BZ 2321: Players don't develop in the proper area if switched from pitcher to position player

[doohdee2]

Not a bug of the biggest importance, but it does stop a cool feature of developing prospects.

1) The perfect example of this in the MLB Roster set is Casey Kelly.

Casey Kelly is a pitching/SS prospect in real life. In the game, he has approximately 60/60/60 (1-100 scale) hitting potential, and 60/60/60 pitching potential. By default, he is a pitcher in the roster set.

However, if you swap him to a SS, he NEVER gains any hitting potential and ONLY gains pitching potential. This is the case if you never let him pitch an inning and only play SS/hit. He'll only gain pitching ratings (and SS fielding ratings), his hitting never improves. He's permanently a 20/20/20 out of 60/60/60 hitting player (roughly). Again to restate the point, his pitching ratings improve from 30/30/30 out of 60/60/60 roughly about 10 points per year to 40/40/40 at the end of year 1 despite never pitching an inning and having a position role of SS. I've created several and MLB leagues and tested the first seasons (about 10) and this is the case in all of them.

2) To further test this, I took undrafted players in the FA pool (created by the CPU, NOT in the roster set) and edited them. I gave pitchers nice hitting potential, and hitters good pitching potential and swapped their roles.

I.E. Joe Snuffy former horrible 1B, is given 100/100/100 pitching potential and keeps his default 20/20/20 hitting potential. I stick him in as a MR and his pitching never improves, while his hitting ratings slowly creep up despite not having much room for improvement since he was a horrible hitter.

Summary: Players gain ratings only for their initial role when generated. I think this a bug and not a feature as in previous versions of OOTP players would improve after switches in the right ratings. Also, I find it hard to believe a 19 year old prospect would never improve at all given all these ABs in hitting, or innings as a pitcher. They may never reach major league ratings, but they should receive improvements in the area they are "practicing".

[TribeFanInNC]

Unfortunately, I think this is a feature. I know it has been discussed before and has been present in previous versions. Maybe somebody else will be able to shed more light on the subject than I.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Unfortunately, I think this is a feature. I know it has been discussed before and has been present in previous versions. Maybe somebody else will be able to shed more light on the subject than I.

I don't remember ever seeing a reason why this is the case, if someone could find a link that would help. I don't see why this should be the case at all.

[doohdee2]

Hrm, maybe my memory is off then. I recall it working in a version with the SI type interface, but maybe it really was OOTP 6.5 the last time this worked.

Either way, the design is kind of defies logic...I'm going to play you at SS, have you officially listed as a SS, and you're going to somehow improve your control and mastery of pitches just by by fielding ground balls and swinging a bit. It's the hot new training program for pitching prospects .

I guess it's not that important. I mean only the MLB roster set (Kelly, Blake Martin, Micah Owings) players have two-way potential, the game never really generates anyone who has enough potential to be a hitter and pitcher. So after you sim the first decade or so, there's no one you really want to convert anyway.

Maybe in a future version or big patch generated draft players can have two way potential. Any way I'll settle for the initially discussed bug/feature should being changed, as it just makes no sense.

[Nutlaw]

Yeah, we have this logged as a complaint. There are reasons for developing players as one or the other, but they aren't very good ones in my mind.

Oh, geez. I forget exactly what triggers the development as a pitcher rather than a batter. Is it experience at the pitcher position, maybe? If you edit a player in question to have less experience at Pitcher, that may switch his development back to batting.

[doohdee2]

I did exactly that in my group of edited FA. I raised their new position/pitcher exp to max. Although theoretically since they're new recruits, if they played enough at their "switched position" they would surpass the experience at the original anyway (assuming they weren't maxed at at their original to start which the rookie undrafted are almost always not).

I want to say I even made their initial position experience 0, but I can't confirm that part. Unfortunately my computer with OOTP is busted right now, and I have limited access to the game. I'll revisit this situation when everything gets fixed.

[eMLBCommish]

Pardon my partial ignorance on this topic, but didn't Markus once say in a past version that he didn't really design the game to take that converted fielder to pitcher and vice versa into consideration?

I know there are examples, and it might be fairly common if you looked into it, but this just seemed to ring a bell to me.

[Nutlaw]

Originally Posted by eMLBCommish

Pardon my partial ignorance on this topic, but didn't Markus once say in a past version that he didn't really design the game to take that converted fielder to pitcher and vice versa into consideration?

Yes. However, the design is wrong, namely in that it now means that all pitchers are drafted with fully developed batting ratings that surpass those of position players.

This is BZ 2321 and it was marked as something to address in OOTP 11.

[mtw]

This did work in OOTP 6.51 and prior versions. Since I was playing 1900-1930 era baseball, in spring training I would teach positions to all pitchers who didn't have enough endurance to be considered starters by the AI. Since OOTP 6.51 and prior versions did not give pitchers enough hitting prowess to be effective position players, talent bumps were needed to give them a shot at the majors. A few did receive enough bumps, and I recall that one even became a career 2000 hit, .300 avg player.

[bwburke94]

Originally Posted by Nutlaw

Yeah, we have this logged as a complaint. There are reasons for developing players as one or the other, but they aren't very good ones in my mind.

Oh, geez. I forget exactly what triggers the development as a pitcher rather than a batter. Is it experience at the pitcher position, maybe? If you edit a player in question to have less experience at Pitcher, that may switch his development back to batting.

It's the Hold Runners rating, which is a real pain... if it's set to any number 1-250, the player won't develop as a hitter, and you can't set it to 0 in game.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by bwburke94

It's the Hold Runners rating, which is a real pain... if it's set to any number 1-250, the player won't develop as a hitter, and you can't set it to 0 in game.

If that's true, it makes even less sense than I was expecting.