Unsung Heroes in the Field

[realstar]

The following article is from a post I made on the forum of an online league in which I'm currently playing (North American Baseball League). . .
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[by Fielding Gem Today at 3:45 pm]

Unsung Heroes in the Field
or
How to Read the OOTP Game Log

...

Over at OOTP Forums a few of us have been hashing out the issue of fielding weaknesses in OOTP. My statement there was about how fielding stats are generally weaker than others and how this might be the underlying reason for any weakness in representing fielding on OOTP.

But there are areas where we can see good fielding reps. Where we find that, is in player profiles, especially in the BNN reports where a player's historical fielding stats are given, in the scouting ratings located on a player's profile, and also in the Game Logs. Below I give an example of how a particular player's fielding talent is possibly represented in one of our Game Logs.

Late in a close game, bottom of the 7th inning, we were winning 4-2 over the Charming Sons of Anarchy, and my Cleveland Barons were in the field. A.I. went to our bullpen and put in Tse-Tung Liu. A starter who I'd placed there after the first week, when his opening appearance was so god awful that, you know, I had that worrisome feeling about him.

Liu has done fairly well in the bullpen since, and that despite what we know about his issues. Namely his personality states how he "cares more about himself than the team" and a few other things. Looking at his pitching quality, we see good splitter & cutter pitches with weaker curve ball and changeup. Scouting states his weakness is mostly in lack of movement, where "he has decent sink on his fastball down in the zone, but his other pitches are predictable; a lot of his breaking stuff hangs.." This explaining, at least to some extent why his type is listed as "Flyball Tendency."

While Charming's outfield isn't as deep as ours at Cleveland (450 feet at centerfield wall) it is big enough for outfielders with good range to get a workout. So this is also why we may be okay, putting in a few pitchers who get flyballs hit off them. Depending on how good our outfielders are, and we do have a few good ones.

The Sons were batting the bottom of their order (8-9-1). But we were still biting one fingernail when we considered the struggles Cleveland has been having lately: bullpen staff has had a nasty habit of throwing away leads in late innings.

So Liu gets ahead of the first batter, Kowalski, and then gets a routine groundout to 2nd. He then got ahead of the #9 batter, centerfielder Ramon. But Angel must have got a lead on one of those hangers and taps a fly into short centerfield on the left side. Where we expected it to fall in for a base hit.

Enter: Another egotistical character from the Barons by the name of Stanley Walker. A 32 year old outfield veteran, scouts say his personality has a "me-first attitude." But it also states that, in the left field position he is "a wizard on the defensive side of things; highlight reel plays are easy for this guy."

So Walker playing left field, comes across and makes the catch for the 2nd out. Where the location, short centerfield, in the middle of a large outfield, has gotta be a bitch play to make, depending of course on how high the fly was hit.

As we're playing a weekly online sim, we aren't allowed to see the in-game scroll. But it's likely this was one of those plays the scroll gets excited about relating in detail: maybe a diving catch, stolen single etc.

How do we know this? From reading the Game Log. Where it states: 1-2: Fly out F7 (Flyball 8LS) Meaning it was a 1-2 pitch hit on the fly toward short centerfield on the left side and caught for the out by the left fielder. Given the outfielder's propensity to make great catches, we can at least guess that it may have been an interesting play. Late inning outs (stolen hits) like this one tend to deflate the opposing team and sometimes account, at least partially, for a win in the end. Which we did, 5-2.

There are more intense examples of this kind of thing, where fielding gems are represented in game clinching plays that rob opposing offenses of gaining ground or even winning a game. I suggest that OOTP players take the time to find out about this stuff. Maybe we could create a thread on OOTP devoted to our interest in fielding. In the long run, game developers might take our lead and develop even better, more specific ways that gamers can participate in the finer details of this great game called Computer Simulation Baseball.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Great post and good idea.

I'd like to see more info on fielding plays too.