I'm not sure what level of minors you're managing. But, one thing that may help feed the imagination and ease the pain:
I was reading a Bill James article not long ago. He was explaining why so many people start at SS in the minors and then get moved. It has to do with the Defensive Spectrum. If you start your guys at SS in the minors, or another difficult position, then they can move down the entire spectrum. In other words, more options later on for the player, versus starting him at 1B, for example, the easiest position on the spectrum.
IRL, you'd probably have a bunch more middle infielders... well, a lot of SS. I read another article a few years back showing there were very few 2B drafted high at that time. Shortstops got moved to 2B in the minors.
But, on the defensive spectrum, catcher is the most difficult position to play.
The defensive spectrum looks like this:
Quote:
Designated hitter
First baseman
Left fielder
Right fielder
Third baseman
Center fielder
Second baseman
Shortstop
Catcher
|
So, maybe the AI is giving you a lot of catchers in order to allow you to spread them down the defensive spectrum. That actually happens in real life, but more from the SS position, I think. The idea being that the best players at high school and college often are SSs.
Anyway, food for thought. It would be very interesting to see the defensive tools on these 10 catchers and whether any could move to the middle infield positions. I don't think THAT is a frequent occurence IRL, going from catcher to SS, but maybe the AI sees infield potential in some of these catchers?
It would be great to see the AI use Bill James' theory at the lower minors, with a lot of SS's popping up, being filtered to other positions as they rise in the minors.
I seriously doubt that's the design behind all the catchers popping up, but... maybe thinking of it as the Bill James spectrum distribution plan will ease your pain, until a fix comes along.