Help on DEFENSE stats please

[Mean Dean]

To summarize the earlier thread: For every point of catcher range worse you get, there is a 15% higher chance of a possible PB (starting with 15% for a 1-rated fielder.) Whether the PB happens depends on the pitcher's WP chance. (This reflects that pitchers who are wild -- knuckleballers are the classic example -- create more PBs, as well as throwing more WPs.) So this effect of catchers' range is very closely tied in to the WP rating of the man on the mound. If it's good, then even a bad-range catcher won't cost you much; if it's bad, then the combination with a bad-range catcher can add up to a good number of PBs (but again, only 15% more per point of range.)

[b:4a087ec505]lucky[/b:4a087ec505], since (for some reason) you can't turn off plate-blocking even in the PC game, I would be very surprised if it were not a feature of the TSN game as well. Your points are persuasive with respect to how many runs plate-blocking is worth. I can buy that a 1 will save 10 runs relative to a 3, or 20 runs relative to a 5; the math makes sense, and that's not some crazy number of runs anyway. What we would then need to establish, then, in order to figure out which catcher rating is most important, is the run difference between good/average/bad arms, PBs and T-ratings. :?: :?: :?: :?: :?:

[gkhd11a]

Calculating that difference is not necessarily going to show you which is most important. I will state that arm strength is of least importance. Since even the worst arm strength will throw out a percentage of runners and you can pick up pitchers with strong holds to offset the catchers arm.

In ATGIII I have found Ted Simmons and Milt May to both be very good values and neither have good arms. The more offense your league has the more important the range is of your catcher as there will be more throws to the plate. Likewise a high passed ball rate will also hurt as that allows any slug to advance. A poor arm will still throw a decent percentage out and cut many good rallies down.