Rust - Impact on Defense?

JMDurron · 06-03-2013, 11:19 PM

Looking through the manual, it just mentions that rust means that a player "will not perform well", and that "For each at-bat or inning pitched during Spring Training, a player shakes off some of that rust."

My question is this - is there defense-specific rust? As in, during Spring Training, does a position player need to just get plate appearances (rust is tied to PAs, not ABs, right Markus? RIGHT?!? Can't punish hitters for taking walks, after all), or does he also need to get innings played in the field?

If it is the latter, does it matter where those innings are played? I ask because I generally use Spring Training to teach players new positions, and try to keep them just in their primary positions during the regular season, because getting a high rating in defensive efficiency has become my new mission in my modern MLB league. My team seems to perpetually come out playing like an army of Miguel Cabreras in the field to start each season, and I'm wondering if that might have something to do with my emphasis on new position training during ST.

Perhaps I'm overthinking this, and my team's defensive woes are merely the combination of small sample size bad luck, and/or OOTP possibly going "Score all the runs you want, mister, but YOUR. DEFENSE. WILL. SUCK." I just wanted to put the question out there to any of the devs/veteran experts who might be able to answer.

06-03-2013, 11:19 PM	#1
JMDurron All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,262	Rust - Impact on Defense? Looking through the manual, it just mentions that rust means that a player "will not perform well", and that "For each at-bat or inning pitched during Spring Training, a player shakes off some of that rust." My question is this - is there defense-specific rust? As in, during Spring Training, does a position player need to just get plate appearances (rust is tied to PAs, not ABs, right Markus? RIGHT?!? Can't punish hitters for taking walks, after all), or does he also need to get innings played in the field? If it is the latter, does it matter where those innings are played? I ask because I generally use Spring Training to teach players new positions, and try to keep them just in their primary positions during the regular season, because getting a high rating in defensive efficiency has become my new mission in my modern MLB league. My team seems to perpetually come out playing like an army of Miguel Cabreras in the field to start each season, and I'm wondering if that might have something to do with my emphasis on new position training during ST. Perhaps I'm overthinking this, and my team's defensive woes are merely the combination of small sample size bad luck, and/or OOTP possibly going "Score all the runs you want, mister, but YOUR. DEFENSE. WILL. SUCK." I just wanted to put the question out there to any of the devs/veteran experts who might be able to answer.