Quote:
Originally Posted by ToTheBackstop
Thanks very much for the thoughtful response (and yes, I was using a 100 scale in my original post -- sorry if that wasn't clear.) Of course, it never hurts your team defensively to field a 100 range OF, as presumably he'll reach a lot of deep and shallow flies, but I'd like to minimize the radius overlap between the outfielders on flyballs where they'd have to move laterally, since there would essentially be diminishing value there. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have two outfielders who can reach the same ball, particularly to cover you in case one of them gets an initial bad break so that you have to rely on the other one to chase down the flyball, but otherwise there's not a great deal of added value in it. Theoretically you're not saving extra runs having two fielders reach the ball instead of one, so in principle you could swap one of the two fielders in your lineup with a slightly inferior one who wouldn't be able to reach that same ball but would add more runs with the bat, with the caveat that this weaker defender would also have shorter range for shallow/deep flies; in short, you'd definitely be losing runs in the field, but fewer than you would if the neighbouring fielder wasn't a plus defender.
Of course, this becomes all moot if OOTP treats things as if there is no radius overlap at all between outfielders -- and come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen an outfielder collision play (yet?) in OOTP (the quintessential overlap indicator), which might mean that game-wise there is none, and every defensive position is compartmentalized where one defender's range has no impact or bearing on his neighbour's range. I have seen PbP commentary that suggests there might indeed be overlaps (e.g. "there's some miscommunication... the ball drops between them", indicating that either of the fielders could have caught the ball; "3B cuts in front of SS, picks it up, throws to first", etc.), but that might just be cosmetic stuff and not how the game engine actually handles things.
(Right, my example above was indeed a hypothetical extreme -- I'm fortunate enough to not have any 20 range CFs [although I've seen the AI field some, which got my attention]; my primary outfield configuration is 86/79/96, and I started wondering "Do I really need all this range? If they're capable of overlapping in the field, can I just put in a 55 range OF with a slightly better bat? Am I leaving runs on the table?")
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Just like real life, centerfielders in OOTP are really important because the majority of balls in the outfield are in their range. This means the range for a CF is huge. Using a cf with below average range for a cf is going to hurt your pitchers on flyballs. Ideally, your outfield range would have the guy with the most range in center because you need him to field the most balls.
My experience after 7 or so versions of OOTP is that there are certain areas your players are expected to cover in the OF. Your right and left fielder aren't going to help your center fielder unless they have exceptional range (like in the high 80's or 90's on a 100 point scale). Your centerfielder is still going to get the most balls hit to him so that's where you want to focus your best defensive outfielder.
Positional rating/awareness comes into play but only if your best outfielder has a very poor rating in center field. Personally, I'd take a guy with 85 range and a 5 rating at center field over a guy with 70 range but a 7 rating in center. The guy with the 5 rating in center will get better over time but the player with the 7 rating is never going to gain more range in his defensive ratings.