Because I chose to play him at SS instead of 3B or 2B, he should not be penalized

It's not his fault, it's yours, but of course there is a penalty. 15 negative plays is the back of napkin equivalent of 25 points batting average for your guy. That's ignoring the errors.

In real life he might have been the MVP, but that's more of a bug about real life than HBD.

Based on that logic, it's still worth playing him at SS. You aren't finding a .920 OPS from anyone else at that position.

You could easily try to build a team with the sluggin'est players at every position and play to win every game 10-8. You could theoretically win the WS with the worst defense in the league.

Now, if every team - or a large majority - did the same thing, then the OP's player could well win a GG, MVP, what have you. Someone wins a GG in rookie league, where all the SSs have gloves around 60, right?

Player positions can be user defined. We can do what we want with them, individually and collectively. But we have no responsibility to the simulation to try to make the game any semblance of "realistic." The game developers, however, do.

Posted by bripat42 on 4/24/2018 1:06:00 PM (view original):
But he'd be more valuable overall at a position where he doesn't hurt the team's defense. But that's beside the point. This owner is doing something unrealistic and then complaining that one of the end results is unrealistic.

*cough*DerekJeter*cough*

Actually, that's kind of a perfect example. In MLB, there's even a difference between a utility guy who can actually back up SS, and the other utility guys.

Posted by bripat42 on 4/24/2018 2:34:00 PM (view original):

Posted by saintonan on 4/24/2018 2:21:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bripat42 on 4/24/2018 1:06:00 PM (view original):
But he'd be more valuable overall at a position where he doesn't hurt the team's defense. But that's beside the point. This owner is doing something unrealistic and then complaining that one of the end results is unrealistic.

*cough*DerekJeter*cough*

Yes, it's predictable that someone would bring up Jeter, who lacked the range for SS the last half of his career. But even at the end of his career his fielding percentage was significantly better than this guy's .954, and 27 minus plays seems extreme -- even for Jeter. On top of that, Jeter still made plays that would have been considered plus plays in WIS.

I can't believe I'm defending Jeter's defense -- because he had no business playing SS as long as he did -- but it's ludicrous to suggest that his defense ever added up to a net negative-42 outcome.

It's not really net 42. An average SS in that world was about +3-- so it's really about 18 bad plays below average-- but that average SS also fielded about .972, so his guy only made 10 errors more than average. Take away 28 singles from Pineda and you get .276/.317/.649.

I'd think that an average-fielding SS in a fairly neutral park who slugged .649 might be a very serious MVP candidate. Or if I use bripat's numbers, how's this for an elevator speech for an MVP candidate-- he played SS, slugged .623, and made NO errors. I think jwynkoop has a point here.

Regarding whether this is MLB-realistic... comparing Pineda to Jeter, over Jeter's entire career (using Baseball-Reference's fielding stats, for whatever they're worth) he would have averaged about -20 with an average fielding percentage, so about 5-6 runs a season better than this guy. It's not an awful comparison... but if you're a little older you can remember when the Mets tried to play Howard Johnson at SS to get a bat in the lineup, and Hojo's defensive stats at SS are almost exactly what Pineda's are, probably a little worse, even. So Pineda's SS play is bad, but not comically out of line with MLB history, just near the very bottom of it. I can see it as a valid strategy.

Addendum: bripat's correct; the only season where Jeter was this bad was his farewell tour season.

It is a very valid strategy. Based on the parameters WiS set for the award categories, the player won't win MVP awards playing out of position relative to the rest of the league. He's probably winning Silver Slugger SS, though.

So majnun and bripat42, giving an MVP to a guy playing average 1B or LF is better than giving it to a 2B/3B guy helping his team by playing SS. If he didn't play SS, someone else even less qualified would have the numbers would have been even worse. At the time, my ML roster did not have anyone else to play everyday at SS.

All I was saying was too much weight was put on poor plays when selecting finalists for the award. I just have a problem voting for a guy hanging out at 1B and hitting 35 HRs with a .290 AVG, while Pineda was helping his franchise (so far making the WS) by playing everyday at SS and hitting 61 HR / 163 RBIs / and a .325 AVG. For the same reason any one of us would vote for an MVP with fewer stats that was playing CF, SS, or C over a guy with better stats but DH'ing or playing LF.

I think there’s a valid point about MVP candidates here. Teams in extreme hitter parks can dominate the pool, even if the team’s W-L record was not good. I’ve also had a player on a playoff team win GG and lead the league in HR and be left out. I think the solution is a larger pool of candidates. (Said knowing that subtle enhancements like this are highly unlikely.)