Challenge Mode - Convert to Starting Pitcher

[Glennf66]

Is there a way to convert a relief pitcher to a starter in Challenge Mode?

I'm in the 1987 season and pitchers like Kevin Brown, Jack McDowell, John Smiley and David Wells all came into the game as relievers with less than 30/100 stamina.

If one of these pitchers was on my team, is there anything I can do to raise their stamina?

Thank you

[Brad K]

I only looked up Wells but he started only two games his first three years in MLB. He averaged about 1 2/3 innings per appearance. How is it justified to change his rating?

This is exactly the sort of thing challenge mode is intended to prevent. What's the point of comparing your achievements against others when the real difference might be who is more effective at gaming the ratings?

[Glennf66]

Nobody's trying to, "Game the system."

I'm just trying to turn a relief pitcher (Who shouldn't be a relief pitcher) into what they should be, a starting pitcher.

Why the game had pitchers like Wells, Smiley, Kevin Brown and Jack McDowell, among others, come in as relievers is beyond me. And if they were drafted as relievers in real life, they were converted to starters at some point in real life. Just wondering if the same real thing can be done in this simulation.

I have zero desire to cheat in this challenge mode. I have never, and will never, play the deck building, microtransaction card game thing. And I deeply regret ever starting my playthrough in challenge mode. But, I'm in too far to start over at this point.

[quillenl]

You can't fix them, but you can address the issue going forward. Player generate is probably set for Stamina = 3 years... you will need to set that to Career. it is not intuitively obvious since Challenge Mode is not recalc and most only mess with that setting during recalc. Players like Phil Niekro, Ron Guidry, and others will generate as Career relief pitchers every time (as you are seeing) without changing it. If not familiar with this setting, check the right hand side of the Historical Tab.

You can change this in your current game, but you can't fix players already generated. That setting for Stamina and the one above it for Fielding are the first two things I fix in any new Challenge mode.

There ARE situations where people will want to set 3 years for Stamina / fielding in non recalc games... but it kind of blows when you are knee deep in a game prior to realizing it's set in a Challenge Mode game.

[Glennf66]

Thank you for the tips. Much appreciated.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Glennf66

Nobody's trying to, "Game the system."

I'm just trying to turn a relief pitcher (Who shouldn't be a relief pitcher) into what they should be, a starting pitcher.

The stats say he should be a RP at this point. If you don't like this then don't play challenge mode (where the intention is that you compare your results to others on a level playing field rather than one where players can be altered).

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Glennf66

I have zero desire to cheat in this challenge mode. I have never, and will never, play the deck building, microtransaction card game thing. And I deeply regret ever starting my playthrough in challenge mode. But, I'm in too far to start over at this point.

Cut your losses. Challenge mode is not for you. Its not for me either. I got into the non challenge mode habit back when OOTP generated random L/R splits and I wanted real ones for my players.

[Marinersfan51]

Originally Posted by Brad K

The stats say he should be a RP at this point. If you don't like this then don't play challenge mode (where the intention is that you compare your results to others on a level playing field rather than one where players can be altered).

I think he's playing a non-recalc career play game, so none of them will ever become starters in their career with those ratings. Also Brown and McDowell didn't pitch a single MLB game in relief early in their careers, so they shouldn't be relievers (they only had a handful of appearances through 87/88, so their small innings totals might be what's causing it).

That said, I agree that the answer is to just never play in challenge mode. All it does is prevent you from fixing things if they break.

I often forget to set the fielding ratings to full career and that leads to funny outcomes like Carlos Delgado and Paul Konerko playing their whole careers at catcher.