There was speculation before the last update that making fielding quality relative to the era of the pitcher (as it then seemed would be the case), would result in people abandoning old-time hurlers.

Does anyone know if that has happened?

Based on casual observation, I haven't noticed any such change. All I find is that good fielding costs a lot more than it used to, more old-time fielders now have decent glove ratings, and pitching generally is less expensive than formerly.

We were discussing this in a theme league I'm in, in which everyone got a real life 2009 team and some extra salary to pick up players off the WW. The season's now almost over, and most of the teams still have about half of their players from 2009 (in fact, it's in the rules that you have to retain at least 10 of your "originals" to qualify for the playoffs).

In this league, I immediately picked up 1912 Joe Wood off the WW. In 396 IP, he's allowed just 5 unearned runs.

By comparison, my 2009 Roy Halladay has allowed 8 unearned runs in 258 IP, and 1976 Mark Fidrych 5 unearned runs in 137 IP. Add Halladay and Fidrych's totals and you have 395 IP and 13 unearned runs.

Maybe it's a fluke, but I haven't noticed the old-timey pitchers negatively affecting fielding in any way in any of my leagues.

In counterpoint to Crazy's stats, here are mine, from the same league:
Young, Cy 1903 409 IPs, 16 UER
Ruth, Babe 1917 346, 16 UER
Blue, Vida 1974 286, 5 UER
combined P's 1985-09 200, 3 EUR

This fits pretty well with expectations, actually.

Something I also hadn't considered was that Wood is flat out better than my other 2 modern starters, so it could be the team's making more errors with him, and he's getting out of those jams.

Al Maul 260 IP 13 unearned runs

Same league as crazy & mmiller, some of my guys playing home at Wrigley.

Can't really draw too much from this because of Ruth. Interesting to see the difference between Lilly and WellsMy team's fielding percentage is 19th out of the 24 teams (.983).

'86 Caruthers 441 IP and 38 UER
'17 Ruth 190 IP and 6 UER
'09 Ted Lilly 180 IP and 11 UER
'09Wells 147 IP and -0- UER

So, Caruthers is getting touched for three-quarters of an unearned run in every 9 IP. Ruth less than one-third of a run.

If Ruth could pitch 441 innings, he'd have only 14 unearned runs. So, maybe Caruthers is costing his team's defense .49 unearned runs per game.

At risk of making too much out of this, I'm tempted to conclude that if you draft an old-time (pre-1900) pitcher, his pitching and offense need to be worth more than a half-run a game. Caruthers is one of few who might add enough offense to the lineup to be worth it, but I'd guess he's not quite as valuable as he used to be.

There is theme set up in the classifieds that addresses this question directly. It is called "Prove Pitching Affects Defense" and the commish is Biglenr. You might consider joining it to get more detailed results. There are 18 in already and will no doubt fill soon.