1895 Jack Clements .980 (.969)
1B 1931 Jim Bottomley .997 (.987)
2B 1926 Eddie Collins .975 (.973)
3B 1899 John McGraw .964 (.945)
SS 1941 Arky Vaughn .959 (.958)
LF 1955 Ted Williams .989 (.989)
CF 1914 Ty Cobb .944 (.949)
RF 1940 Deb Garms .955 (.993)

Only 2 fielders doing worse than RL, the rest about the same or better.

I was considering snatching up a 450k guy (he has under 100 at bats) off waivers who is a D-/D- at second base and only play him when my modern day pitchers are pitching.  Is he worth the pick up or am I looking for a disaster with a guarenteed 2 errors a game?

years ago when range first came out as a factor you could see, there was a period when it was cheap and a lot of success could be had with a SS and an OF that had strong range