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Addressing the Outfield Defense Issue

Posted By Tim A.

(1) With regard to the # of errors by the pitchers...

I truly had no idea how many errors they made because I played the games in quick sucession and didn't bother to look at the defense stats.

In the past there have been times when I used pitchers in the outfield on other teams for strategic reasons. For example

(a) When managing an NL squad I may want to play matchups with relievers (lefty, righty). For example I have a righty reliever in the game and a tough lefty hitter comes up. I put my righty reliever in the outfield and bring my lefty reliever in to get the lefty hitter out. After that I return the righty reliever to the mound. This is a legitimate strategy that I enjoyed seeing Whitey Herzog employ on several occasions in the 80's.

(b) Last year on a RT team I played around with Brooks Kieschnick in the outfield to get his bat in the lineup.

The point is that I have used pitchers in the outfield before and it was not obvious to me at the time that they would make 1 error every 5 innings. Now that it has been brought to my attention I will likely pay more attention to that issue in the future.

(2) Millar -- It seems to me that the decision to use Millar in LF or RF is something of an arbitrary decision. If I wasn't spending the time to make sure everyone was active why would you expect me to spend the time to analyze the defensive statistics in great detail?

(3) Lofton -- Lofton has been injured and doesn't have a ton of plate appearances. At some future date when I try to trade him I think he will have more value if he has more PA remaining. I was always under the impression that conserving PA (or IP) for future trade considerations was a valid tactic. If preserving PA or IP for future trades is not a valid tactic then I would like Mike to say its an invalid tactic and I will apologize.

(4) Commish Mike Bravard did question me about the events and you've seen the essence of the explanation I gave him.

This whole experience has caused me to seriously question whether I should continue in the Real Time game. It seems like everyone is a critic about every move that is made and everyone thinks their opinion is the only plausible one.