fielding ratings change from original cards?

[sousa]

Ok, I will reveal my age. I remember playing with the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates strat cards, and in many draft leagues I picked up a guy named Bob Robertson. We referred to him as "Big Bob the Slob" in part because of his poor fielding rating ("4") in the basic game. I just looked at the online 1971 Pirates team and found that in the past 35 years Big Bob's fielding has greatly improved--he's a 2(13) at 1B in the advanced game. I haven't noticed discrepancies like this before, and in fact it kinda scares me that I remember Strat fielding ratings 35 years out....has strat's method changed?

[Valen]

If you read the upcoming product announcements and teasers you will find a post that stated that fielding ratings would be normalized for era. What that means basically is they changed them to reflect what they might have been with today's gloves, etc. So many older players will be better defensively compared to their original cards.