Not exactly sure how the AI maneuvered itself into this corner, but crack is wack

[uruguru]

Hammerin' Hank is now a fixture at second base, where the editor shows him literally capped out at 7 (on a scale of 1-200).


This season (1970) is apparently the second time he's done this. He was the team's full time 2B in 1967 as well and, according to a save I just created that season, his infield skills in that year were just as atrocious.

This is a mystery.

[uruguru]

ok, I think I figured this out already!

I am playing with fielding ratings set at "current season". My sim started at 1962 and Hank Aaron in every season afterwards NEVER played 2B in the real world in any of those seasons.

If you start a 1962 season with fielding set to current season, Aaron's experience at 2B is set to 0 -- which means the AI will never attempt to play there.

But if you then go to League Settings and set fielding to "entire career", it will re-rate Aaron at 2B... because he is then rated well enough to play 2B... and it gives him 200 experience at the position.

ok, great. You can play him at 2B with "entire career" fielding ratings. that's legit..

But if you go back to league settings and change the fielding back to "current season", it properly adjusts his ratings back down (so that he's a terrible 2B).... BUT IT LEAVES HIM WITH 200 EXPERIENCE AT THE POSITION.

And then that signals to the AI that Hank Aaron can be played at 2B, even if he's terrible at it. But he's such a good hitter, his overall rating at 2B will be better than other 2B.

So, I think this is a problem with fielding experience not resetting properly when you switch how your fielding ratings are determined. And I suspect that this is also related to the recent change that allows players to "remember" their fielding experience even when they recalc to a new historical season.

I honestly think this is what is happening. I'll submit a bug report.

[Garlon]

This is not a bug. Players will retain their experience at a position with recalc but their component ratings will change for range/arm/error over time based on their historical ratings. Aaron did play 2B early in his career but later in his career he does not have the component infield ratings to be effective there defensively.

By having the players hold on to their experience it allows you to move a player from LF to RF without them being atrocious defensively or move a player from SS to 2B without them being awful too. This was a big problem when the game was released this year where you just could not assemble a legitimate team because of these issues.

If you are playing with real lineups and transactions and fielding based on current year, then the experience will actually reset each season accordingly.

This is not a bug.

Why that team decided to use Aaron at 2B, I do not know. Did they have any other 2Bmen available? This is not something I see in my games with players that far out of position unless a team has no other options available. Teams will also generally make trades to acquire depth at positions, so perhaps you have trades off? If you look at the 1970 team that might be Billy Williams in LF and Roberto Clemente in RF. Where should Aaron play?

[LansdowneSt]

He played a game at 2B in 1967, a game in 1966 and some in 1964 per BBR so some after 1962 but most in 1955. And, yeah, the entire career will grab those 43 games of 2B and give some experience there. The infield stats should be terrible there. Appropriately enough.

Not sure why is sticking if you go back to Current. Did you try recalcing on the Historical tab, League Settings, lower right once you went to Current for the second time?

[uruguru]

sorry didn't see the replies here. I replied to the bug report.

Just for the record, I still have the active save in 1970. If I remove Hank Aaron's 200 experience at 2B, the game immediately shifts him to 1B (kicking out Mike Epstein) and puts 2.5 star Lou Klimchock at 2B. So this is clearly not a situation of the AI saying, "well I have no one else to play at 2B so I might as well put Hank Aaron there."

And if I remove his experience at 1B (which btw he should rightly have at this point in his career), the AI puts 4.0 star Mike Epstein back at 1B and Aaron goes to LF -- kicking Bernie Carbo out of the starting OF.


And finally, just to give you an idea of the power of Aaron's bat and its ability to completely override the AI's positioning logic... if I give Aaron 200 experience at Shortstop (=1 rating in the editor), it puts Aaron at SS and Denis Menke rides the bench.

The moral of the story is that experience at the most terrible position possible (like Aaron at SS) with a great hitter will break the positioning AI. So this bug where toggling the league settings can give out experience, in error, to a bad position, could have significant downstream effects.

And since fielding ratings are recalced every season, having experience at a formerly good position that was abandoned by the real-world player will cause similar effects.

This won't be a problem for catchers transitioning to fielding positions because the default catcher ratings for non-catchers are 0. Which means the position rating will remain 0 and the AI would never play them at catcher even if they have 200 experience there.

But default ratings for infielders and outfielders are small, but not zero, so guys like Pete Rose who moved between IF and OF in their career could get really screwed by this logic.

[LansdowneSt]

Has the game been playing him there for a while? So, he earned the experience over the years? If he did that, he won't forget the experience. Afterall, it experience. But 200 is a lot of time invested. He won't get 2B-like skills from it. But one can be an experienced, terrible 2B. I mean, we all saw Offerman play the position.

Anyway, if he earned the time there, then he gets the experience. Just a judgement issue of offense v defense. On the historical tab in league settings, on the lefthand side is it real life stats or AI evaluation?

[Garlon]

Again, I play 1871-2023 games and do not see this happening at all with players being used out of position regardless of their offensive ability.

