How sticky are defensive ratings?

[torpidbeaver]

If I draft a catcher with a high intelligence, leadership, and adaptability, is there any hope that he'll improve his base Catcher Ability rating? Or is it pretty much what you see is what you get?

[venflaalachi]

I've seen maybe marginal improvements but they seem pretty sticky in my games.

[torpidbeaver]

Yeah, it definitely feels like that's the case, but I don't like write down the ratings or anything when I draft and the game doesn't seem to do a great job of showing you progress or regression in any ratings besides the main ones.

Everything I've read here has said not to expect much improvement, but I wondered if anyone's seen any significant changes.

[redranger]

I’ve seen some when teaching a new position but not so much on existing positions learned

I had a high adaptability catcher that I wasn’t going to use at catcher. Low arm rating, but his bat is almost MLB ready

I tucked him down at AA to start season and forced him to play at first base. By end of June I had him at AAA and he learned 1B and rated at 50


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[Dijon-Main]

I've actually seen catcher ratings improve in this iteration of the game more so than in previous years. I had Francisco Alvarez in one save who ended up with a 60 catcher ability or something when he was projected at 45 potential in the minors. He just kept improving as he played in the big leagues, so I think it might be more achievable this year.

[Daniel_09]

I've been playing 4 versions of the game, and this year's version is the first time I've seen the C's defensive ratings increase (slightly) but that variation makes big changes.

Just playing historical simulations, Sandy Martinez (C) had during the draft and first 3 years in the minors 55 catcher ability, 50 catcher arm, resulting in a potential for the C position of 50. Once I got to AAA, I find that he increased catcher ability to 60, and catcher arm to 55 resulting in a new C potential of 60.

All with the same scout, and same coaches, managers, etc.

I have not paid much attention to other position players such as OF or IF.

[CH1MA3RA]

to piggyback on this original question...

Has anyone seen improvements to pitch types, like a CU going from a 25/30 to a 30/30 or even getting a bump to 25/40 and so on, actually shown in a scouting or player development report?

I know it's possible that individual pitches can improve, hence the POT rating for them. But I'm just not seeing these changes represented in any of the scouting/development screens and it seems like we'd have to manually write down these skills to identify any changes to them.

this same concern can also be applied to tracking the RNG/ARM/ERR/CABI (etc) for hitters, as well

[Pelican]

One thing I’ve noticed pertains to guys who caught but played multiple positions in the minor leagues. If they have decent catching skills, I set catcher as their primary position, and let them get experience behind the plate. [A cheesy shortcut is to change their experience ratings, reducing everything else, and elevating catching to 200. This will immediately improve their defense rating at catcher - at the expense of everything else!] Over time, you should see some improvement. What is hard to predict is what their ceiling is. There is no potential rating for defense. With high TCR and development on, recalc off, there is no guarantee that known guys will develop as IRL.