Defensive Development

[Neags23]

The manual mentions players being able to learn a new position. But will that players defensive ratings also go up with playing time?

For instance, I just drafted a thunder-hitting 1B, but my farm is overstocked at 1B. So, if I change his position to LF, he will acquire experience there. Is it possible his OF ratings (OF Arm, OF Range, OF Error) increase as well over time? Because they're all 1's right now. Just wondering if it's possible for him to become a real LF (his work ethic is very high).

[JWay]

its no garuntee, but i've seen things like that increase. I was being dumb once and had a 1B overload like you expressed and a hot AAA prospect was ready to go, and my SS went down. The season was a wash so I put him at SS. He picked it up very quickly and his infield arm went up and he eventually became a good defensive short stop. His range wasn't great, but he didn't make an extraordinary amount of errors. I eventually moved him to 2B the next season which he picked up right away and became an all star 2B with below average defense. Soriano type I'd think.

Granted I've also moved players and watched them do nothing.

[Neags23]

But the 1B of yours probably had some infield ratings already (i.e. infield error, range, arm). What about an infielder moving to outfield? Anyone with any experience taking on this venture?

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by Neags23

But the 1B of yours probably had some infield ratings already (i.e. infield error, range, arm). What about an infielder moving to outfield? Anyone with any experience taking on this venture?

There was a thread minimum skill requirements to learn new positions for 2006 that found that if a player doesn't have a min rating for those areas that they will not learn the new area regardless of playing time, but if they are over the min then they can learn it with playing time. Don't know if that has changed for 2007

[cnield]

In an online league, I have two great 1B on my major league teams. As a National league team, I moved one of them to LF. He's been playing out there regularly for 5 months, and he hasn't gotten a positional rating at LF yet. I don't think his defensive ratings have changed much either. He has very high work ethic, but he's also 27 and only learning LF in the majors. He never played LF in the minors.

I've seen plenty of infielders learning new infield positions, but I haven't really worked on converting infielders to outfielders.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by zekester91

There was a thread minimum skill requirements to learn new positions for 2006 that found that if a player doesn't have a min rating for those areas that they will not learn the new area regardless of playing time, but if they are over the min then they can learn it with playing time. Don't know if that has changed for 2007

A couple of things:

When I originally wrote that post last year, the editor would not show any positional ratings for players that are below the fielding minimums. That was changed during one of the 2006 patches; the editor would now show a positional rating (calculated by using below-minimum fielding ratings as negative input), but in-game you'd still see a "-" as the position rating for the player. That's how it is now in 2007, as well. So, assuming the player isn't deficient in all applicable fielding skills, he will in fact have a (fairly low, of course) positional rating; it just won't be visible in-game.

At any rate, all that just pertains to how increasing positional experience will affect the position rating. I haven't tested it, but I presume that under-qualified players can in fact improve their underlying fielding skills as well.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by zekester91

There was a thread minimum skill requirements to learn new positions for 2006 that found that if a player doesn't have a min rating for those areas that they will not learn the new area regardless of playing time, but if they are over the min then they can learn it with playing time. Don't know if that has changed for 2007

It's not quite that he won't learn the position; he'll gain experience there, which you can see in the player editor, and will improve over time. The game does have minimum thresholds in the various fielding categories for each position, and will never assign a rating to a player who doesn't meet the thresholds. For example, a player with a 1 for infield arm will never get a rating at 3B, no matter how long he plays. Someone might have an arm just slightly too poor to get a rating at 2B, but have maximum error, range and turn DP- he'll actually be a very good 2B if he gets enough experience, even with no rating there. The fielding ratings for 1Bs that are created in fictional games by OOTP tend to be very poor, however, and it's rare the game creates an infielder who has any ability to play the outfield- usually OF range, arm and error are close to the minimum. I'm not sure I've ever seen an infielder get a position rating in the outfield higher than 1 out of 5, and only in left field. I recently moved an extra 1B to the outfield for 10 games and he had an .833 fielding PCT (4 errors) and an abysmal range factor, so be warned!

EDIT- I'm talking only about what's displayed in the Player Profile window; in the Editor, as Zeyes points out above, you can see position ratings that aren't displayed in the Profile. The 2B in my example above will have a very high rating in the Editor window, and no rating at all in the Profile window.

[Zeyes]

BTW, if you're moving players to the outfield...as far as the positional ratings go, by far the most important attribute is Outfield Range. It constitutes 70% of the RF rating, 75% for LF, and about 90% (with a higher minimum requirement, to boot) for CF.

[spider_monkey_b]

I am currently undertaking this exact experiment in an online league. I acquired a 2B who I really didn't have room for so I moved him to LF. His infield ratings were all slightly above average.

After playing just 1 week's worth of games in LF he gained a position rating of 1 for LF. I should say, however, that his OF range is a 7 which is actually higher than his infield range of 6. Odd. Perhaps that's why he gained that experience point so fast.

All ratings are based on a 10 point scale.

[Neags23]

I understand that a player can get a rating at a certain position if he plays there long enough. But injury log mentioned the OF ratings need to be at a certain level. So, my original question remains. Can a player with no or very low OF ratings eventually acquire them? Do those numbers develop at all?

And I guess that question holds not only for transitioned players, but players at their native positions as well.

If you draft a LF with 2/10 for his OF ratings (not positional rating, but arm, range, error), will it ALWAYS be 2/10, or do those have the potential to change along with offensive ratings.

If those do change and will develop, there shouldn't be a reason why a transitioned player shouldn't have a chance to develop those ratings, too.

[Zeyes]

Yes, fielding skills definitely can and do change.

