Learning a new position

[Aeon]

I am going to share what I know about players learning new positions, hopefully it helps someone. I got so frustrated to not find a good thread outlining how players learning a new position works, so I did my own tests and read through the OOTP manuals. If anyone knows more about this topic, please do add on.

- A player can not learn 2B/3B/SS if they are throw L.

- Players gain XP in a position by playing innings and making plays in that position. Players gain XP by simply playing a position, but making plays is the fastest way to gain XP.

- The closer a player is to the max XP for a position, the slower the XP gain is.

- Higher Intelligence/Work Ethic/Adaptability = Faster learning rate, and low personality ratings = Slower learning rate.

- Some positions are easier to learn than others, from easiest/fastest to hardest/slowest is as follows: 1B - LF - RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C

- Catcher is significantly more difficult than any other position to fully learn.

- I have read from forums that Coaching staff helps learning rate, which makes sense, but I have not tested that theory. It is unclear from reading the official OOTP manuals whether bench and base coaches only help maintain and improve fielding attributes, or if they help improve learning rate as well.

[TribeFan19]

Spring Training is a great time to get players experience at a new position. The experience gain appears accelerated as well. Having flexibility on your roster is a big asset even with your star players.

[Charlie Hough]

Thanks, Aeon, for starting this thread. It's vital information for people new to the game or wanting to help players learn new positions. I have copied this information into my permanent OOTP files, and hopefully we will see more people contribute to your findings.

[Brad K]

In historical games an OF will not be able to learn IF unless he played IF real life and not until the time in his career when he played IF. Same with teaching an IF to play OF. Neither IF nor OF can learn C unless they played it real life. Within the categories of IF and OF, the defensive spectrum applies.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Brad K

In historical games an OF will not be able to learn IF unless he played IF real life and not until the time in his career when he played IF. Same with teaching an IF to play OF. Neither IF nor OF can learn C unless they played it real life. Within the categories of IF and OF, the defensive spectrum applies.

This is only true if recal is on. With it turned off then they are stuck with the ratings they have. IE Babe Ruth only becomes a batter with recal on.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

This is only true if recal is on. With it turned off then they are stuck with the ratings they have. IE Babe Ruth only becomes a batter with recal on.

Correct. I forgot about that. I gave up dev only after one short try for that reason.

[Pdubya64]

Good stuff Aeon.

I would add the following:

Low Intelligence is only detrimental to your team in that the player in question learns slower and I assume get less developmental career chances at breakthroughs or "light bulb" moments.

Low Work Ethic however, is doubly bad. It's bad for the player himself obviously as he just doesn't want to put in the work. But he is also OOTP's version of a "clubhouse cancer" in that they negatively influence your other players on the team.
You really don't want these guys on your roster; in my opinion anywhere. Even in the minors they take up playing time or money that can be much better spent elsewhere. I avoid like the plague as running a team is hard enough w/o this added headache.
Perhaps others here can offer their experiences with low work ethic.

[Hrycaj]

I'm not sure if this is still true or not but I seem to remember when it came to learning a new position in spring training the player had to start the game to get experience. If they came in as a pinch hitter later it did not work. If they started however, and if memory serves didn't even play the field that day they still received exp. Anyone remember anything like this?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

I'm not sure if this is still true or not but I seem to remember when it came to learning a new position in spring training the player had to start the game to get experience. If they came in as a pinch hitter later it did not work. If they started however, and if memory serves didn't even play the field that day they still received exp. Anyone remember anything like this?

I'm pretty positive that players get credit for playing in spring training whether they start or not. In the regular season you get a relatively small amount of experience, period, and it *feels* like what it is is innings- based, so if you use a guy as a late-inning replacement it'll barely move the needle, but my experience in ST is that guys get trained up pretty quickly and, if you set them up as utility guys, they get trained up at multiple positions.

[Pelican]

How, if at all is learning a new position impacted by the part of the ratings that allocates experience by position on the 0-200 scale?

I don’t know what the effect of those numbers are; although by experimenting I have seen that increasing experience at a position causes a corresponding modest increase in the fielding rating. I gather while acting as Commissioner one could change a zero to 200 at a position, thus “cheesing”. the outcome and accelerating the process described here as learning the position. I would rather have the player learn.

