All Bad-Attitude Team

[SirSaab]

I hope the title isn’t misleading. I am posting because I was just thinking about what an “all bad attitude” team might look like. Just fill the roster with talented divas and see what happens. Has anybody ever (intentionally) tried it? How’d it work out?

[Sweed]

Hey, if it floats your boat knock yourself out.

My thought is you'll have something similar to the A's of the early to mid 70's that won three titles. IE talent, despite personalities, will still win.

[Swiffle]

It's something I was going to try, and had a fictional league draft completed for it, but hadn't taken it any further. Am also curious to hear stories if anyone has done this before.

[kcstengelsr]

I fiddled around with this idea for the reason of finding the proper manager type to keep in line the disgruntled, lazy, unmotivated, selfish and other clubhouse cancers.

I turned on team chemistry and made sure that player chemistry attitudes were visible. I picked some team already in trouble and traded away all their captains, leaders, and other positive fellows for selfish and lazy guys.

What I wanted to find out is whether such a batch of hotheads and malcontents could avoid some out of control clubhouse under for example a no nonsense taskmaster or some friendly pastoral manager. In most cases such a bad chemical team will quickly boil over unless one thing happens--they have to win and win often.

Typically a team with no good chemistry will soon be looking for a new manager and eventually a new general manager, but it was fun trying to create some all bad attitude team.

[Syd Thrift]

IME just seeing teams with bad actors on them, in OOTP if you're contending you'll never see chemistry come into play but if that same chemistry makeup finds its way onto a team that's losing 90 games, you'll get a couple guys straight up ask to be traded and many/most of the team will be rated as unhappy. Wins and losses are huge.

One thing - maybe this is two things - I'd like to see more of is in FM there is that "Determination" rating that I think goes into how quickly a player will "bail out" on a game or a season that is going awry. I think baseball doesn't have this so much because the game has so many stats and such a long legacy with those stats that a guy's not really going to give up at the plate so much because his future earnings and future in baseball are so directly tied to those numbers (maybe you could see a player with a high Desire for Winning Team - that's the number I've decided is the stand-in - could slough off in the field specifically, I don't know). Still, one thing that happens in FM is that low-Determination players are happy to be on teams with other low-Determination players but don't like being with high-Determination guys and vice versa.

In OOTP terms every personality trait is either good for chemistry or bad for chemistry when in reality chemistry is, well, chemistry: some combinations work well together, some do not.

[kcstengelsr]

Team chemistry is an interesting concept but I usually turn it off for historical replays. The AI GM's do strange things with bad attitude ballplayers, sometimes not even offering them contracts even if they usually put up good numbers. Also I wonder about some of the assignments of bad attitude--one time I was doing the late 50's Braves but for some reason they could not play close to reality as "Hank Aaron" was listed as unmotivated.

I also wonder if attitudes of players can change over the course of several seasons. Can certain but not many managers or coaches light a fire under the seats of lazy or selfish guys or are said players locked in with chips on their shoulders so changing managers and coaches makes little difference?

[koohead]

Agree with Sweed and Syd...if the team is winning (talented enough) the personalities will have little impact. It is when the team struggles that the attitudes come out and riffs happen in the clubhouse. Players start calling each other out...people start asking for trades...that sort of thing. Winning keeps the grumpiest of players happy.

[Pelican]

My suspicion is that money can make clubhouse friction and bad attitudes disappear. When you get one of those in-season messages from a player fishing for an extension, and you negotiate a generous deal for a good player, he will often show a burst of enthusiasm on the field. If you have a clubhouse of supposed malcontents with good contracts (in other words, a wealthy team and a generous owner), they may all seem a lot happier, and play better. Whereas a team of underpaid gamers facing free agency may fall apart.