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If a player happens to get some experience at a new position, the AI will treat that player as qualified to play that position even if he's incapable of ever developing a rating at that position. It appears that even a single game of experience at a position is sufficient for the AI to consider that player qualified. The AI will often continue to use that player at the new position, resulting in the player gaining a lot of experience at the new position without developing a rating.
This is a problem because it often results in poor-fielding, left handed throwing first basemen playing 2B, 3B and/or SS. It can also result in catchers routinely playing CF, and similar situations. Sometimes the AI will then change the player's position to the new one, despite the fact he has no rating at that position and may actually have good ratings at other positions. Currently in my league's universe I have several players who throw left handed and have their primary position listed as 2B, 3B or SS, when there shouldn't be any left handed throwers at those positions. I've attached a few screenshots illustrating the problem.
This is not a situation where the AI is trying to teach a player a new position. Instead the AI appears to look at experience at a position primarily (if not exclusively), and ignores actual positional ratings and fielding skills. There is no logical explanation for this. The only way I can stop the AI from doing it is by manually editing players to revert their experience at the unqualified position back to zero. This is irritating and time-consuming, and I only catch a handful of the actual instances where the AI does it.
I realize that the AI is going to occasionally use a player out-of-position out of necessity, but the AI should not then continue to use that player at the unqualified position in the games that follow. The AI needs the ability to realize when a player is incapable of playing a position. I don't remember this being an issue in past years and it's possible the AI behaved properly when OOTP16 was released, so I suspect this may have been broken in a patch at some point this year.
This is an easy bug to reproduce. If a league has been running for several seasons, several AI teams should have players in their lineups and depth charts who are playing at positions they're completely unqualified for and incapable of becoming qualified for.
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