Who should I play at 3B and at LF??
 

The left player is the better overall fielder, but the right can play a decent LF/3B. I'm torn where to put each of them

I'd put the one on the left at 3rd.

With the info given, the left player goes to LF while the right goes to 3rd. In situations like this, the lesser fielder gets placed where he can play to his strength. Theres no denying that arm. I'd use the guy on the right as a corner guy. The player on the left, to me, says more utility guy.

I’m with snepp on this, the one on the left to 3rd. That red DP rating would be alarming to me. JMO.

Doesn't DP rating only primarily matter for MI positions?

Who should I play at 3B and at LF??
 

I’d go with guy on left at third for the bump in infield range on the hot corner


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You might consider making the choice based on the makeup of your pitching staff. The player on the left has better range at both positions, so if you have a staff full of groundballers, stick him at 3B. A staff full of flyballers? Park him in LF.

Or, better yet, do it on a pitcher-by-pitcher basis.

the player on the left I put him in LF, if his bat is decent you will have a complete player who also defends well, the player on the right 3B, with only that arm is enough for him to be an above average defender.

At 3B it is not very important the range and TDP (obviously the higher the better).

In fact, the player on the right side has a good chance of being a good RF.

Speaking as a (former) OF, you have to value the IF ratings more. Better to have solid defense at 3B and sacrifice some defense in LF. The 3B rating is going to make much more of a difference. Losing a potential DP can be huge. 3B not as critical as middle infield, but there are numerous historical examples of a great defensive 3B who solidifies an IF. There are not many examples of a good defensive LF making a difference overall.

Simple answer - All things being equal, Player A at 3B and Player B at LF does the least damage.

Real answer - These things are rarely so simple. What's your pitching staff like? If you have a predominance of groundballers or flyballers, the answer might be different. What's your park like? If your park gives up more hits and those hits convert to 2B/3B more often, that can change the answer. What about the rest of the parks in your league? What's the era you're playing in? Etc, etc. These smaller factors can add up.

One more thing to throw out there.... what does your CF's defense look like? a CF with great range can make up a little bit for a weaker LF with balls in the LF/CF gap.

If you got an absolute ace in CF, I might be a little more tempted to play the weaker guy in LF

Some really good points about IF defense being more important than LF defense. My CF is pretty rangey and my SP are not FB pitchers, so it makes sense to put my better defender at 3rd

This seems to miss the point; I highly doubt that OOTP is such a complex game that an overlapping area of range between the LF and CF would be deliberately created. If it were a physics simulation, such areas could arise naturally, but OOTP is not.

Honest question....

Let's say a ball is hit in the LF-CF gap and goes to the wall for a pretty standard double, you don't think OOTP uses the range ratings of the LF and the CF to determine who gets to the ball first?

Or a lazy fly ball in between LF and CF, again you don't think they use the range ratings to determine who fields that ball?

I truly don't know that answer, but I assumed that would be the case.

Though I suppose to your point, the game could be designed to say this specific ball that was just put in play is the left fielder's ball and then only AFTER saying that it would then use the left fielder's ratings to determine the outcome of the play..... That would disappoint me if that were the case since IRL a CF's range absolutely factors in to those LF/CF and RF/CF gappers, but I guess that could be the case.