Some newbie questions

[stickball]

Hey, I've been playing around with the demo of the game, and it's really fun so I'm probably going to buy it when I get paid next week. I do, however, have a few questions I was wondering if anyone could clear up for me...

1. When I switch a player's position their overall and potential star ratings often drop dramatically, even though there's no actual change in the player's ratings. For example, I drafted a 4.0/4.0 2B who had a much higher fielding score at 1B than at 2B, planning to use him to play 1B. When I switched his position on the player screen his overall/potential ratings dropped to 2.5/2.5. What's that all about?

2. When I do the inaugural draft, my scouts keep recommending that I draft mediocre to average players, even when there's still 5 and 4.5-star players available. Is there a reason for that or do my scouts just suck? Also, why do middle relievers take forever to get drafted? And I guess third, what types of players should I prioritize on snagging early in the draft?

3. I'm still not entirely sure how the waiver system works. I got from the manual that you need to put a player through the waivers process before you can do certain things with them (like move them to the minors). However, how do you get them off the waivers list once they've cleared the process? When I try to drag them off it comes back with a message saying something like "move players to the bottom half of this page to remove them from the waivers list". I'm not really sure what it's trying to tell me to do.

Thanks a lot for the help.

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by stickball

1. When I switch a player's position their overall and potential star ratings often drop dramatically, even though there's no actual change in the player's ratings. For example, I drafted a 4.0/4.0 2B who had a much higher fielding score at 1B than at 2B, planning to use him to play 1B. When I switched his position on the player screen his overall/potential ratings dropped to 2.5/2.5. What's that all about?

You have your game set to give stars to players based on their positions rather than as compared to all players (I go with by position, myself). First base is where a lot of sluggers wind up, so he may just be an average offensive first baseman but a pretty good offensive second baseman in comparison to his peers.

[quote]2. When I do the inaugural draft, my scouts keep recommending that I draft mediocre to average players, even when there's still 5 and 4.5-star players available. Is there a reason for that or do my scouts just suck? Also, why do middle relievers take forever to get drafted? And I guess third, what types of players should I prioritize on snagging early in the draft?

I keep scouts turned off, so I'll skip that. MRs tend not to get drafted quickly because, well, they're MRs. Though the game does underestimate good MRs by not realizing they can become CLs rather easily. As for what type of players you should prioritize, that depends on a lot of factors. Players up the middle are important - C, SS, 2B, CF. Good starting pitching is important. Power corner guys can be important... not helpful, I know.

3. I'm still not entirely sure how the waiver system works. I got from the manual that you need to put a player through the waivers process before you can do certain things with them (like move them to the minors). However, how do you get them off the waivers list once they've cleared the process? When I try to drag them off it comes back with a message saying something like "move players to the bottom half of this page to remove them from the waivers list". I'm not really sure what it's trying to tell me to do.

Thanks a lot for the help.

See the white bar at the bottom of the transaction screen? Click and drag them there. Just remember that they may still be sitting in the Designated For Assignment screen as well.

[stickball]

Thank you very much for the responses Kelric, that answers my questions.

About the second question, I should clarify that my scouts are recommending that I draft players with limited potential, not only with limited current skills - for example, they'll recommend that I take a 3.5/3.5 when there are still 5.0/5.0s available. Is there a reason for that that I'm missing? I have noticed that when I draft manually my farm teams do very poorly (since I focus on getting proven talent up front, not on prospects) but shouldn't the major league team take precedent over the farm system?

[injury log]

No matter how good your scouts, there will always be quite a few guys in the draft that your scout likes a lot more than he should. If your scouts agree on someone, he's probably good- if they don't, probably not. The Head Scout Recommendation often looks for the guys your scouts agree on, not always the guy who is really a one-star player, but who got a 5 star report because of scouting error.

After a couple of rounds of a 15-round draft there are almost never batters or starting pitchers left who genuinely have more than one star potential, no matter what your scouts tell you, but there are usually many relievers left with good potential. The AI doesn't value relievers highly, so doesn't draft any but the best until the later rounds. If you think relievers are important, you can usually grab some good ones in rounds 3 through 5. In the first round, and often the second as well, I wouldn't draft a reliever unless he has the potential to become a starter (Endurance close to half the maximum)- you'll likely be able to get the RP in round 3, unless he has superstar potential, but any SP or hitter with genuine potential is sure to be gone.

As for waivers, if a guy has cleared waivers, there's no reason to remove him from waivers- it's actually to your advantage, because you can then do what you want with the guy. If he hasn't cleared waivers yet, and you put him on waivers by accident, you first need to get him back on your active roster, then right click on him and remove him from waivers.