Guys like Pete Rose can have accurate ratings at Infield and Outfield throughout their career, no logic issues there.

Something got fouled up with your game when you toggled the fielding.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Has the game been playing him there for a while? So, he earned the experience over the years? If he did that, he won't forget the experience. Afterall, it experience. But 200 is a lot of time invested. He won't get 2B-like skills from it. But one can be an experienced, terrible 2B. I mean, we all saw Offerman play the position.

Anyway, if he earned the time there, then he gets the experience. Just a judgement issue of offense v defense. On the historical tab in league settings, on the lefthand side is it real life stats or AI evaluation?

The sim started in 1962.

Hank played 1 game (2 innings) in 1966 presumably as some sort of a substition. Nothing wrong there! That year, the Braves started Ray Oyler (98 gs) and Ron Hunt (64 gs) at 2B.

But in 1967 he started 122 games there for 1076.1 innings. Oyler and Hunt were still on the team, but reduced to 21 and 16 gs, respectively. The team had acquired Roberto Clemente and he was installed in RF.

While it is easy to think "oh that makes sense", we have to remember that Aaron was completely unrated at 2B by this point so he was basically sent to be a butcher at 2B because he had played there 12 years ago. Does that make any sense at all? I would suggest that perhaps the AI made the trade because it wrongly considered Aaron an option at 2B. He was in no way suited for everyday starting. He had an atrocious -24.2 Zone Rating at 2B that year.

In 1968, OF Don Lock was sent to the bench, making room for Aaron in LF. Denis Menke took his spot at 2B. Aaron did not play an inning at 2B.

In 1969, OF Billy Williams joined the team (crap no wonder these guys were so hard to beat in the division) and Aaron moved to 1B. Denis Menke remained at 2B.

In the current 1970 season, 1B Mike Epstein was acquired and Aaron went back to 2B (where he is still a butcher). Menke moved to 3B to replace the retired Eddie Mathews.

Now you might be thinking... if Eddie Mathews retired, wouldn't the Braves look for a new 3B to replace him? Well if Menke can play 3B and Aaron can (cough) play 2B because he has all of that sweet sweet 1955 experience, then why not trade for a 1B instead?

I've said it before... I love the idea of retaining experience for positions but this looks to be a degenerative case where experience at a terrible position somehow allows a big hitter to not just play there, but to start every day.

That said, the league settings error that gave Aaron 200 experience at 2B caused this, but it still could have legitimately happened if I started the sim in 1955. So ultimately you guys need to figure out how to better tune this experience/badposition ratio.

Also, it might make sense to decay experience at a position where the player is no longer playing. But even if you decay it to a point where there's only a minimal rating at a defensive position like SS, the AI has to know not to start guys there. Experience is important, but it should not trump ratings.

After all, it could be pretty sneaky to give a big hitter some experience at SS and then trade him to your contender who needs a SS and watch their defense go into the toilet.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Again, I play 1871-2023 games and do not see this happening at all with players being used out of position regardless of their offensive ability.

Guys like Pete Rose can have accurate ratings at Infield and Outfield throughout their career, no logic issues there.

Something got fouled up with your game when you toggled the fielding.

Yes, that was the whole point of the bug report. I'm glad you have finally caught up!

Also, please note that just because a bug isn't happening in your particular save doesn't mean it's not a real bug that needs to be looked at.

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by uruguru

Yes, that was the whole point of the bug report. I'm glad you have finally caught up!

Also, please note that just because a bug isn't happening in your particular save doesn't mean it's not a real bug that needs to be looked at.

This "note" goes both ways. If you have done something weird in your game that isn't expected behavior, it isn't necessarily going to be considered a bug, or at least not a high priority bug.

I'm trying to understand what the purpose of setting up the league with "Current Season", switching it to "Entire Career" and then going back to "Current Season" would be.

When you allow non-historical transactions in a historical league (without historical minors) you are going to end up with some weird roster configurations due to the lack of realistic player depth. If you have also done a weird thing that causes players to have experience where they shouldn't then you are making for a complicated job for the AI and while the AI can always be improved...it is also just better to not do weird things that conflict with the way you want the game to work.

[Garlon]

This is more of a user error than a bug.

I have a game I just finished today from 1871-2023. The calling card of players being used out of position as you pointed out is having very bad ZR totals. I looked at each position career worst ZR totals because if anyone played out of position for any extended period of time, they would easily accumulate significant negative ZR and show up when sorting and in those 153 seasons the only real bad choice I noticed by the computer was using Rudy York at SS for a few seasons, but the team also did not have good alternatives at SS. This was more of an instance where the computer was just not able to acquire a decent SS through draft or trade than actually just York at SS because he provided offense. They did eventually move York to 1B after acquiring more infielders.

A reason this could have happened was that in my particular game I had expanded to 20 teams in an earlier era so acquiring middle infielders was at even more of a premium. Had I been using 16 teams this York issue probably would not have even happened.

Definitely not a logic issue on the part of the computer when determining where to use players defensively.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Garlon

This is more of a user error than a bug.

This is 100% a bug, lol.