FWIW, I just took a quick look at the fielding skills from one year to the next (via the export to csv). At a glance, I've seen some young players created as infielders who saw both their Infield Range and Outfield Range increase, a couple of catchers who improved both Catcher Arm and Infield Arm, and a few other cross-positional changes. (Usually rather small, less than five points on the native 200 scale.) Skills will also drop, sometimes by pretty massive amounts...one 35-year old infielder lost over 40 points off his Infield Range in that one season, to mention just the worst ratings change he suffered (might have been due to an injury, I didn't check).

What's not immediately possible to tell is how playing a guy out of his native position will affect the skills, since the AI rarely does that, but I presume it's possible to get his ratings to rise.

BTW, from what I can tell, converting infielders to the outfield is likely a much more promising proposition than the other way around. All players I saw who were created as outfielders had at most 6 points (out of 200!) in any of the infield skills, while most infielders will sport outfield skills ranging from somewhat bad to above average.

[Simmo13]

Does the game take account of the "defensive spectrum" which I think Bill James defined as 1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS (the raw ability needed to play each position).

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Simmo13

Does the game take account of the "defensive spectrum" which I think Bill James defined as 1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS (the raw ability needed to play each position).

It definitely does. 1B is the only position that has essentially no minimum requirements; anyone can learn to play it well enough to get a visible rating in the Profile screen. The thresholds for range, error, etc, go up as you move through the spectrum. Only born middle infielders will ever be good SSs, at least in a league with fictional players created by the game engine.

[ctorg]

I have been frustrated a bit by this, actually. It seems to me that plenty of big league players switch from infield to outfield or vice versa in their careers, sometimes even fairly late. Certainly a lot of OFs become 1Bs. I don't think the game generates enough players with defensive ratings high enough to meet thresholds in both IF and OF positions.

[ctorg]

dola,

I also think it's not entirely realistic to have a guy with superb ratings in either IF or OF and bottomed out ratings in the other. There is a definite difference between IF and OF range, but I don't think it's so different that you should be able to have a guy with a 100/100 OF range have a 1/100 IF range. I think experience will mostly make him at least decent at the alternate position.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by Simmo13

Does the game take account of the "defensive spectrum" which I think Bill James defined as 1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS (the raw ability needed to play each position).

Well, to my consternation, OOTP treats RF as easier to play than LF...

Anyway, the game in fact uses something like positional difficulty in calculating the positional ratings:

Pos |  P |  C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | LF | CF | RF
----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----
Diff|  8 | 16 | 11 | 16 | 16 | 18 | 14 | 18 | 13

These enter the calculation as divisors, i.e. the higher the difficulty rating, the lower the resulting positional rating will be.

And in addition, as injury log said the more difficult positions also have higher minimum fielding requirements which also serves to reduce the resulting positional ratings.

[Neags23]

Originally Posted by ctorg

I have been frustrated a bit by this, actually. It seems to me that plenty of big league players switch from infield to outfield or vice versa in their careers, sometimes even fairly late. Certainly a lot of OFs become 1Bs. I don't think the game generates enough players with defensive ratings high enough to meet thresholds in both IF and OF positions.

Originally Posted by ctorg

dola,

I also think it's not entirely realistic to have a guy with superb ratings in either IF or OF and bottomed out ratings in the other. There is a definite difference between IF and OF range, but I don't think it's so different that you should be able to have a guy with a 100/100 OF range have a 1/100 IF range. I think experience will mostly make him at least decent at the alternate position.

These are my sentiments exactly. In the game as it is now, there seems no way to have a Kelly Johnson type player. He moved from LF to 2B very smoothly and looks like he's played their throughout his career. Granted, it should take some time and probably a high work ethic, but it should be possible. Doesn't seem to be so in the game without the use of the player editor.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Neags23

These are my sentiments exactly. In the game as it is now, there seems no way to have a Kelly Johnson type player. He moved from LF to 2B very smoothly and looks like he's played their throughout his career. Granted, it should take some time and probably a high work ethic, but it should be possible. Doesn't seem to be so in the game without the use of the player editor.

Kelly Johnson did start out as a shortstop- played there much of his minor league career, though he was never very good at it. I entirely agree with your point, though, and the Ryan Freels of MLB could never exist in OOTP, if you use fictional players generated by the game.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by injury log

Kelly Johnson did start out as a shortstop- played there much of his minor league career, though he was never very good at it. I entirely agree with your point, though, and the Ryan Freels of MLB could never exist in OOTP, if you use fictional players generated by the game.

Well, he too started as an infielder...those guys (i.e. infield originally, IF/OF utility later on) seem to be modelled fairly well by OOTP. Maybe their OF ratings are a bit low, I dunno...perhaps I'll export a draft pool's infielder contingent and calculate their potential outfield position ratings.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Zeyes

Well, he too started as an infielder...those guys (i.e. infield originally, IF/OF utility later on) seem to be modelled fairly well by OOTP. Maybe their OF ratings are a bit low, I dunno...perhaps I'll export a draft pool's infielder contingent and calculate their potential outfield position ratings.

I cited Freel because he was originally an infielder, but went on to play a lot of CF, which doesn't seem possible in OOTP with fictionally generated players. Kelly Johnson, on the other hand, was shunted to left because he was blocked in the infield (and wasn't considered good there anyway, though I've heard he's been an acceptable 2B this year), and OOTP infielders do sometimes have the fielding skills to play an adequate left field. I'm not sure I've ever seen an infielder with even average OF ratings across the board- sometimes average in one or two categories, but never in all three, and never the range for CF. Perhaps I'm wrong, so I'd be interested in the results if you do an analysis of a draft pool.

I can't think of any real life players who have converted from OF to middle infield positions (2B/SS); I think the problem in OOTP is only that too few infielders are generated with any OF ability. And I don't believe there are many Brandon Inge types either- catchers who could learn to play a range of positions.