There's no doubt it can be a bit hit and miss, depending on settings and style of save for the most part.
Here's Ozzie Smith in a dev only save
And here he is in a 3-year recalc save with dev on (scouting is also LOW for this, 100% for the top one)
He's a bit older in the top save but was never rated in either as highly as I thought he would be.
the second save, by way of comparison
Stat outputs as follows:
Save 1, dev only
Save 2, 3-year recalc plus dev
Interestingly, his corresponding ZR is slightly higher in the save where he had the slightly poorer ratings. This, of course, could be due to the different era environments of the respective saves.
So many things at play with D ratings, as have been discussed. The similar issues that plague deep IRL analysis of fielding are at play - better range leads to more errors leads to lower ratings. And while ZR stats are produced in a save, I don't think it has much to do with the ratings a player receives.