I have changed the position experience numbers to “direct” the AI to use a player at his primary - or preferred - position. In a way, that guarantees more fielding experience at that position, and should lead to a higher fielding rating. For example, for guys that typically played some OF, 1B, 3B as well as C, but with good basic C skills, I have changed C to 200, and either reduced or eliminated the other positions. So the player will get the experience, but still has to learn the position.

Thoughts?

[MathBandit]

Originally Posted by Pelican

How, if at all is learning a new position impacted by the part of the ratings that allocates experience by position on the 0-200 scale?

I don’t know what the effect of those numbers are; although by experimenting I have seen that increasing experience at a position causes a corresponding modest increase in the fielding rating. I gather while acting as Commissioner one could change a zero to 200 at a position, thus “cheesing”. the outcome and accelerating the process described here as learning the position. I would rather have the player learn.

I have changed the position experience numbers to “direct” the AI to use a player at his primary - or preferred - position. In a way, that guarantees more fielding experience at that position, and should lead to a higher fielding rating. For example, for guys that typically played some OF, 1B, 3B as well as C, but with good basic C skills, I have changed C to 200, and either reduced or eliminated the other positions. So the player will get the experience, but still has to learn the position.

Thoughts?

I could be misunderstanding, but if you change experience at a position to 200, then haven't you just edited the player to fully learn it? That's what learning a new position is; them gaining that experience.

[LuScorpio68]

Originally Posted by Pdubya64

Good stuff Aeon.

I would add the following:

Low Intelligence is only detrimental to your team in that the player in question learns slower and I assume get less developmental career chances at breakthroughs or "light bulb" moments.

Low Work Ethic however, is doubly bad. It's bad for the player himself obviously as he just doesn't want to put in the work. But he is also OOTP's version of a "clubhouse cancer" in that they negatively influence your other players on the team.
You really don't want these guys on your roster; in my opinion anywhere. Even in the minors they take up playing time or money that can be much better spent elsewhere. I avoid like the plague as running a team is hard enough w/o this added headache.
Perhaps others here can offer their experiences with low work ethic.

In my experience, the biggest impact I've seen with low work ethic is with player development in the minors. I don't recruit free agents myself for my minor league squads, so a lot of the time, there will be low work ethic guys in some of the teams, especially at the lower levels. It creates a negative environment in the locker-room and leads to a lot of losses, which leads to a lot of unhappiness from individual prospects, and it even leads to some "safe" prospects flaming out.
However, in the upper levels (AA and especially AAA), I don't really have those types of players, and the locker-rooms and team records are much better for it. I've seen a ton of guys who had lost some of their initial potential finding it again once they reached those levels if they had the chance (like some guys who had a poor OPS+ in the lower levels would suddenly have a 120 OPS+ in their first year in AAA).

I can't really tell in terms of the majors because I avoid low work ethic players like the plague. The only time I had one on my team was to trade him on the same day I acquired him.

[Pdubya64]

Thanks for the input LuScorpio, nice to know.

[kq76]

If we're all avoiding low work ethic players like the plague (I am too), I wonder if there should possibly be some upside to them, like maybe they should only be created with higher ratings.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by kq76

If we're all avoiding low work ethic players like the plague (I am too), I wonder if there should possibly be some upside to them, like maybe they should only be created with higher ratings.

I strive for this my real-life job performance. Lazy, but still rated exceptionally high

[Sweed]

I'll be that guy and say if you are disqualifying players because of low work ethic you are missing out on some pretty good players. I have three on my MLB team and they are all doing quite well. I do have good leadership, with two captains and, IIRC, 4 leaders, and a winning record.

If I look at qualified league leaders, from a just completed season, and sort by >= 2.5 WAR (number chosen out of thin air) I find..

81 total batters, 14 batters have low WE (17.28%). 8 are 3.0 or above. Top three: 5.3, 4.0, 3.9

47 total starting pitchers, 6 starting pitchers have low WE (12.76%). 4 are 3.0 or above. Top three: 5.7, 4.7, 4.0. Relievers don't make the list as they don't average 1 inning per game played.

In context with WAR leaders from both leagues...

