There have been a lot of good points raised in this thread and I am in agreement with those who say that defensive penalties are not nearly severe enough in this game.

I have seen people use unrated players at infield positions on numerous occasions along with the occasionally unrated catcher.

The point of my previous posts was to address the issue of the person who mentioned Delino DeShields threw out 5 of 7 baserunners. My point was to illustrate an example where an unrated catcher cost the team some games -- to illustrate the flip side of the coin. I've also seen Andy Fox make 6 errors at shortstop in 1 game (in a year he was unrated SS) -- while on the flip side I have seen unrated infielders go games with no errors.

However, having said this I do believe that defense in the game at a variety of positions is a continuing problem and needs to be addressed further. I've seen plenty full season leagues there good defensive players and bad defensive players have the same FPCT and Range Factors.

Its something that needs to be addressed. If its not addressed then sooner or later everyone is going to be using Edgar Martinez at 3B and Albert Belle at 2B.