i am certain that range factor is in the decision tree as to whether or not your player "gets" to the ball.  That being said, range factor is, IMHO, is just a % expression of how many of the plays your player is involved in per game on average.  If that is true, wouldn't having lots of 1st basemen in the infield (2nd, 3rd, SS) force the engine to allow the player to get to the ball?  even if the fielding degradation by moving up the defensive spectrum is expensive, you could potentially get to more balls than you would otherwise. (?)  or perhaps i'm barking up the wrong tree, that being said, range factor has never sat well with me.

Two problems.

1) Range factor is a calculation based on how many plays a player makes during a game. However it is not used for this purpose in the sim. What it actually does in the SIM is generate + and - plays.

2) When playing a player out of position, to calculate defensive quality (both fielding and range) the player is first mapped to the new position before OOP penalties are calculated. For instance, if a player was a low-end B range player at 3B, and you played him at 2B, his range factor would be recalculated to be appropriate to a low-end B range player at 2B, then the OOP penalties are applied to make him worse.