AL Batters: 7.3, 6.2, 5.8.. NL Batters: 9.9, 9.3, 7.1
AL Pitchers: 6.9, 6.1, 5.7(has low WE)... NL Pitchers: 5.9, 5.7, 5.4

I don't know how much low WE players at low level minors pull down the team, though I do believe that having "a lot" of them on one team would not be a good thing. I certainly haven't looked at it deeply like LuScorpio68. What I do know is these low WE players that are doing fine in the MLB came through the minors. Sure avoiding low WE/low skill players makes a lot of sense. Ignoring all without taking into account their abilities, not so much IMHO.

Originally Posted by kq76

If we're all avoiding low work ethic players like the plague (I am too), I wonder if there should possibly be some upside to them, like maybe they should only be created with higher ratings.

There already is an upside for low WE players, that have skills. No need to change the player creation model to try to what, talk users into using low WE players? Users are free to evaluate low WE players now and base decisions on an individual basis or ignore them out of hand.

[kq76]

I was thinking the obvious answer to my question was going to be something along the lines of: but how do you know they're not already?

I'm not really advocating for their ratings to be increased at creation, I was just posing the question.

And obviously not "all" users are going to avoid players with low WE (that was just hyperbole on my part), some users are going to go for them. I do however wonder what % of us avoid them like the plague.

The reason I avoid them doesn't even have to do with performance or development. I play the game more as a story than as a challenge and since lazy co-workers drive me nuts IRL, I choose to turn my nose up at them in the game as well.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by kq76

I was thinking the obvious answer to my question was going to be something along the lines of: but how do you know they're not already?

I'm not really advocating for their ratings to be increased at creation, I was just posing the question.

And obviously not "all" users are going to avoid players with low WE (that was just hyperbole on my part), some users are going to go for them. I do however wonder what % of us avoid them like the plague.

The reason I avoid them doesn't even have to do with performance or development. I play the game more as a story than as a challenge and since lazy co-workers drive me nuts IRL, I choose to turn my nose up at them in the game as well.

And I appreciate all of that.

Sure I understand "all" is almost never really "all", though we've had users (not you) post things like "OOTP is unrealistic because x has never happened in a real game" only to shown many examples of "x" happening.

So, as the thread appeared to be going down a low work ethic is always bad path I thought I'd give a counter argument using data instead of opinion. I think many times new users read a thread like this and go away with the idea that the opinion being discussed is the "gospel", leading to "well I read somewhere" type posts down the line. So just trying to post something to balance the discussion for anyone that may read the thread. Nothing more.

[Pdubya64]

Yeah Sweed, my position is strictly from a "sounds like a bad idea" hip shot, no real objective data to support it. I have to admit there have been a number of times in the draft I have been tempted to take a player other teams pass over...

Which is another angle- have you guys noticed even the AI teams tend to avoid some but not all low work ethic draft players? I guess that is another reason I wasn't talked out of it.
Open to reexamining if the guy is otherwise a good risk. Appreciate the viewpoints guys. This stuff is valuable if for no other reason than there is no real "book" on some OOTP game stuff.

Getting back to the OPs subject of position changing/training, I tend to go through the minors after assuming the GM role and fiddle around with the promising prospects by changing their position and observing the results. This is actually one area I wish OOTP would have all the positions Overall/Potential for a player somewhere as a summary so you wouldn't have to go through the manual process. It does work, just time-intensive.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Pdubya64

Yeah Sweed, my position is strictly from a "sounds like a bad idea" hip shot, no real objective data to support it. I have to admit there have been a number of times in the draft I have been tempted to take a player other teams pass over...

Which is another angle- have you guys noticed even the AI teams tend to avoid some but not all low work ethic draft players? I guess that is another reason I wasn't talked out of it.
Open to reexamining if the guy is otherwise a good risk. Appreciate the viewpoints guys. This stuff is valuable if for no other reason than there is no real "book" on some OOTP game stuff.

Getting back to the OPs subject of position changing/training, I tend to go through the minors after assuming the GM role and fiddle around with the promising prospects by changing their position and observing the results. This is actually one area I wish OOTP would have all the positions Overall/Potential for a player somewhere as a summary so you wouldn't have to go through the manual process. It does work, just time-intensive.

You can build a view I'm lucky enough to have room for stats too, but most screens, I think, would allow having all positions with current and potential.