Does modern day pitching make the defense worse since they theoretically had better fielders behind them which helps their numbers. Or do I have it backwards? Do deadballers make the defense worse since they had crappy defense behind them when they put up their RL numbers?

All fielders will perform worse behind old-time pitchers. Similarly all fielders will perfrom better behind modern pitchers.

Directionally, I would expect more useage of dead ball era Batters and modern era pitchers. I see the value of say a Ruth, Duffy, or Wagner increasing and the value of dead ball era pitchers such as Joss, Alexander, Johnson or Brown decreasing.

But, it remains to be seen if modern era pitchers can hold down the HRs of some of the monsters of the past...it still is difficult to field a ball that lands 20 rows deep in RF regardless of ones nice looking glove and manicured infield.

any coorelation that the stonedagain guy is soooo confused?

Well I'm not stoned and I'm confused. If a fielder is good, say A+ what difference does it make who is pitching? Can't he field just as well with Walter Johnson on the mound as Chris Carpenter or is he "stonedagain" when Walter is pitching?

I think the theory behind the new system is to account for the evolution of the game playing environment. For example, if we took Ozzie Smith, with all of his athletic skills, and somehow transported him back to 1912 to play shortstop behind Walter Johnson, he wouldn't field as well as he did in his own era. Instead of artificial turf with its perfect hops, he would be playing on rocky, uneven ground on natural grass, unevenly cut and poorly maintained. Likewise, instead of his Wilson A2000 (or whatever he used), his glove would be the equivalent of a poorly made winter mitten. Instead of a bright shiny new ball every other pitch, he'd be chasing after a soft, misshapened lump that looked like someone wiped their butt with it. The end result would be poorer range and more errors.

By considering not only the relative fielding and range of the actual fielder but also the average fielding and range in the years of the pitcher and batter, the new fielding system seems to be trying to approximate some sort of rough average game playing environment. Thus an above average fielder playing behind a pitcher from a good fielding year and pitching to a batter from a good fielding year benefits. Mix in fielders, hitters, or pitchers from the down fielding years in the 19th century and the fielding/range drops somewhat.

that's the best explanation i've heard. so if i understand correctly, we can think of a spectrum of fields/balls/gloves/etc., call it surroundings. to determine where on the surroundings spectrum we currently are, we take some sort of average of the fielder, pitcher, and hitter. i guess that makes some sense; in any case, that's the way it is and so i'm glad i understand it somewhat.

my inital reaction to the change, "HUH?" upon further review, "HUH?"

I'm sorry but this is all BS. How much time are we to spend trying to figure out fielding years,vs. pitching years, vs. batting years, and who knows what else. I'll give this stupid new equation one six pack of teams. When it stops being fun it becomes work, who needs it. As I said before they should have just up priced the cookies, given the old timers new gloves and fields at an appropriate price and let it go at that. These old guys were athletes after all weren't they?

Yup. Like others I intend to draft just like before and see what shakes out. I likely will not be spending the time to exploit this advantage. Of course, others assuredly will. I thought they updated the engine with an eye towards closing loopholes. This seems like it will create one of the largest secret competitive advantages yet, and it was intentional!?

Anyone who doesn't read the forums, or any new users to the site who come in a few weeks, after the hoopla dies down, are going to have no idea about this counterintuitive update. This screams of a decision made at 3 am after an 18-hour brainstorming session.

Why weren't error rates just normalized by the year so that a player who committed relatively few errors as compared to the league average for that season was an A or B fielder while those who committed a lot of errors was a D type player. I have no doubt somebody will tell me why this would be a bad idea. But, I don't see how it is any worse than the fix they've made.

I love the reference to the Wilson A2000 -- best glove ever! I hope a result of the update is a more balanced use of players from different eras. The fielding (particularly infield fielding) of the old-timers was just too poor to use. I hope now to see some more Honus Wagners out there.

Problem is to utilize an improvement in Wagner's fielding you have to use a modern pitcher, which mean a dramatic increase in HR's. Even with a A2000 Honus can't jump that high.

Maybe I'm missing something (it's surely happened before), but I don't see a reason why all kinds of extra research will be necessary. Tzentmeyer confirmed that the new fielding grades are already normalized. So playing behind a specific pitcher, 1912 Honus Wagner and 1980 Rick Burleson (both B+/A) should provide the same defensive performance. I don't need to know what the SS fielding % was in 1912 and 1980, because that was used in assigning the ratings.

I find it perfectly logical that playing against Walter Johnson, a team will hit fewer home runs but benefit from more errors than it would against Pedro Martinez. Common sense says that's what would happen if Mark McGwire took his steroids back in time to 1920, and if Cy Seymour suddenly showed up to take some hacks against Kevin Millwood.

I realize league fielding performance in the pitcher's and hitter's seasons will have an impact, but unlike hitting stats, fielding has undergone a consistent enough progression through the years that no research is necessary to know which seasons have low fielding percentages and which have high. The improvement of playing conditions, equipment and ever-more-generous scoring decisions mean that with few exceptions, fielding statistics get better as time goes on.

Quote: Originally Posted By Byrdmann on 10/16/2009

my inital reaction to the change, "HUH?" upon further review, "HUH?"

LOL. Me too.