Teaching a Player a New Position??

[Pivot]

Can you "teach" a minor leaguer to play a new position by changing his primary position to the position you want him to learn??? Thanks......

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Pivot

Can you "teach" a minor leaguer to play a new position by changing his primary position to the position you want him to learn??? Thanks......

Short answer is yes. Sort of. Or depending.

First of all, you might need to not just change his primary position but also go into strategy settings for that player and select (sorry, not in front of the game right now, so this might not be exact) force use at position and chose the position you want to force the minor league manager to play him at.
The sort of or depending part is that so much will depend upon what his underlying basic skills are.
So if you mean that you want to teach a third baseman to be a center fielder and his basic outfield ratings show him as having a very low range rating, you can get him some experience at that position but you will never turn him into someone who should be playing that position. And some things are a no-go if certain minimum thresholds aren't met. If you take a first baseman with a very weak arm and try to teach him to be a third baseman it will be an utter failure. But if that same player is a shortstop with a tremendous arm and even just decent range you should certainly be able to make him a good third baseman. In fact, if you have a shortstop with just decent range and a cannon for an arm, he probably shouldn't be a shortstop. You've got yourself a third baseman playing the wrong position there.

Anyway, the point is that if the player has the basic underlying skills to play a position (great arm for a third baseman or right fielder, great pretty much everything for a shortstop or center fielder, good range for a left fielder, good range and great dp skills for a second baseman, a pulse and height for a first baseman, etc.) then all you need to do is get them experience and eventually they should be able to play that position. You will have "taught" them the position. If they don't have the underlying skills, well, I guess it depends upon just how much they don't. At certain extremes there is no point in trying to teach them the position. If they could at least be acceptable in a pinch playing that position then it can't hurt to give them some positional flexibility by learning a new position.

P.S. Just realized I left out catchers. If you have a catcher with minimal to moderate infield ratings, and he's tall, you can probably teach him to play first base. Heck, if he isn't too range impaired and has a great arm, as a catcher likely would (but I'm talking about his infield arm rating here), maybe he could play third. And sometimes you find catchers with decent outfield ratings that indicate they could at least back-up one of the corner outfield spots now and then. But, if you want to teach someone to be a catcher and they don't already have good catcher ratings, well, forget about it. Bad idea. And ain't gonna work.

[NoOne]

being left handed may limit some positions. you'll gain exp in the editor, but it won't display in profile. not a good thing, in general.