who would you start

[vilesluggers]

... a good hitting SS with rating of 3e30 or a good hitting 2B with a rating of 4-16? My plan is to DH one of them.

I have good defensive subs for both, but neither hit well

[chasenally]

Not much to pick from there. I would DH the SS and take the chance on the 2B. A 4 is really bad anywhere let alone 2B. You will have more X chances against your SS than your 2B.
I hope that both those guys can really hit the cover off the ball.

[vilesluggers]

thanks Chase. I wound up starting the 2B (Uggla) and putting the SS (Castro) at DH, with Beckham replacing Uggla in the 8th, and starting a better defensive SS (McDonald). So far it has been working out (we're 14-4). My secret? ...get heavy strikeout pitchers!

[blue turtle]

I didn't think the Fielding Chart chances varied by pitcher, that every pitcher had the same number of X chances. Is this not the case?

[chasenally]

I just looked at 5 of my pitchers and all have 2 ss-x chances but not all have two 2B-x chances. Most of the chances fall on a 9 or 10 roll. That means there are more dice combo's than say a 11 or 12.

[MrHacktastic]

the fielding chart does vary by pitcher. Some pitchers can have very few GB2B(X)'s. I am trying to build a roster now around a 2B and some of my pitcher's have 10 dice rolls on each side going to 2B and some have between 2 and 5.

[blue turtle]

I'm not really arguing, but in my sample (i.e., pitchers on my rosters) I have yet to find one that didn't have 7 SS chances (typically rolls of 9 and 10 or 4 and 5) and 6 2B chances (typically a roll of 7). I checked some huge strikeout guys with tiny WHIP vs. Brian Matusz and the other dregs of the set.

If there are differences, obviously some pitchers will benefit more from having great fielding behind them; I just have played a long time with the belief that fielders (in the game) affect all the pitchers equally.

[ROBERTLATORRE]

The effective "Fielding" OPS (basically the amount to reduce a players OPS based on their fielding rating)

ss-3 e30 - 0.698
2b-4 e16 - 0.775

So, you would play the 2b if his OPS is .0771 points higher than the ss (0.775 - 0.698 = 0.077)

But that is a purely numerical based analysis.

It's really hard to overcome a bad fielding middle infielder in your lineup.

[justin5]

I agree that the X chances are fixed for ALL pitcher cards.

By my formulas based on the X chance charts, I think there is an equivalent of about 0.020 hitting OPS in favor of the 4e16 2B over the 3e30 SS (based mostly on the more opportunities). So, all things equal in hitting for the defensive replacements, that would say to use the bad-D 2B instead of the bad-D SS, but the effect is small.

[justin5]

The difference between my numbers and latorrer's is the conversion to hitting OPS based on the rough chances that the X comes up versus the hitters card hitting, etc. Which comes out to roughly 0.585 for SS and 0.5 for 2B. When you use the fielding OPS numbers (I used the same OPS numbers as him) and convert to effective hitters OPS, you get the reduction to 0.020.

I *think*.