Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrej72
In fact the image is more complex if I watch other stats than the AVG alone. If I look at OBP and WOBA we are in the upper half of the league, while our base running is pretty bad. How can this be improved?
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Baserunning is hugely important in baseball and especially OOTP. I always prioritize pitching, defense, and baserunning in OOTP, and it has never failed me. I also manage all of my games, so I can control a lot of the baserunning decisions. But if you're not managing your games, it's especially important to have players who make smart baserunning decisions and are reasonably fast so they can take extra bases and avoid being thrown out.
If you play out games, you will see slow and poor baserunners cause a lot of double plays as a runner or hitter, and they'll get thrown out again and again. They limit offense and end rallies far too often, so it's often better to find a comparable player who runs the bases better.
As a good example, I had a RF on my current team who was a very good defender and batter, but he was really poor on the base paths. After watching him end or reduce rallies again and again through double plays, I traded him away for a comparable player with average baserunning. That alone has made a major difference, and now when my team plays against him, he hits pretty well against us, but he ends up in a lot of double plays and sometimes two in a game. Meanwhile, his replacement has clearly given us better overall production due to his better baserunning, even though his baserunning ratings are still only average. But average is a lot better than garbage.
