As you know, I have way too much time on my hands right now, and I have been site mailing some noobs, offering some help to them. 2 subjects have come up, and I don't have any definitive answer for either of these questions. 1. LH pitchers. I am aware of a certain bias towards RHers, but there are a few LHers I have had very good success with, like '14 dutch, '85(?) Tudor, '10 Kuo. But I don't know how to develop this into a meaningful conversation that will help my student gain some understanding of the subject.
   The other question is defense. I have done well drafting mediocre defensive players with excellent offensive performances, but I have come up short in the play offs and TOCs with those players. I'm talking players from 1885-1918 for the most part, who appear to normalize very well, excellent ratios for the power numbers, but D/D , C/D, that sort of defensive ratings, generally 120m leagues. Again, I'm not sure what to tell these noobs, i don't want to give bad advice, and I don't suppose it would hurt me to get a few opinions, either.

Whats the question?

the questions are; can we quantify how much defense is too little, and whether lhp's should be evaluated differently than their rh'd counterparts,

just tell them there are no definitive answers.
I've been in some themes where half the hitters were lefties. in those leagues Lefty pitchers had more value. It's all about predicting what you will be facing. In OLs most batters are Righty so L pitchers have slighlty less value but I wouldn't avoid them some of them do fine. I like to have a Lefty available to throw against an opponent who stocked his lineup with lefties, and it's always good to have a couple Lefty RPs because Sparky considers matchups when choosing a reliever.
If you're coaching newbies get them to survive the regular season before tackling the playoffs. these days opinions about defense vary. I'd emphasize that defense is important but also costs more salary then let them decide how to play it.

I know splits arent used but almost every game I check the opponent pitchers allowed average against lh and rh batters when setting my lineup. Some pitchers like Joss do not do well vs. lefties while some pitchers such as righty Bob Gibson is really hard on lefties even more than righties.  Ballpark and Hr's allowed also comes into play when setting my lineup. Maybe I analize too much, my reacord is still hovering around .500

Posted by pfattkatt on 2/27/2011 3:34:00 PM (view original):
the questions are; can we quantify how much defense is too little, and whether lhp's should be evaluated differently than their rh'd counterparts,

1) Depends on you pitching
2) LHP in general do worse than their RH counterparts because there are more righty battters than lefties (exclusive of switch hitters).  Also most of the biggest bargains in the game are righties.  But LHPs (inclusive of '85 Tudor) are good values for the exact same reason that righties are. 

Remember that there is a straight 5% penalty for pitchers facing batters of the opposite hand. So a lefty facing a righty gets a 5% penalty (the hitter is 5% better, I think, or the hitter would be 5% worse against a same-handed pitcher and is not penalized for the opposite, or whatever it is... the end result is a 5% penalty of some kind)

So if a pitcher is a lefty and is facing 70% righties, then he's getting that 5% penalty 70% of the time. Now, some of that is balanced by the fact that lefty hitters are better. Think about it - if your opponent's lineup looks like this then you'd rather neutralize the 3 lefties and take your chances against the 5 righties, because it's a percentage. (Ruth 1000 OPS - 5% is 950, Kendall 600 OPS - 5% is 570)

CF Speaker
SS Groat
LF Bonds
RF Ruth
2B Robby Thomson
C Jason Kendall
1B Derrek Lee
3B Cirillo

As for defense, it's a gross oversimplification but just imagine that a hitter needs an extra hit for every error he makes. So for 6mil you can get a shortstop who gets 200 hits and makes 10 errors, or a shortstop who gets 230 hits and makes 50 errors. (To get more advanced, you also make your pitchers work harder when you make errors, so it also costs you at least 1/3 of an inning)

I do think that high end range is overpriced and medium range is not different enough from bad range to justify the cost. Probably the same applies to fielding percentage. But especially with high range infielders, there is an unquantifiable benefit in turning more DPs that comes with high range, so if you're going to splurge, do it at 2B and SS.

Posted by epolice183 on 3/1/2011 2:56:00 PM (view original):
with a .505 win % you are really teaching people?  Shouldn't you be the one asking for advice?

I'm not sure who you're talking about, because you didn't specify.  But first of all, both jfranco and zubinsum have win % > .505, and more to the point, both of those guys are among the best (and most highly regarded) owners in WIS.  I learn something every time they post.  If you want to cast sarcastic criticism, send it somewhere else.

If you meant pfattkatt, this thread IS asking for advice, so I don't understand your point at all.  And you're really going to criticize someone for trying to share what he's learned?