IBL outfield defense study, April 2132.

[Coop]

My woebegone ballclub gave up 57 runs in a six-game stretch between April 8-13, an average of 9.5 runs per game, and I got into a discussion as to what could have caused such a disastrous showing.  The consensus was that my outfield defense is pathetic and that it's killing my pitchers.  So I decided to do a quick study of the issue.  I compared all of the outfield defenses in the  IBL.  It seems to be generally agreed that OOTP's defensive ratings are a bit weird, and that the really important thing, when assessing an outfielder's defensive skill, is RANGE.  Outfield errors and assists aren't all that common, so Error ratings and Arm ratings aren't hugely important.  What's important is an outfielder's ability to chase after a batted ball and catch it instead of letting it drop for a hit.

So in this study I'm looking only at outfielders' Range ratings.  The study covers all ten IBL teams and looks at both of their lineups, the lineup vs. RHPs and the lineup vs LHPs.  I've ranked the outfields from best to worst, though some of the rankings are debatable.  Anyway, here's what I found.

       Range vs RHP (LF-CF-RF)    Range vs LHP (LF-CF-RF)
BEI                         7- 9- 7                               7- 9- 8
OSL                        7-10-5                               7-10-5
MEL                        7- 8- 6                               7- 8- 6
ROM                       6- 8- 8                               6- 8- 8
VIE                         8- 8- 5                               8- 8- 5
PAR                        7- 7- 7                               7- 7- 7
TOK                        7- 8- 5                               7- 8- 8
BFF                        7- 7- 5                                7- 8- 7
DAE                       7- 7- 6                                7- 7- 6
KAR                       5- 9- 4                                5- 9- 4

Conclusion?  My outfield defense is bad (eighth out of ten), but not horrendously bad, just a hair below the teams at #6 and #7.  So I don't agree that my outfielders are totally killing my pitchers.  They aren't very good, but they aren't abysmally awful either.

And by the way, I have a CF in Triple-A, Naftali Kipruto, with 8 Range.  When he's ready for the majors, probably next year, I'll use him in CF and slide Vicente Moya over to RF, which will give me an outfield with Range ratings of 7-8-7, which should be the second best or third best in the IBL.  So the days of poor outfield defense in the Black Forest should soon be coming to an end ... leaving me with only about 20 other problems to solve.