low work ethic- too many players

[waltwa]

ok young man here is what i am going to offer you if you work normal too hard for a few years.

i will give you the chance to earn a contract of 125 mil over 5 years!

Now who in the world is not going to work hard in a sport where they know they have some talent and is essentially a fun sport and not bad on your long term health.

Go to a baseball game and watch the players warm up. they take it easy and look like they are having fun.

But what i notice in many online leagues (not sure of solo) is an extremely high number of players with low and very low work ethics. I follow the sf giants and also know a couple of front office people and when they talk about the players - players who do not work with a normal too high work ethic are very rare at least over the past 3-4 years. There have been a couple.

Who would expect players from relatively poor carib and south american countries to play baseball as a youngster and then being told by people and results that they have the talent to play MLB and change their lives and then have the youngster not work hard to achieve success in baseball.

Of course there are players with a lo work ethic but I believe that number would be in the 5-10% area. i see it in the 25-40% level in some online leagues.

I am not a comm. in any league but it seems that there might be some control over the number of lo WE players appearing in the draft. If not there should be.

On the other hand a really good league i am in seems to have a lower level of lo WE players (around 25%) but a very high level of uncertainty in drafting players and then seeing the expected results based on known factors such as stars, ratings etc and that I think much more accurately reflects real baseball.

Unlike the football draft baseball seems to be a sport in which it is much more difficult to predict future success and that would be a better way to structure the basic game.

Under normal settings in the game a much lower number of lo WE players and a much higher uncertainty of future success would seem to more accurately reflect actual baseball.

[Questdog]

think of the Work Ethic rating as being a relative rating to all othe ball players......so while his work ethic may not be LOW by giggilo standards, compared to the other ballplayers he doesn't quite come up to snuff.....take any group of hard working, ambitious people and half of them will be less hard working and ambitious than the other half.....

[Nunyer]

It's all relative... and without truly knowing exactly how "low" or "very low" work ethic effects the players performance and/or development then it's hard to make any definitive calls. The mathematics behind the curtain might only slightly penalize 'very low' while only slightly boosting 'very high'... Individually, the rating could have very little weight... but when combined with other factors like injuries, potential, intelligence, desire to win, etc... then maybe it can add to something substantial... but I don't think anybody outside the dev team really knows.

And while I generally try to avoid them, I've had "low" work ethic players make the Hall of Fame, so they don't all wash out or get fat and lazy. I think it's easy to point to a low work ethic guy slumping or getting hurt or not living up to expectations and drawing a conclusion... But any number of other factors can contribute.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Questdog

think of the Work Ethic rating as being a relative rating to all othe ball players......so while his work ethic may not be LOW by giggilo standards, compared to the other ballplayers he doesn't quite come up to snuff.....take any group of hard working, ambitious people and half of them will be less hard working and ambitious than the other half.....

In a large enough random group, half of the people will be of below average intelligence as well.

[waltwa]

ok lets look at 2 of the posts.

average intelligence and compared to other ballplayers. Average intelligence in a group of mensas is pretty high. It would not make sense to rate a person who has an intelligence of 130 as being low even tho it might be below average.

As a coach if u look at the players on your team and rate Hunter Pence as your hardest working player you would then not look at the 25th player and rate him with a low work ethic if the guy works hard but not quite as hard as the other 24.

I "think" a low work ethic and esp very low (in OOTP) means a player is not a hard worker in any group. I notice in a draft that these players are universally avoided esp by GM's who have experience in OOTP. what i have specifically noticed is either not achieving their ratings potential or dropping off quickly if they do.

I don't think a low work ethic is a relative rating but rather specifically identifies that player as being somewhat lazy.

I don't think the low WE rating should be abolished i just know that i find in some drafts it could be up to 50% and that simply is not realistic in a sport where working hard can almost be explained as working hard to have more fun and more $.

On the other hand i do think it is very realistic to have a fairly high rate of 1st round failures simply because in baseball it is harder to predict success.

