What are the factors in underperformance? Morale? Something else?

[Qeltar]

I have a strange situation on my team now. I had been fretting about my pitching but it's actually gelled decently. What's a mess is my hitting.

My 9 regular starters are in a strange distribution. It's like the inverse of a normal distribution:
- 3 are tearing the cover off the ball.
- 1 is doing okay.
- 4 are doing terribly, like OPS in the .500s and .600s
- 1 is like... I don't even know what. He's batting .117 and his OPS is .319

The last guy has potential but I eventually had to pull him because he was just an automatic rally killer every time he came to the plate.

These are in the 100-150 PA range.

One guy I found particularly inexplicable was my 3B, Miguel Andujar. He has a 65 contact rating but is batting .184. He had a year-long injury and came back just at the start of the season. I should have sent him for rehab but didn't realize that was an option at the time. Still, I'd expected he would turn things around by this point, yet his batting has actually been worse in May than in April so far.

I enabled commissioner mode to look at his stats. He probably isn't really 65 contact but hasn't been massively overscouted. What I did notice was a -200 or so player performance morale number.

The guy batting .117 had the same.

Could this be responsible? If so, I wonder if I am in a vicious circle here, and I'm not sure how to pull out of it. Will it correct itself over time somehow?

Where's the slot for the team psychologist? I'm not even joking.

Just curious if it is common to have players massively underperform and if anyone has any thoughts on the morale issue.

Thanks.

ETA: My hitting coach is inexperienced, says he works well with young players. His focus is power, but none of the coaches rated for contact say they have extra influence on anyone on my team.

[Déjà Bru]

Are you playing with Team Chemistry turned on? There's no way to know for sure because there are several variables involved - you mentioned a less than adequate hitting coach - but I believe Team Chemistry was doing me in for several years before I remembered to take a look at it.

Problem was, I was relying on too many young players. All of them had good ratings but many were underperforming. I had no troublemakers but I had no leaders, either. The players were actually complaining about the lack of veterans on the team.

I'm not saying that was definitely the problem but it could explain why, year after year of making deals to improve the team, they never got any better. I'm talking five seasons in a row. Finally, when I eased up on my youth movement and acquired a team captain, guys started to hit and pitch better, it seems.

This may not be your exact situation but I am mentioning Team Chemistry as one important aspect of the game that could be easily overlooked, no matter what your player and coach ratings say.

[Qeltar]

Thanks for mentioning it.

No I discovered team chemistry and how I had been neglecting it in the middle of my first season. I had no leaders at any level of my system and everyone was ticked off.

I actually traded away one of my better players, Realmuto, for a guy who was then an inferior catcher, just to get a captain on my team. I now have a "leadership squad" spread across my minor leagues to ensure good morale on a team-wide basis. I recruit chemistry-boosting minor leaguers whenever I find them and have lots of captains, sparkplugs etc. around.

My MLB team currently has a blue-green bar and "Happy" which is the highest I have ever seen it. (We are winning games which helps.) Bizarrely, I discovered that the 21-year-old Rule 5 guy I took purely as a future move -- he is not ready for MLB and only gets to play a bit -- has the "leadership" tag, a nice surprise. I also recently traded for a AAA 3B who was undervalued by his team initially purely on his ratings and then discovered before finalizing that he's also a "captain" -- thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, I decided it was time for a sports psychologist to talk to a couple of these struggling kids and help them understand that getting upset about their past performance would only make things worse. (Read: I went into commissioner mode and changed the -200 to -300 performance morale scores to more like -75 to -100.) It could be a coincidence but one of these guys had a 4 for 5 game the next day.

I generally don't like to use commissioner mode but I'm going to make exceptions for situations where I think the game mechanics aren't quite working as I'd prefer. The performance thing seems like a vicious circle, and if I demote them or try to trade them then their transaction morale will go down too, making things worse. IRL there are ways of at least somewhat dealing with these things, so I'm simulating them.

I know many people turn morale/personality off entirely but I don't want to do that, I like the dimension it adds, even if there are some weird aspects. Like my former MLB SP, who pitched like crap, whined when he was sent to the bullpen, stunk there too, got demoted to AAA, and of course now is angry. Except he still isn't pitching well. But when I look at his morale, he is "very unhappy" about transactions but his morale about performance is "normal."

