Two Way Players and Effects in Pre-Deadball - 1940s
 

I'm curious what some others have seen in this regard. I have to admit that this is one of the coolest features to hit OOTP for me as a historical player.

One of my examples having started an 1871 League with 162 Game Schedules & 4 Man Rotations (which can be effective now that players can be utilized in 2 way manners). Currently just finished through 1879.

Here's a single example of a guy who's carved out a "2 Way" career: Al Spalding

Hitter: 3,384 PA with a .331/.356/.418 line and 147 OPS+. 16.5 WAR with 352 games at 1B, 107 games at CF, 44 games at LF, and 9 games at 3B.

Pitcher: 183-121 with a 2.18 ERA in 2,747 IP and 137 ERA+. 45.9 WAR

Has anybody tested out 1910s - 1930s yet? I'm curious about the obvious ala Babe Ruth but also Negro League players ala "Bullet" Joe Rogan who went 102-44 as a SP but also hit .343 in 1,721 PA courtesy of Seamheads.

This feature was heavily argued over in Beta. Most testers loved 2-way, one hated it. Sounds like you will be a lover.

I ran a 60 year HRD sim the other day, just to test some things out. When it was all over, I noticed that Ruth had been a part of the league and remained a pitcher all the way through. But he was also one of the best hitters in the league as well. I don't remember the exact numbers, but he won multiple Cy Youngs and silver slugger awards. Pretty hilarious

HRD causes this Ruth stuff. In general he pitches for only 2 or 3 years and then OF's. Of course that depends on your other settings as well.

wrong timeline

I'm assuming i could just set his position if I was actually playing a HRD? I'd rather he be one or the other if he shows up, just my way of playing.

You can turn off all 2-way-ness or you can edit a player. Thou hast options galore.

How would one turn off 2-way other than editing the player?

stats and ai screen

There is a checkbox in the player strategy section for “use as two-way player”.

In real life, Spalding was the first of a number of 19th century players to play a position full time after pitching for several years. Watch for Monte Ward and Kid Gleason in the game.. Ward was the best of the 19th century two way players. Once the two man rotation started in the early 1880s, a number of pitchers would play the outfield on the days they didn't pitch. I remember Larry Corcoran, Charlie Buffinton, and Hoss Radbourne.

Would Ben Sanders also be on that list? He my HRD in wins one season but was listed as a LF on his player page.

I wasn't familiar with Sanders, but he is on the list of 1880s pitchers who were also part time outfielders. His primary position should be pitcher, though. He was the 2nd and 3rd starter for teams based in Philadelphia (all three leagues) from 1888-1891, and for Louisville in 1892, played a little outfield for all of them, but was more of a fourth outfielder than someone they put in the lineup every day.

I just finished 1914 in my game (no recalc). Ruth was drafted by the Senators and got assigned to their single A affiliate and they actually used him as a 2 way player... pitching in the rotation then playing outfield on his off days. What's interesting is I set his position to the outfield in the draft pool because I wasn't sure how things were going to work and I wanted him to be a position player and the AI still recognized his pitching talent and used him as such. Very cool indeed.

In my historic league, Ruth was drafted by Pittsburgh, and initially used exclusively as a pitcher with middling ratings. After about 4-5 years of seeing whether (and when) the game engine would automatically switch him over, I manually converted him to right field, and he immediately began to hit like, well, Babe Ruth...

Fast forward to 1923. I upgraded to OOTP 19 around August of that season, and I realized late in the year that the computer had also moved him into the #1 slot in the rotation (I had given him a modest ratings bump years before to ensure that he would remain in the Pirates' rotation). He ended up the year hitting 47 homers, driving in 134 runs, and going 7-2 with a mid 3's ERA.

Two weird things occurred in the World Series: first, he batted ninth in the two games which he pitched. I assume it's something in the programming which defaults to put the pitcher ninth (or eighth for sabermetrically-inclined managers) -- even though there were times in his career when he pitched and batted cleanup (https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...&t=b&year=1918 ).

The other weird thing was that he was benched in Game Four -- the game before his second start. I'm not sure if that was an attempt to replicate the Angels' anticipated handling of Ohtani. But it sure seems weird to have a healthy Babe Ruth in his prime on the bench of a World Series game. (Appropriately, his replacement hit a three-run homer).

In that series, the Pirates played the Red Sox. Although Smoky Joe Wood had been automatically switched from SP to LF a couple years earlier, he did double duty as a relief pitcher as well.

That was largely because of the substitution rules that were in effect during the 1880s. For the most part, teams couldn't substitute a bench player for a player on the field except in the case of illness or injury to that starting player. Switching players on the field, however, could be done at any time. So the rule encouraged teams to have their regular "switch pitcher" (i.e. their reliever) play a position on the field. The rules were relaxed somewhat in the late 1880s and the modern substitution rule was enacted in 1891.

Look up Bucky Walters as a rarity. He was a borderline position player for several years in the 1930s. The Reds acquired him in a trade and somehow figured out he should be a pitcher. That decision brought the Reds a pennant in 1940, when Walters won 27 games.