Look I know that you are really invested in the fix to retain played experience past the recalc, and I like it too, but it is possible to fix this bug without taking that away. You should quit being so defensive about addressing real bugs that were caused or amplified by this change. I mean, you have been essentially screaming for the devs to ignore this bug since the moment you saw it, but this is pretty bad.

If I can play Greg Luzinski at SS for a few games in Spring Traing so that he has the bare minimum rating at the position, there is no way in hell that the game's AI should now consider him a viable starter at the position.

For example, here's one possible solution.... when a player does not have any real-world ratings at a IF or OF position, then his base ratings (IF range, IF err, IF arm, IF dp, etc) could be ZERO instead of some random number from 1-15. This is how the game already treats catchers.

What this would mean is that Greg Luzinski having a full 200 Experience at SS would still give him an overall rating (in the editor) of zero. This means the AI will never use him as a starter at a position he cannot play.

Another solution would be the raise the minimum rating for a position (from currently 1 in the editor) to some higher value before the AI will ever consider starting a player at a position (as opposed to substitutions). This minimum rating could vary based on the importance of the position. For example a 60 rating (60 in the editor = 30 on a 1-100 scale which is still a really bad SS) might be the minimum for a position like SS or CF, but 20 might be ok for 1B. And of course, if no decent player is actually available, then it uses the best possible. Hank Aaron had a 7 at 2B, which is effectively 0. It was just noise created by the random 1-15 infield ratings given to him. (Note: a hard start/no-start cutoff like this is already in OOTP for pitchers -- based on their stamina)

Another possible solution would be to slowly decay experience at positions that the player is both terribly rated at AND is not currently playing games. This would mean that Aaron's experience at 2B would fade away over time once his ratings dropped AND he stopped getting played there.

And of course the league settings issue needs to be fixed so that players don't accidentally put their save in a bad state in the league settings before they even start the sim.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Rain King

This "note" goes both ways. If you have done something weird in your game that isn't expected behavior, it isn't necessarily going to be considered a bug, or at least not a high priority bug.

I've never said this was a high priority bug. But adjusting league settings at the very beginning of your sim to get things correct is in no way "weird behavior" for a sandbox like OOTP.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Garlon

If you look at the 1970 team that might be Billy Williams in LF and Roberto Clemente in RF. Where should Aaron play?

Found this in the screen shots of a past sim. Here's the solution to a similar problem with Frank Robinson instead of Aaron.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Garlon

This is more of a user error than a bug.

Originally Posted by uruguru

This is 100% a bug, lol.

An option in the game doesn't work and it's the user's fault for thinking it should work. Gotta love it!

[drowssap]

This is a HUGE problem in my game. The Dodgers have not 1, but 2 players with might have been the worst legs in the history of baseball as everyday OF. Bill Buckner is in LF (can almost kinda see this) but Sid Bream in CF?? Give me break.

This is THE most broken part of this year's game. Bar none.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by drowssap

This is a HUGE problem in my game. The Dodgers have not 1, but 2 players with might have been the worst legs in the history of baseball as everyday OF. Bill Buckner is in LF (can almost kinda see this) but Sid Bream in CF?? Give me break.

This is THE most broken part of this year's game. Bar none.

It's impossible to avoid. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

I have been reduced to going through the MLB position players at the beginning of every off-season and zero their fielding experience for unplayable positions.

[drowssap]

Originally Posted by uruguru

It's impossible to avoid. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

I have been reduced to going through the MLB position players at the beginning of every off-season and zero their fielding experience for unplayable positions.

I am at that point. I did that a little when my '85 game started, but the Dodgers (and that team does it the most for some odd reason) are headstrong about having Sid Bream as their CF and I fixed him.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by drowssap

I am at that point. I did that a little when my '85 game started, but the Dodgers (and that team does it the most for some odd reason) are headstrong about having Sid Bream as their CF and I fixed him.

What I do is set the displayed ratings for positions to 1-20 and anyone with a 1 out of 1 (max) in their position gets zeroed out.

I go through the position players ranked by overall rating and scroll downward through them, figuring that the best players would be most likely to get played in unplayable positions. By the time I get to the 2-star players, they are mostly in the minors so I stop at that point.

Takes about 5-10 minutes.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by uruguru

I've never said this was a high priority bug. But adjusting league settings at the very beginning of your sim to get things correct is in no way "weird behavior" for a sandbox like OOTP.

Good on you for not allowing spurious feedback to draw you into letting the existence of an obvious bug to be perverted into a matter of debate. As you seem to be aware, there are certain people on this forum who seem exclusively to challenge the legitimacy of others’ experiences. So much time is wasted on this forum with inquisitions of the problem rather than finding (or, where none exists, supporting the development of) solutions. Honestly, stepping back and reflecting upon how many elements of the game have obvious shortcomings with ANY (including the de facto “official” default) settings configurations is a sobering experience. I would (and do) recommend to potentially interested parties that they at least look into the game, but the state of the game in what is its 25th version raises obvious red flags about expectations any prospective user might have about the current, near-future, and long-term quality of the game and commitment / responsiveness of the company.