Making Tough Decisions

So please remember when you're engaging that I am a completely new owner, don't even have any games simmed under my belt yet.

Let's talk about defense.

My one custom league that I have joined is in its off-season, and I'm trying to work out a crowded OF room that I inherited as free agency bidding is here.

I might ramble a bit, but I guess if you want the TLDR - is Defensive rank the rating you should prioritize when trying to decide the better defensive player?

For example, if you have a player with a negative Dwar, is he automatically worse than a player with a positive Dwar - even if the negative Dwar player has a + in the arm column? And should the plus arm even matter if I have Mild boost effects for both sides? Wouldn't that be more of a "disadvantage " decider? Does fielding percentage matter more than those two ? And how much does speed get calculated into defense?

Any and all help is appreciated.

-BLB

All 3 forms of rank (offensive rank, defensive rank, and the overall rank) are never advised to take as a true way to measure a player's value. It helps as a side addition, but when comparing players' defensive value, always pick a player based on dWar (defensive WAR), as that stat is used to determine whether a hit gets robbed or allowed. The higher a positive dWar is, the more likely a player is to rob a hit from a batter. Conversely, the lower into the negative range a player's dWar is, the more likely a player is to allow a hit that would otherwise have not occured. If a player's dWar is similar to another's, then focus on fielding % instead when comparing those two players

For a TL/DR version of this, when comparing multiple players' defensive value against each other, prioritize dWar, but don't ignore fielding %.

As for your other question, yes negative dWar is ALWAYS worse than positive dWar, even with a + arm. The ONLY exception in my personal opinion is if the difference between the two is miniscule (i.e. if I have a guy with a positive 0.05 dWar but without a + arm and a guy with a negative 0.05 dWar but WITH a + arm, I am likely to take the negative dWar guy with a + arm since the difference is minimal, especially if the negative guy has the better batting skills. But thats just my own take on the matter. Others might disagree with such an approach)


Lastly, as far as I know, speed is only used for Stolen Bases. I do not believe theres any connection between speed and defense whatsoever

Welcome! So, that's the tradeoff you have to make...The player with the higher DWAR will have better range, every time, they will get to more balls, and make more plays...If they're a weak bat, maybe you opt for the bigger hitter who will be a minus getting to balls, but will contribute offensively to offset that, and throw some guys out here or there/not get tested on sac flies...Hope this helps!

I want to add that Fielding Percentage matters as well, especially in a Random Players League where you have players from multiple Decades, Old time Players, even SS, might have a .948 Fielding % - and a +2.00 DWAR, while a SS with a .994 Fielding % with a +1.00 DWAR, will compile far fewer errors.