The last update said defense will partially affected by whether the pitchers' years (i.e. modern or old) (I don't know the cut-off).

Any way, I drafted a bunch of low walk Maddux and Eckersley clones for my pitching staff and then my hitters were all from 1885-1895 (except my 2B). Here are the results

Simulation Real
yr/pos +/E/fld/rng fld/rng
H.Larkin 85/CF 1/0/1.000/1.95 .882/2.54
D.Brouthers 85/1B 0/1/.998/11.75 .975/8.67
S.Thompson 95/LF 1/3/.975/2.03 .943/1.85
J.Ryan 88/RF 10/3/.976/2.11 .878/2.35
J.Milligan 91/C 0/2/.992/5.17 .939/6.56
B.Kenworthy 14/2B 3/1/.996/5.82 .952/5.54
J.Denny 87/3B 6/9/.955/3.31 .889/3.65
O.Burns 88/SS 2/9/.965/5.47 .901/5.00

Team totals: 8th in league fielding .982
1st in +/- plays 33/12
24th in ERA 5.44
23rd in whip 1.62


Home: Coors Field
Win/Loss: 38/21

The offense is doing really well but I believe the surprisingly competent fielding is raising the team from an 80 win to a 100 win team (if they hold out)

ba/obp/slg 2b/3b/hr
H.Larkin .360/.416/.475 17/2/2
D.Brouthers .451/.496/.613 22/2/4
S.Thompson .408/.442/.618 23/3/9
J.Ryan .386/.429/.557 14/2/8
J.Milligan .355/.423/.550 15/3/6
B.Kenworthy .326/.364/.555 13/5/9
J.Denny .332/.357/.482 17/3/5
O.Burns .277/.340/.405 13/3/2

I'm about 26 games into a 90M War of the Themes league where I and one of my opponents have to adhere to these parameters with our teams...

Dancing With Mr. D

This theme is a heavy handed attempt to test the revamped defensive parameters as laid out in the most recent update.

All your batters, over 3M+, must come from the years 1885 - 1919... and have a fielding rating of "B" or higher.

All your batters, 3M and under, must come from 1975 - 2009... and have a fielding rating of "C" or less.

All your pitchers, over 2M+, must come from 1975 - 2009... have a BB/9 of 2 or under and a fielding rating of "B" or higher.

All your pitchers, 2M and under, must come from 1885 - 1919... have an OAV+ of 90 or under and a fielding rating of "C" or less.

All players (including pitchers but not including catchers) must have a range of "B" or higher.

Catchers are a grey area... conventional wisdom says that range has no effect on catchers. Let's find out. All your catchers must have a Range of either A- or higher or a D+ or lower.

Important... no player may appear OOP, or at a secondary position (unless they match the minimum OR maximum fielding AND range requirements at their secondary position). Set your Player Rest and Defensive Replacement settings accordingly.

You must play in a ballpark that is at least +1 for singles and has a .98 or higher Park Factor.

No Clones

At this point we're both in the Top 10 of Fielding Pct. (1 and 10) and both in the Top 5 for + plays (1 and 5)... neither of us has a - play yet.

Not sure how we are going to do over the course of the season... the rules are probably going to screw us both on fatigue.

It's also hard to tell if we are forcing our opponents to make more errors.

Check it out here... the teams are To Field or Not to Field? and Can You Dig It?