This is how you can interpret the Range ratings now for any player at any position. 61 is average on the 100 scale and every 5 points above or below will result in roughly a 1% differnce in fielding. There is of course some random variation involved in the game. So your player with slightly above average Range ratings may end up being slightly below average for the season.

Every defensive rating has a league average of 120 on the 250 scale (this is a 61 in game if you are using the 100 scale for ratings. So the average defensive player at any position will have a 120 range and 120 error rating and so forth. Every 5 points on the 100 scale for Range will result in about a 1% increase in a players Relative Range factor when you play out the season. For example, the league average SS will have a Range of 61 on the 100 scale, Rich Aurilia has 56 Range and that's 5 points below average so you can expect him to end up with a Relative Range factor of 0.99. Derek Jeter has a 27 Range rating, so he is 34 points below average, and 34/5 = 6.8, so he will make about 6.8% fewer plays at SS than an average player.

The difference is in the defensive ratings and the results the game gives you based on better ratings. For example, if you use default import in the game and play the 2001 season you will notice that the Mariners might not even win 100 games or even their division sometimes. With this file the Mariners have appropriate defensive ratings and they were one of the best defdensive teams ever.

is there a difference between this and the historical mode