So I feel like my team (?Oklahoma City Stampede) is underachieving quite a bit and I'm honestly not sure why. They're fairly young, but I've had the same core roster for the last 3 or 4 seasons and yet they're doing worse every season. At this point I'm closer to missing the MWR than I am to making the playoffs and can't figure out why. If anyone can provide insight, I'd definitely appreciate it.

It's almost always fielding and, without looking, I bet that's it. Give me a few.

Yeah, you're bad everywhere in the field. First thing, move your RF to LF. He'll still make errors but he'll get some plus plays. Your SS, CF, LF, 1B are all turrible, just turrible. You could start by getting a legit SS and move everyone down a slot of the fielding tree. But it's more just fix your fielding first.

You're hitting/pitching should be adequate, not world-beaters, so you have to fix your fielding. That's me recalling OK City is a pitcher's park. If I'm wrong, your hitting needs work too.

A quick look - your pitching looks workable, but your defense is weak at SS, CF, 2B and LF. And you've only got one hitter above league average, Rivera.

Not bad enough to be a poor team, but I suspect the teams with good hitting lineups beat you very consistently.

So to clarify, I need to get defensive upgrades at SS (Jecksson Tam), 2B (Bob Russell), 1B (Junior Rivera), and all of my OF (Thom Pelfrey, Jarrod Anderson, Mac Chang, and Marwin Gomez), while simultaneously upgrading all of my hitters besides Rivera, who isn't good enough defensively to play 1B anyway?

Ouch, that sounds pretty much like a complete tear-it-down overhaul is needed. Fair enough. I didn't think it was that bad since they've been better defensively in past seasons, but we did lose a lot when Chang tore his hamstring and lost all his range.

No, you could get a legit SS and move some players to less demanding fielding positions. Now, of course, that jams up your hitting some but it's not "Oh, ****!!!! I gotta start over." You gotta tweak that *****.

More than anything, better D at SS/CF. Then just try to reduce, not eliminate, error/negative plays elsewhere. Your team isn't that bad. The D is killing your pitching.

Yes... without even looking but reading comments... you simply move players to positions where they are adequate or better. For ex... put your Ss at 2b. Your 2b to LF.. etc. Grab a cf and ss out of FA or your minirs and make sure they are better than adequate fielders. Forget hitting at those positions. You want plus fielding plays. Your era comes down and you maximize your park strengths

So if I found a SS with better than 83/83/87 (Tam's ratings), I could move Tam to CF, and keep playing my guys (Sweeney and Russell) who are near 80/80/80 at 2B and 3B. That one move would help the defense a lot, I was just more dismayed by the assessment that I only have one worthwhile hitter.

Whoa, now. I said you have one above league average hitter. Didn't say the others were bad, just that they're not gonna be superstar sluggers. Your offence has to be a team effort. But tweak the defence, the pitching becomes more effective, you get out of more innings and now you can win more games 4-3 instead of losing 5-4.

League average hitters by definition are worthwhile. People have a tendency to equate average with mediocre, which is not the case. If you have average offense, that means 15 teams have worse lineups than yours. If you're in a decent world, you're not going to be able to have above-average pitching, above-average hitting, and above-average defense. Also, for infield defense don't ignore Arm Accuracy.

A lineup with one above-average hitter can succeed if you have great defense or pitching. If offense is what you want, first build an average defensive team with average pitching — ideally at least one true ace and top reliever in that mix — and then go about upgrading the offense. You can sacrifice some defense at RF/LF to get better bats in the lineup if the rest of your defense is adequate. But if you sacrifice defense at RL/LF and your defense at SS/CF/2B is already weak, you're in trouble.

My Richmond team (https://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/FranchiseRatings.aspx?fid=3965) just completed a 3 game sweep 2-0, 4-0, 2-0 against a traditionally top team. Did it w/ a league average offense, but #2 Fielding and #2 WHIP & ERA Pitching