Played 1st season, am in 2nd season---some questions I could use help with, please.

[Augetout]

What I did to start a league, was to dump all of the players from 1981 into a free agent draft, and start my Milwaukee Brewers franchise.

I played each of my team's games, having the league sim the rest of the games.

I acted as manager, and general manager, and cannot be fired (seems like a lot of work to exist at the whim of an AI owner, imho).

Questions that have been raised so far that I could use some help with:

I drafted a minor league player by the name of Willie McGee, with high hopes of bringing him to the majors in 1982 as a future gold glover in CENTERFIELD. His ratings, though were only for leftfield and rightfield. No problem, I said, and edited McGee so that he was a centerfielder with 200 games experience----his rating in centerfield only went to 6. No problem, he spent all of 1981 in the minors, playing centerfield---that should fix the problem, but at the end of the year, he's still a 6. Upon being promoted to the majors, he is now a "---" The question is: How do I fix him so he can play centerfield??

I should point out that I went with a 0-100 player ratings scale, figuring it would make it easier on my pre-sabermetrics, stratomatic/newspaper boxscore experience with baseball.

2nd question: I went with 'career arc' for player development, and while I'm not griping about statistical outliers (Milt May leading the league at a .380 clip, for example), I am wondering why my beloved Paul Molitor is still struggling to surpass .260 in 1+ seasons, among other things. The (now long-winded) question is: What setting should I have used to avoid things like Dave Stieb blowing his arm out for 15 months when he was picked in large part due to his durability? Perhaps it was just an injuries setting...

3rd question: Does how I use a pitcher effect his stamina ratings? The reason I ask is because I have made it my goal not to abuse my starting pitchers, by limiting them to 100ish pitches per start (also because not knowing when they are getting tired until too late gave me a choice of chewing up a bullpen with warmup pitches, or having too many innings go bad due to surprise tired pitchers).

All in all I believe it is a great game----more challenging than replaying a stratomatic season, due to the ability to change more variables, etc.

[Augetout]

And thanks ahead of time.

[ttaka808]

1. Based on his fielding ratings, his highest possible rating in CF was probably 6. Then, his skills probably declined, losing the skill to play CF all together.
2. Idk, never used career arcs before.
3. Pitching usage does not affect the stamina rating although it does affect the amount of stamina that they have currently (shown as a percent) and over usage can also cause injury.

[Augetout]

Looks like #3 is answered, thanks. My mind is put at ease on this point.

Going back to question #1, (how do I fix Willie McGee so he can play centerfield?), I sincerely hope his max rating at centerfield is not '6', given he won 3 Gold Glove awards at that position, ('83, '85, and '86).

[TGH-Adfabre]

When did McGee start playing center? Did he play CF in '81 & '82?

[Augetout]

When McGee came up to the Redbirds in '82, he played mostly centerfield, (Lonnie Smith spent most of his time in leftfield, for the Cardinals in '82).

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Augetout

When McGee came up to the Redbirds in '82, he played mostly centerfield, (Lonnie Smith spent most of his time in leftfield, for the Cardinals in '82).

If you use 1 yr recalc. McGee will have CF ratings for the season he played CF. If you use 3 yr then it tends to drop his ratings for a position he played sparingly. Despite the fact he played many games in CF, that doesn;t mean he should be a 10. He didn;t have a great arm which will lessen his ratings.

[Augetout]

Originally Posted by The Game

If you use 1 yr recalc. McGee will have CF ratings for the season he played CF. If you use 3 yr then it tends to drop his ratings for a position he played sparingly. Despite the fact he played many games in CF, that doesn;t mean he should be a 10. He didn;t have a great arm which will lessen his ratings.

Thanks for the advice. I will have to check (when I get home from work) which recalc I used. Just to be clear, the 6 rating which is now a '---' is on a 0-100 scale. I am not concerned that his ratings are not gold glove quality so much as I am concerned that they are basically nonexistent and (thus far) not fixable via editing.

I would love to get McGee's CF ratings fixed so that I can take advantage of Willie Wilson's LF ratings, (and to make room for Vince Coleman in a year or 2, in LF).

[Augetout]

I could still use some help on the first 2 questions:

1. How do I fix/edit Willie McGee's CF rating so I can actually play him where he spent most of his time while in the Majors?

2. I have hall of fame player Paul Molitor (and have since 1981) in 1982----his average continues to significantly lag behind his actual career numbers. Was the choice of 'career arc' the reason behind this? If not, and given his morale is good and he is protected in the order and all that, can/should I expect him to get to his career averages soon, or is it possible he will always be a .250ish hitter in my alternate universe?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Augetout

I could still use some help on the first 2 questions:

1. How do I fix/edit Willie McGee's CF rating so I can actually play him where he spent most of his time while in the Majors?

2. I have hall of fame player Paul Molitor (and have since 1981) in 1982----his average continues to significantly lag behind his actual career numbers. Was the choice of 'career arc' the reason behind this? If not, and given his morale is good and he is protected in the order and all that, can/should I expect him to get to his career averages soon, or is it possible he will always be a .250ish hitter in my alternate universe?

1. You'll have to go into commissioner mode and edit McGee so that his CF experience is higher (you can just put this all the way up to 200 to be safe).

Also check that none of his three fielding component ratings is so low that they're preventing him from having a CF rating.

The cutoff is different for each rating. For range, it probably needs to be around 100 or higher, error and arm probably at least 50-60 or higher but you can experiment to find out the exact cutoff spot.

2. Career arc probably has little to do with this.

This mostly depends on what recalc you're using or indeed if you're using recalc at all and also what proportion of value you give to stats vs ratings in the ai section.

If you're using either recalc, Molitor should eventually revert to more of a historically accurate performance.

If you aren't using recalc, and the game engine is in control, he may or may not revert, depending on where his ratings are at, his performance and some randomness.

[Augetout]

I am starting to believe that I would be best served by starting the whole thing over, as my 'research' before I bought the game and started the league seems to have missed some significant variable.

Thanks for the help.