What i would think is that in a normal draft the low work ethic would be 5-15% of the players but if a Comm wants to increase that number then maybe there could be (and maybe already is) a way to increase the number of Lo WE players.

another way of thinking is this. when i see Lo or very lo WE immediately w/o thinking I move on the the next player in a trade block or draft. No thinking necessary. However in a league i mentioned that has a seemingly hi rate of 1st round failure not based on work ethic i look at every rating possible in order to make the best decision possible and still wind up picking a failure. that to me is more realistic and makes a league more fun altho i don't laugh when i see my 5 star 1st rounder wind up at 24 as a guy with 1.5 stars and potential ratings of 5-5-4.

One last point is that it might make more sense to have a higher %age of lo WE players in lesser ability than in the early rounds of the draft.

[Questdog]

If you were making a game based on Mensa, would it make sense to rate every member of the group as high intelligence?.....how would you differentiate between the players' IQ's.....some would have to be rated as LOW intelligence compared to the other geniuses, even though they would still be smarter than the average bear.....

In our game there are players listed as VERY HIGH intelligence, but that does not mean that they would be equal to the Mensa members with VERY HIGH intelligence.....a smart ball player is not the same as a smart physicist......

besides the fact that the prejudice against players with LOW personality traits is overdone.......

[nebradska]

Welcome to Lake Woebegone, where the men are all strong, the women are all pretty, and all the baseball players have an above average work ethic.

[waltwa]

I would agree that almost all ballplayers have an above average work ethic.

Why would a player who has spent his young life imagining himself as a 1b for the NYY and now is actually in the system and has a chance to win the lottery decide not too work hard.

Of course there are the exceptions but i think they are somewhat rare in baseball because this is what the hard work is

1. go to the gym and workout. Have u been to a gym recently? there are a lot of non-athletic men looking at a lot of athletic women. Wow that would be a tough assignment.

2. go to the batting cage and workon your swing. Ugh that's no fun! I want to sit on the couch and watch tv

3. work on developing a slider. Oh no i am 22 but i refuse to miss the Oprah show. I want to watch afternoon tv and eat candy.

My point is its not hard too work hard playing baseball. Most of the things we would think of as work are actually fun.

I am not against a league having lo WE players but i don't think its realistic (25-50%) and from my observation gm's pass them by until they are clearly ratings better than the next best guy. I just think that when you have 25-50% of the players as low its too high particularly in the early rounds of a draft.

Also notice how many low WE players are on the block and how long they stay there.

Once again i think it should be an option (and may be) as to how many of these guys u want in the system. If u think its relative than have a lot. If u think it actually means they are lazy like i do then it should be only a few.

I am actually going to post this in another way. That is what does lo We mean. is it a relative term or is it a definitive term signifyng laziness.

[Questdog]

My point is that it is a relative term......however, I am certain that there are quite a few major league players who would fall under anyone's definition of low work ethic.....to those of us on the outside, it seems ridiculous to think that someone wouldn't work as hard as possible to maintain their status in the eilte group......however, people obviously do behave in ways that don't make sense....like actuall lottery winners going broke and men with perfect wives screwing around and Israelites worshiping a golden calf when they had the pillar of smoke leading them all they way and hall of fame quarterbacks sending pictures of their privates to women they don't know so that everyone forgets what a great player they were and football teams who only need to take a knee to win the game deciding to hand the ball off and losing on a fumble return for a touchdown and men who continue to date women who bite very hard and on and on......

[waltwa]

I went to my solo league and sure enough it is a relative term. It is based on 200 points. Hunter pence who is a known hard worker is 145 and pablo is 65. I dispute that a little. Pablo is a fairly hard worker but works way too hard at the dinner table.

Being a relative term it would be great in online leagues if we could see the actual WE rating

if it is something like 175-200 very hard

125-175 hard

75-125 - normal

50-75 - low

0-50 very low

i automatically skip lo WE players but if i could see on a chart that they are close to 75 i might be tempted to select or trade for a player.

Another way might be too have a couple of more classifications such as above average and below average.

My initial complaint was that there was way too many LO We players. I think that the game should either increase the number of normal players and reduce the lo WE players or make the actual numerical factor known in online leagues or simply add a couple of classifications to make it easier to draft or trade for a player.

