Middle Defense: Another Tutorial

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1383826

This shows Murphy with 101 doubles? In a non-theme league? Is that even statistically possible, short of some kind of quantum irregularity in the local universe?

It's a $200M (aka unlimited payroll league). A theme upon itself.

And on these boards, clown time is never over...in fact, it's almost ALWAYS clown time here!

Cool, because I was depressed at the thought that clown time might be over!

Elvis SAYS it's over -- and that's good enough for yours truly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu1JNX46zkY

[BTW the printed lyrics are wrong -- it's "Time to take over" not "Time to take cover"; LATER he says "Everybody's hiding under covers" (pseudonyms, among other things), but rhymes that with "lovers" -- not with "over," which wouldn't make sense. Oh -- and Elvis SAYS "Clowntime" is one word, and I wholeheartedly agree, though I accept it's only my opinion and others might differ on this very important matter.]

"Clowntime" is one word"

I won't touch that one in fear that our resident teacher goes on for another few pages.

In the NL, team runs per game were the lowest since 1992 (as was the ERA)

In the AL, it was even worse, with team runs per game at the lowest level since 1981 (also along with the ERA)

There's a great page in baseball reference dot com (can't remember where) that lets you look at the full-league aggregates for every year in every statistic; and it's also sortable! It's about as mindblowing as anything in baseball can be to see the huge increase in runs scored during the steroid era, and the sudden dramatic decrease in the past three years -- truly (relatively speaking), it's a new deadball era.

[Note ahead of time: if anyone (ahem) thinks I'm obliged to define "steroid era," the particlular "anyone" should know "his" posts are blocked by me; thus I will contentedly remain ignorant, forever, of the fact that I have not met "his" demands. (As noted in another post, I generally ignore what fictional characters have to say, unless I've chosen the book or movie or play featuring them.)]

Click on the Batting and Pitching links under League Index title at http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/

I'm curious what the average defense up the middle is for losing teams. If it's significantly lower, then that adds credence to the secret formula. On the other hand, if losing teams also have 90 percent twos (or better) up the middle...

Click on the Batting and Pitching links under League Index title at http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/

Thanks. I note that due to the weirdness of 19th Century baseball, it's more instructive to sort "HR" than to sort "R" to see what happened during the past almost-three decades.

There's a great page in baseball reference dot com (can't remember where) that lets you look at the full-league aggregates for every year in every statistic; and it's also sortable! It's about as mindblowing as anything in baseball can be to see the huge increase in runs scored during the steroid era, and the sudden dramatic decrease in the past three years -- truly (relatively speaking), it's a new deadball era.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/bat.shtml

BBREF has the same for pitching and fielding too, links on the batting page

J-Pav great discussion you've started.

I've favored not only up the middle defense but basically defense anywhere I can get it. sometimes I get lucky to have some bats to go along with that defense but most of the time I rely on the offense from the non up the middle guys. for example this year's NSKL season1 team featured Gomes/Perez behind the plate, Freeman at 1B, Dozier & LeMahieu at 2B, Escobar, Gregorius & Simmons at SS, Rendon & Walters at 3B, Brantley at LF, Gomez at CF, Stanton & Heyward at RF with Gose backing up all 3 OF positions. my two headed monster at DH is Carter/Vargas. anyway the theme here is that I value defense all over the lot & aside from using the 4e29 Walters at 3B (for his HR bat vs LHP) the entire lineup was '1's & '2's. My pitchers were all basically strikeout ones so the defense probably wasn't needed as much as it would be if I had crummy goundball types.

My team ended up leading my league with 105 wins but the #2 team in my division had 102 (with second best in league & yet was the WC). Anyway after looking at the year end team defensive stats I found it a little surprising that in our 12 team league I was second in total chances, second in putouts (missing the leader by one) but only 10th in OF assists & 9th in DP's & 6th in GDP's for a .987 fielding %. the only thing I could figure out is that teams didn't aggressively run on my OF arms (hence the lack of assists) & apparently there were not a lot of guys on base to turn a lot of GDP's. I know my pitching was second in the league in K's, fifth in walks & 3rd in hits allowed.

The only thing I will say is that having the '1's at 2B & SS was more of help then their e ratings were (e16 for both Dozier & Escobar). Both led my team in errors with Dozier committing 13 & Escobar 11. My backups Gregorius & LeMahieu committed 4 & 0 respectively. I probably should expect this though because most IF chances goe to SS & 2B.

Anyway there's my worthless two cents on this subject. I've always placed more of an emphasis on defense in STRAT before it even became popular to do so. I'm going way back to when I played in face to face leagues when you looked up everything on the charts. I always hated starting '4's & the only time I felt comfortable with '3's was at the IF & OF corners as well as catcher.

Btw as a final note my defense didn't help me when it came to playoff time. My 105 wins, 791 runs scored, 564 walks, 275 HR's, 116 SB's & 780 OPS got me bounced in rd1 in 5 games to a team with an 82-80 record.

J-Pav, I was going to congratulate you on another interesting thread, but on reflection I think you are the troll this time! You set the bait and waited under the bridge. Like a good troll should.

Seriously though, I think 3's up the middle are more useful now than they used to be. But if you've ever played F2F Strat-O with that fielding chart in your hand, you know how painful 3's and 4's can be at 2B and SS.

All the stuff in this thread and bigmahon has the money quote, you REALLY want to see the effects of defense on the game? Play the board game. I guarantee if you do you will NEVER start a plus armed CF again. You'll understand that catcher range rating has as much effect on pass balls and wild pitches as their pass ball rating does. You'll understand the value of having asterisk rated base stealer and what having to hold him on does to the infield defense, especially those 3's who can become 4's.

someone wrote:

I guarantee if you do you will NEVER start a plus armed CF again

I will take that bet! Arm means very little to me. But the above quote is why I think on-line players are better than STAR tournament players overall in general.