Dev Lab - Pulling Players Out

[DrRicherdKimble]

Hello Developers,

In the announcement today it mentioned that a player can be pulled from the dev lab if he is struggling.

Has there been any discussion or thought about how this removes the risk-reward aspect of the dev lab? If I can pull a player out who is doing horrible and avoid a detrimental result, how is that good for the game?

Thank you in advance for your reply.

[Sweed]

There is the obvious, you're not required to pull any player out. If you want a house rule that players can't be pulled, make a house rule. Be it for solo play or an online league.

The risk/reward comes into play when you pull the player meaning the time already spent was wasted. The second player, you now send, doesn't have enough time to go through some of the longer programs.

I'd think IRL an organization will get a report that some program they are trying isn't working, yes? Example: "Johnny Bigarm has been working on that circle change for three weeks. He's just not getting it, no improvement what so ever." What should that organization do? Keep throwing time and money at something that is not working? Sure they can try, and so can we in v26. Or we can reassess or actions and move onto something else while cutting our losses. Of course you don't know, maybe if Johnny Bigarm continues the training he starts to get a feel for that circle change? Ah, but you pulled him out after three weeks. Risk/reward.

Just my 2 cents, but I'm not seeing an issue.

[DrRicherdKimble]

The issue is you never face a detrimental outcome. Very clear. All reward, no risk.

Your framing the risk as losing dev lab time by putting the player in then removing them is illogical. They would be in there losing dev lab time but also face the potential of a detrimental result if they could not be pulled out. Does that make sense to you?

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by DrRicherdKimble

The issue is you never face a detrimental outcome. Very clear. All reward, no risk.

Your framing the risk as losing dev lab time by putting the player in then removing them is illogical. They would be in there losing dev lab time but also face the potential of a detrimental result if they could not be pulled out. Does that make sense to you?

Could they not already have detrimental results even if you pull them out early?

If you have a house rule you cannot pull them out aren't you right where you were in v25?

[DrRicherdKimble]

I generally don't like having to put more work on the commissioner to enforce house rules. Currently there is no visibility as to what other teams are doing with their dev lab. As it currently is implemented, you'd have to figure out every player from every team that is in a lab, and track if they're removed. That is very time intensive - unless there is a way to track it easier that I'm not aware of.

It just seems to be making the game more cartoonish. "Here, try to buff this player, there is no downside only upside." Dev lab is already making online leagues with smart players more of a dice roll game than baseball already is.

[Will Beh]

Good question! Specifically the way it works is that if you pull a player out who is projected to have a detrimental outcome, he will take a hit to morale and also incur all of the penalties as if he had completed the program with a poor result.
There's also a very small window you have to decide if you pull a guy out, which is only when you receive a midterm report on his progress.
So it's more about cutting your losses than avoiding detrimental outcomes.
It's more like "your guy is really swinging and missing a lot now, do you want to leave him in there to figure it out or just give up on him and make room for someone else"

[DrRicherdKimble]

Originally Posted by Will Beh

Good question! Specifically the way it works is that if you pull a player out who is projected to have a detrimental outcome, he will take a hit to morale and also incur all of the penalties as if he had completed the program with a poor result.
There's also a very small window you have to decide if you pull a guy out, which is only when you receive a midterm report on his progress.
So it's more about cutting your losses than avoiding detrimental outcomes.

That is good to hear! Thanks for replying.

[maddmaxx]

..

[TheSpeakerfortheDead]

Originally Posted by DrRicherdKimble

I generally don't like having to put more work on the commissioner to enforce house rules. Currently there is no visibility as to what other teams are doing with their dev lab. As it currently is implemented, you'd have to figure out every player from every team that is in a lab, and track if they're removed. That is very time intensive - unless there is a way to track it easier that I'm not aware of.

It just seems to be making the game more cartoonish. "Here, try to buff this player, there is no downside only upside." Dev lab is already making online leagues with smart players more of a dice roll game than baseball already is.

The downside is the opportunity cost governed by the amount of slots in the lab. Time is money.

Personally I think it's really silly if I try and improve somebody's baserunning they can ruin their legs. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Hopefully there is some decent amount of rebalancing done around dev lab slots and the penalties/difficulties. Almost all the long labs are wastes of time in terms of value and the downsides for failure are far too high.

[Pdubya64]

Originally Posted by TheSpeakerfortheDead

The downside is the opportunity cost governed by the amount of slots in the lab. Time is money.

Personally I think it's really silly if I try and improve somebody's baserunning they can ruin their legs. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Hopefully there is some decent amount of rebalancing done around dev lab slots and the penalties/difficulties. Almost all the long labs are wastes of time in terms of value and the downsides for failure are far too high.

Having watched the Dev Lab this year with Old School Sports in his A's playthrough as well as my own GM games I am leaning with you here Speak.

Perhaps a more palatable version of negative outcome could be the player in question cannot go through the same program they failed for 'X' period of time, with a smaller chance of a worse outcome for the Poor result. I get if you push a player whose risk is higher, the more likely a detrimental result would be. (Note: I should mention that the "Poor" result currently has at least some range of severity, it appears to start at "No Improvement" and work towards the far end with loss of current and/or potential ratings, along with possible associated ratings.)

I would think the Devs have it set so a player's health and injury history along with the new OOTP 26 rating "Development Risk" has a lot to do with how likely a true Poor result with a significant setback will happen.

Maybe Matt or Wil can elaborate on this?

[ovccsteve]

Originally Posted by Pdubya64

I would think the Devs have it set so a player's health and injury history along with the new OOTP 26 rating "Development Risk" has a lot to do with how likely a true Poor result with a significant setback will happen.

Maybe Matt or Wil can elaborate on this?

I've only done one off season, but I'd already stopped sending pitchers to the lab because best-case scenario they get one or two points, worst-case, they blow out their arm.
Now in this version, improving defensive play has moved to hard and the two characteristics that used to be improvable (plate discipline and gap power) tend to tell me the entire offseason that the player is on-schedule or even thriving, but at the end of the day, no improvement. Again, only one offseason, but it looks like a feature I may quit using. In v25, I'd run 4 or so players through gap power and plate discipline with reasonable results and run a bunch through either defensive improvement or learn new position, with reasonably good results. I'll try again next offseason, but the first run through was not promising/worth the time spent on setting it up and managing it. Hopefully offseason two will prove me wrong.

[Battman]

From what I take from discussions on the forum, it is not really helpful to use a he development lab with historical play if using the recalc according to actual stats every year. I have guys currently in the lab and a few completed already with no results. If it’s not gonna really help me with my particular save, what happens if I just turn it off now?

[ovccsteve]

Originally Posted by Battman

From what I take from discussions on the forum, it is not really helpful to use a he development lab with historical play if using the recalc according to actual stats every year. I have guys currently in the lab and a few completed already with no results. If it’s not gonna really help me with my particular save, what happens if I just turn it off now?

I do fictional and it was a useful tool in 25, but I'm wondering if they over-tweaked it in 26.

[crashsports1]

Let's say I'm on NYY and I'm doing the Aaron Judge thing with strength and conditioning

At midway point it tells me he's not improving his durability


I've had instances where pulling a guy does in fact lead to one of those " worsened by <5 " type things if I pull a struggling guy mid way but I do so so it doesn't get worse and he becomes let's say more injury prone than he already is I know I mixed qualitative and quantitative there but I hope it made sense

So there is risk vs reward either way and the potential for genuine gain or loss with doing either approach

[OMGPuppies]

Is there any negative consequence of removing a player from the development lab early? How long is the window for removing them?