5 Questions

[koeske]

1. Does a player's morale affect his performance? I know in Baseball Mogul it does, but the manual doesn't list it as having an effect, and says it is actually the converse, that personal performance affects morale. If this is the case, then it seems there would be little incentive to keep your players happy unless you were hoping to offer them a contract in the near future, no?

2. Do players have an overall health rating? I haven't been able to find any rating that measures a player's general health (how prone he is to injuries). It seems that some of my guys get hurt more than others but this may just be due to use than anything else.

3. Changing positions. If you take one of your guys and wish to convert him to a new position that he doesn't already have a rating for, can he learn the position and eventually receive a fielding rating for that position? Also I have noticed that some of my guys don't have a fielding rating for any position--does this mean that they are so bad they shouldn't be playing any position? Typically when I auto-sort lineups the AI places players at the positions they are supposed to play--however, I recently noticed that the AI kept placing one of my guys at 2B when he only had ratings at 1B and when I let him play 2B he was actually one of the better fielders on my team.

4. How are the top prospects in your organization determined?

5. Game strategy settings. Do the strategy settings you can set as the GM in the main screen trump the strategy preferences of your manager, or vice versa? What actually effects the way your players are used?

[1998 Yankees]

Welcome koeske. My attempted answers, in order:

1. Definitely. From the manual:
   13.13.1. What Does Morale Affect?
   Morale can affect a number of things in the game, including:
   • Player performance
   • Likelihood of the player asking for or accepting a contract extension
   • Likelihood of the player re-signing with your team in free agency
   • Likelihood of the player requesting or demanding a trade
   • Likelihood that the player will demand a change in his role on the team
2. Yes, although it is not "publicized" in the player's profile or in scouting reports. In this game, it is known as "injury proneness" and players are rated for back, leg, arm and other injury proneness on a scale of 1-200. You can see these ratings only if you go to the Editor tab on a player's profile (you must be the commissioner, however).
3. Again, from the manual:
   13.9.4. Learning New Positions
   Players learn new positions through practice. The best way to accomplish this is by having them play in a new position. Players learn more quickly when they play regularly in the minor leagues, or in spring training. The more a player plays at a certain position, the more he improves. After he has acquired a certain amount of experience at a position, he will be given a position rating that will display on his profile. The defensive spectrum is as follows: DH - 1B - LF - RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS. Generally speaking, the further to the right, the harder the position is to play and the harder it will be to convert a player to that position. Position players can learn to play catcher, but it often takes a very long time, and they typically don’t make very good ones. Note: A player cannot “lose” positions. Once he has learned a position, he will always have a rating at that position.
4. It's based on player potential or talent ratings. How accurate they are depends on whether the assessments are done by SISA, scouts, or actual ratings (scouting off). One more time, from the manual:
   Minor league players are ranked by the SISA scouting agency, based on its analysis of each team’s minor league system. You don’t necessarily have to agree with the rankings, and they can change from day to day based on different assessments by different SISA staff. Note: The ratings displayed are SISA-scouted ratings by default. However, if you access this report from the Reports tab in the Team menu, there will be a Select Scout drop-down that will allow you to view the ratings for whichever scout you want.
5. When you hire a manager you will see his strategy settings, as seen in his profile, become the team's settings. However, if you make changes in the team settings, those will overrule the manager's.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by koeske

3. Changing positions. If you take one of your guys and wish to convert him to a new position that he doesn't already have a rating for, can he learn the position and eventually receive a fielding rating for that position? Also I have noticed that some of my guys don't have a fielding rating for any position--does this mean that they are so bad they shouldn't be playing any position? Typically when I auto-sort lineups the AI places players at the positions they are supposed to play--however, I recently noticed that the AI kept placing one of my guys at 2B when he only had ratings at 1B and when I let him play 2B he was actually one of the better fielders on my team.

Let me add something to my response on this one. The defensive postion ratings that you see in a player profile are the result of not only the player's experience in fielding the position, but also defensive ratings that can only be seen in the Editor tab. These are things like infield range and outfield arm. If a player has low or no ratings in catcher ability and arm, for example, you can have a player catch forever and he will always have a low or no overall rating as a catcher. And, as Casey Stengel once said, "You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls."

[RchW]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Welcome koeske. My attempted answers, in order:Note: A player cannot “lose” positions. Once he has learned a position, he will always have a rating at that position.

Just to clarify as a player ages he may drop below threshold values for range arm error etc. When that happens the position rating goes away.

[koeske]

Thanks for all of your helpful responses. I have a few follow-up questions...If morale affects performance and poor performance leads to a drop in morale it seems like a vicious cycle. I've had a number of guys on my team, who despite having excellent ratings and starting every day, are still angry and performing poorly. These have been young guys still making the league minimum and so I am hesitant to offer them a bigger contract since their performance has been so bad. Is the only solution in these cases to trade the players? So far I've done this once and he immediately became one of the best closers in the league. Is a change of scenery sometimes the only option or is there a better way to pick up a guy's spirits?

Additionally, you can set players to have any position even if they don't have ratings at that position. Is this just cosmetic or does setting the position have any effect. For example, if I have a middle reliever who I decide to put as my closer, will he perform poorly because he think of his desired role to be a middle reliever, or vice versa? In this case should I change his position from MR to CL?

And finally, how long are we talking with learning a new position? And is it easier for an infielder to transition to another infield position, than an outfielder to do so , or is the success and length of time for the switch just totally dependent on their ratings.

Thanks again.