[The Game]

Originally Posted by david limbaugh

No, no 'weird setup'

We have reproduced what is taking place.

For some reason, even though Lahman DB (stats) fielding csvs has
player ID with positions and games that match baseball reference,
randomly, some of those players are not getting defensive ratings for
positions they played that year when scouting is enabled, even when scouting is set to 100%

Actually easy to reproduce but have to look for it because it will be different players from year to year or even same year depending on scout of team that player is on.

Turn off scouting and problem 'goes away'. i.e. create a new league in 1897, turn scouting off and look at Bill Joyce and his ratings are there for 3B and 1B

Turn scouting on, put him on a roster, rescout, and his 3B, 1B or both may go away depending on the scout, even with scouting set at 100% Or it may not happen to Bill Joyce or to someone else....

In 1895 it was Joe D Sullivan - played 89 games at SS but does not get a rating at SS that year.

It seems to happens to a handful of players each season....

Whioch DB are you using? Spritze mentioned something about the Lahman DB not having fielding stats for some Negro League players, so I doubt this applies to you i would imagine the default or Spritze DB have thie fielding stats.
While OOTP should do a better job of a defensive replacement when teh starter gets injured, sometimes they dont have that option. In the 1st year of my new league, Alan Ashby played 8 innings at 2B in 2000 ( i use career fielding) Had to be due to injury and lack of another defensive option. i dont see it as that big of a deal. Not saying you shouldn't but there are reasons why the AI does this and its not like it's 200 players a year that do this. i have found 21 players in my EBL league and so far 11 in 1st year of a RD league. C playing 2B is the worst one. i used Mark Grace at 2B for 4 innings in game in year 1. After Hornsby was injured and and i had pulled Grebeck, who was my only bench IF, already in an extra inning game.