Fielding is less important than ever before.

Non pitchers can catch 99% of balls near them in the air.

Pitchers are excluded because they may be bad fielders and/or they may have bad eyesight. The hitters, i.e. baseball players, have the hand-eye coordination to hit, so any ball coming at them in the air should be one that they can catch almost 100% of the time. Balls in the air include batted and thrown.

Bouncing balls are another matter. Bad hops are problematic. So are balls in the air, but not nearly as often or with as many variations.

Most of the action on batted balls involves infielders. Outfielders may be really good at tracking and running down fly balls not hit near them. Or they may be out there to avoid ground balls that can take bad hops.

Outfielders are just ball boys on grounders that go through the infield. 90% of the time they have nothing more to do than toss the ball to an infielder.

So what to do with guys who can hit really well but not field grounders well and/or not cover much outfield ground? If they throw left handed, they are eliminated from second base, third base and shortstop. So, it's first base of left field or right field.

If they throw right handed: catcher, third base, first base, left field or right field. If they do not throw well, eliminate catcher and third base.

If you wonder how we wind up with poor fielders at certain positions, ...

With fielders moved around now so that they stand where the batter is likely to hit the ball, pretty much any ball player can catch the ball in the air hit at them. That's what we started with in this post.

Rule change of recent years: base runners may may not make necessary contact with infielders.

Fewer balls are put into play with continual increases in strike outs and home runs.

All of which concludes with fielding being less important than ever before.