Learn a Position??

[chriskelly]

I'm using a historical league, but I'll leave the player name out because I know it doesn't matter! The player is listed as 3B, but has no position ratings at all. He does have infielder fielding ratings...Arm is a 35, Range, error and double play are 25's (i'm using 20-80 ratings). He's 30 yrs old. scouts off

My question is....what's the best way to teach him a position? in spring, in the minors playing every day, or just throw him in there in the pros? When he gets a rating, I'm assuming it will be a 20. How much worse is having no rating at all than having a 20? Does age matter? Is he more likely to gain a rating at 3B because he has infield ratings, or is he just as likely to pick up a rating if I toss him in the OF?

I did play him in the field some last year....made 7 errors in about 400 innings.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by chriskelly

I'm using a historical league, but I'll leave the player name out because I know it doesn't matter! The player is listed as 3B, but has no position ratings at all. He does have infielder fielding ratings...Arm is a 35, Range, error and double play are 25's (i'm using 20-80 ratings). He's 30 yrs old. scouts off

There are two requirements to get a rating at a position- any rating at all:

-the player needs experience at the position (it shouldn't matter whether he gets this experience in the minors or the Majors);
-the player's component fielding ratings (IF Range, IF Arm, etc) need to be above the minimums for the position.

The mins for 3B are 20/20/30/10 (range/error/arm/dp) on the 1-100 scale--- don't know precisely how that translates to the 20-80 (there's a weird rounding issue with that scale if I recall correctly), but it seems it should translate to 32/32/38/26 or thereabouts. So your guy has no chance of ever learning 3B; his ratings aren't good enough now, and Range, Error, etc ratings don't ever improve by much. They do go down with age, sometimes dramatically, but they don't ever seem to go up by more than a point or two.

First base is the only position with no minimums- anyone can learn to play it.

[injury log]

Good question about how bad a player is when he has no rating- I don't have much data on that. I did look at catchers in an early version of 2007 with 1/1 ratings in Arm and Catcher Ability, and while they'd typically lead the league in PBs, they didn't lead by much- usually roughly tied with a couple of 'real' catchers. They'd also throw out 30% of basestealers, largely because bad runners would constantly test their arms. So it was almost a break-even proposition to throw a bad catcher back there, because he'd get a lot of outs on CSs. That was fixed in a later patch, though- bad catchers only throw out 15% or so, if I remember correctly- only half sure about that number, but it's low.

[chriskelly]

interesting points, thanks!!! I might just sim a yr w/ this guy as my everyday 3b to see what happens and what his fielding stats are.

I've noticed a lot of guys who a yr or two down the line have no fielding ratings whatsoever. I'm using teh default real rosters from the latest version.

[chriskelly]

wow...put him at 2B, simmed a season. 39 errors in 1070 innings. not good, but not totally horrible either. I didn't look up fielding %'ages, etc, because I had to remember to alt-ctrl-delete before it saved on me!

[tcblcommish]

I have just done this with a young shortstop. I moved him into left field because he was never going to start for me due to a better SS and I had an opening in LF.

I let him play 24 games in AAA and really never got his ratings up at all. I then decided to throw caution to the wind and let him try in a few games here and there in the majors. He responded by getting some crappy numbers and he finished the year with 4 errors in very limited time.

I put him in the starting lineup for the Spring Training games and had him play a lot. He got quite a bit better although still no gold glover. However, this season he has been very solid even though he has been up and down in the field. Overall, I am happy with his overall play but I think that if he wasn't hitting well I might not be able to deal with him.

I think that you need a lot of patience to do this unless you let him learn in the minors. I let him learn on the job and things are ok.

Putting him into a very hard position to learn could have drastic problems. Learning 2b and ss and 3b would be very hard to pick up right away. Playing LF and 1B, I think would be a lot easier.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by tcblcommish

I have just done this with a young shortstop. I moved him into left field because he was never going to start for me due to a better SS and I had an opening in LF.

I let him play 24 games in AAA and really never got his ratings up at all. I then decided to throw caution to the wind and let him try in a few games here and there in the majors. He responded by getting some crappy numbers and he finished the year with 4 errors in very limited time.

I put him in the starting lineup for the Spring Training games and had him play a lot. He got quite a bit better although still no gold glover. However, this season he has been very solid even though he has been up and down in the field. Overall, I am happy with his overall play but I think that if he wasn't hitting well I might not be able to deal with him.

I think that you need a lot of patience to do this unless you let him learn in the minors. I let him learn on the job and things are ok.

Putting him into a very hard position to learn could have drastic problems. Learning 2b and ss and 3b would be very hard to pick up right away. Playing LF and 1B, I think would be a lot easier.

What were his OF ratings (range, arm, error, etc) before you started playing him there? What is his overall rating now?

I'm curious because I have a few very young prospects who won't have a place to play often in the infield because all my infielders are in the 24 - 26 YO range and all-stars, so I am considering moving the real young guys to the outfield since my farm system is a bit weak on outfielders.

[tcblcommish]

when I switched him his ratings were pretty crap. I don't remember exactly what they were but they were awful. They are not much better but I don't mind his gaffs. I tried him there for a year and he has been solid. I will try and look later to see if I can see what they were.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by tcblcommish

when I switched him his ratings were pretty crap. I don't remember exactly what they were but they were awful. They are not much better but I don't mind his gaffs. I tried him there for a year and he has been solid. I will try and look later to see if I can see what they were.

OK thanks. These young guys were a couple I drafted who are developing better than I really expected and I don't really want to get rid of them.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by injury log

There are two requirements to get a rating at a position- any rating at all:

-the player needs experience at the position (it shouldn't matter whether he gets this experience in the minors or the Majors);
-the player's component fielding ratings (IF Range, IF Arm, etc) need to be above the minimums for the position.

The mins for 3B are 20/20/30/10 (range/error/arm/dp) on the 1-100 scale

Where are the minimums found for all positions?

I've played players out of position (sometimes the computer AI does it for me) and players get a '1' rating (on 1-5 scale), but I've never seen anyone improve above that '1'. OTOH, I've seen a few players (who usually spent time with a particular team) have rating s of 4-5 in outfied AND infield positions, and I wonder how he did that?

[Eddie Paxil]

Spring Training is the fastest. They learn positions fastest there it seems.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by bailey

Where are the minimums found for all positions?

I've played players out of position (sometimes the computer AI does it for me) and players get a '1' rating (on 1-5 scale), but I've never seen anyone improve above that '1'. OTOH, I've seen a few players (who usually spent time with a particular team) have rating s of 4-5 in outfied AND infield positions, and I wonder how he did that?

Zeyes did the legwork on this-

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...positions.html

That's from OOTP-2006, but I don't think anything substantial has changed with the fielding ratings since then.

If a guy's going to get strong IF and OF ratings, he'll have to get a lot of experience in both, and have strong Range (the most important factor in fielding ratings). OOTP only generates players with good IF and OF Range very rarely, so that would be an unusual (but not impossible) thing to see in an OOTP league where OOTP has generated the players. In a pre-made roster set, the roster maker can, of course, give players as much experience at whatever position he wants, so with an MLB-based set it wouldn't be so unusual.

[StyxNCa]

I think the only problem I have is how it creates outfielders. As I have been working on a database I have not seen any outfielder that played just one outfield position in his career, but the game does seem to like to create a lot of players rated at just one OF position.

However, I am not all that concerned about it. I will work with them in spring training is I need them to be more flexible. I do like players who are not locked into one position. It really increases their value in my eyes.