Dude, if you are okay with 8 HR in 30 innings with a 1.52 WHIP and 6.82 ERA, and then giving up 7 hits and 5 earned runs in 4 innings in AAA, you have a serious problem... and so do I.

[Déjà Bru]

So it sounds like Team Chemistry might have been your problem? Because, the more I think about it, the more I think it was mine.

When I first visited this screen, the bar on the top right was orange (unhappy). I had no troublemakers, but no captain and no leaders. And in the bottom right, the complaint was that the team lacked veterans. I wish I had the before and after, but I can only offer the after.

Markus does not do things lightly. If he includes a Team Chemistry aspect in the game, you can count on it being a factor in player performance and won/loss record.

Problem is, there's a bunch of other aspects that he includes, too . . .

[Qeltar]

I think I was unclear. I fixed team chemistry in the middle of the 2018 season. It's been "Content" or higher for all of 2019, yet the guys I mentioned are hitting MUCH worse than in 2018.

My bar right now looks exactly like yours.

I suppose a slump of even 100 to 150 at-bats can happen (cough, Judge, summer 2017) but there are so many guys doing so badly...

And a .119/.159/.167 slash line... zoinks.

I cannot wait until my starting CF is off the DL.. one more week... I hope..

[Qeltar]

Also, I think this whole morale system needs to be adjusted so that players aren't such big babies about almost everything. I swear, grade school kids adjust to change better than nearly all of these so-called "professionals" the way the game is programmed right now.

Say the wrong thing negotiating a contract and they throw a hissy fit and refuse to talk to you. Move them out of a role they are clearly struggling with and they get "angry." Etc.

The idea behind the system is fine, and they definitely shouldn't enjoy being jerked around, but they should also understand that business is business and act like adults, not surly teenagers.

A perfect example is a starter of mine whom I made into a long reliever. Here are his splits. I did the guy a favor, but he's "angry." Well, too bad, the rest of the team would prefer not to be down 5 runs before they are warmed up.

This is the big leagues. You're not 17, you're 26. Grow up.

[Déjà Bru]

You know you are really getting into this game when you start talking to your players directly here in the forums.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

Also, I think this whole morale system needs to be adjusted so that players aren't such big babies about almost everything. I swear, grade school kids adjust to change better than nearly all of these so-called "professionals" the way the game is programmed right now.

Say the wrong thing negotiating a contract and they throw a hissy fit and refuse to talk to you. Move them out of a role they are clearly struggling with and they get "angry." Etc.

The idea behind the system is fine, and they definitely shouldn't enjoy being jerked around, but they should also understand that business is business and act like adults, not surly teenagers.

A perfect example is a starter of mine whom I made into a long reliever. Here are his splits. I did the guy a favor, but he's "angry." Well, too bad, the rest of the team would prefer not to be down 5 runs before they are warmed up.

This is the big leagues. You're not 17, you're 26. Grow up.

I play with real players and my view is the results of their personality and attitude is already built into the ratings.

[NoOne]

100-150pa you're not seeing the truth much, so don't weight it heavily.

the guy batting ~.100 and ~60-65contact is just having a bad 100-150pa. he may end up having a bad year, overall. if you have another ~60-65contact guy with similar defense you can play musical chairs with, by all means do so and it shouldn't hurt your chances. subbing an inferior person with a better personality/morale won't overcome any significant difference in ratings.

personality / chemistry related stuff may also influence a bit, but it's not a huge effect. i constantly have guys that are upset about their role on team and still overall content or better. they also put up stats commensurate with their ratings.

is he rookie-to-3ish years in mlb? that could be an effect too (bit of a guess on that effect). i've seen the same rated player take ~1000ab before they started putting up numbers equal to their ratings. it was an older college C draftee that was in MLB by second year. age 24 his rookie year and still took ~3* years of underperformance before he really blossomed (ignoring rookie year, ~2 years with fully developed power).

as far as team chemistry, winning will solve all ails**. also, remember it changes in small incremental ways over time. so, if you do get a "team captain", it will take time for that to have a positive effect. nothing will change immediately. i'd watch chemistry a bit. if it is trending upward, you don't have a chemistry problem even if morale is low. this will lag behind team success a bit, but it will catch up.

fine print** - assumes entire team isn't a malcontent, lol.