[RchW]

People don't always choose not to work hard. I think you miss the point with this.

Originally Posted by waltwa

I would agree that almost all ballplayers have an above average work ethic.

Why would a player who has spent his young life imagining himself as a 1b for the NYY and now is actually in the system and has a chance to win the lottery decide not too work hard.

Of course there are the exceptions but i think they are somewhat rare in baseball because this is what the hard work is

It's quite obvious that many highly talented people will appear to have low work ethic relative to their particular group. Why should they work hard? Someone who makes MLB at 19 or 20 does so strictly on monster talent and probably hasn't had any need to work hard yet. Work ethic and experience go hand in hand. The key feature with young talented players is do they realize that talent got them to the show but hard work will keep them there once their talent plateau's, and the opposition exploits flaws. Hard work if necessary but not necessarily hard work.

Something else that must be included is that an outsiders view of hard work is often meaningless. Smart people work efficiently and don't necessarily have to work as hard as observers think. I'm often suspicious of the 24/7 hard workers, a lot of it is for show. OTOH many people who are efficient get labled as lazy because they do difficult things easily and very well.

Consider Miguel Cabrera and David Eckstein. Who do you think worked harder in their first 3 MLB seasons? Which of the two worked harder in the minor leagues?

[waltwa]

Probably David eckstein. So he gets a very hi rating and Cabrera gets a below average rating or worse. Now looking at the 2players now I would take cab but in a drafting situation in ootp I might take eckstein but the ratings difference would play a role. If cab was a 5 and eck was a 1then I would take the plunge and take cab . But if. They were say 3 to 4 in pot ratings i would probably take eckstein.

I coached football most of my life and I think that accounts for some of my aversion too lo work ethic players but I do think the ootp game is structured to penalize lo work ethics players. Otherwise why would they bother to have such a rating

[RchW]

Originally Posted by waltwa

Probably David eckstein. So he gets a very hi rating and Cabrera gets a below average rating or worse. Now looking at the 2players now I would take cab but in a drafting situation in ootp I might take eckstein but the ratings difference would play a role. If cab was a 5 and eck was a 1then I would take the plunge and take cab . But if. They were say 3 to 4 in pot ratings i would probably take eckstein.

I coached football most of my life and I think that accounts for some of my aversion too lo work ethic players but I do think the ootp game is structured to penalize lo work ethics players. Otherwise why would they bother to have such a rating

Except that talent can override work ethic and work ethic can boost talent. I'm thinking that Markus has data to support this and has it implemented in the game.

[Lukas Berger]

EDIT: Sarcastic comments removed. Too much of that kind of stuff lately. I'm sorry to add more.

The players are being rated against other professional caliber players. So a low work ethic means, low work ethic for a pro ball player. Don't think some pro athletes have low work ethics? Check out the comments that Billy Beane and Steve Alford, to name only two, made about themselves as young players and why they didn't become more successful as pros. And those are two guys who actually made it to the top of their sports. So doesn't it seem reasonable that many of those who don't make it to the highest level would have even lower work ethics?

You'll also see in the rosters that high ratings are relatively rare. They're typically reserved for those who really deserve them. Most players are rated in the low to medium level of the 1-250 scale. It's the same with work ethic as with other ratings.

Further, regarding your comments about online league GM's passing up low work ethic players. If they are doing this in order to draft players with lower talent and higher work ethics, in general they'll get burned. This is actually something you could exploit. In OOTP talent will generally trump work ethic. Work ethic is a much less important trait regarding a players future development than any of the potentials are. So go for the high talent, lower work ethic players. You'll actually do better in the long run than with low talent, high work ethic guys.

For example, it would NEVER be a good idea to draft David Eckstein over Miguel Cabrera in OOTP. Not even if Eckstein had a 250 work ethic rating and Miguel had a 1. Cabrera's potential and talent is just too much higher. You can find any old player that will turn into a rough approximation of Eckstein. You'll only find a Cabrera very rarely.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Here's the fix:


Work ethic:

Very High
High
Average
Not to0 far below average
Not completely lazy