by padrenurgle1 » Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:24 pm
Hey man,
Please ignore this if it's too basic, but it sounds like you don't know the Strato game at all, so I'll write a couple of basics down.
The defense rating (1-5) is a range indicator. 1s are the best in the game, they get to almost every ball near them, cutting off grounders in the hole and turning gappers into singles. 5s are a disaster (think ball bouncing off Canseco's head for a home run). 2s are good, 3s not very good, 4s bad.
Just as in real baseball, the range of certain positions is critical, while others you can get away with mediocre defense. A 3 or 4 at ss, 2b, or cf is a very bad idea, because those players see more balls hit to them every game. Always aim for 1s and 2s at these positions if you can, unless you're getting insane offense from the guy. On the other hand, corner infield and outfield positions tend to have really good hitters that are slugs in the field. Having one or two of these guys is not bad at all.
The ballpark has nothing to do with range factors. Your ballpark effects are factored in a different way on the cards. All cards may have # symbols in front of HOMERUN or flyball results. When you see a #, you ignore the word next to it and refer to your ballpark home run rating. So if you have a ballpark HR rating of 1-10 when you get a # result, you have a 50% chance of that being a homer (10/20). If your HR rating is 1, it's a 5% chance (1/20). The ballpark single rating works the same way, but with the > symbol.
If you'd like to include a link to your team roster, I'd be happy to tell you how your D looks.