Player Rest

[Questdog]

I would like to be able to pinch hit with a player and have him still gain the benefits of resting a day....

[molarmite]

Then post this in the suggestion forums.

[Questdog]

Actually, I'd like to eliminate player fatigue for everyone but catchers and have them only get fatigued while catching. Complete rest would heal them faster, but not catching and playing somewhere else would heal some and DH'ing or PH'ing would heal a bit more...

[CMH]

?

[ey215]

Position players don't ever get tired?

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by ey215

Position players don't ever get tired?

Not really...

The can become mentally fatigued, like we all can, from the daily grind, but they don't become physically drained like pitchers do and their knees are not abused like catcher's are.

[DCG12]

Ping:Manny Ramirez

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Not really...

The can become mentally fatigued, like we all can, from the daily grind, but they don't become physically drained like pitchers do and their knees are not abused like catcher's are.

Then why do players ever get a day off?

[Questdog]

Because managers feel they must in order to avoid getting blamed for injuries...

[thehatfield]

I agree with your position player rest reasoning up to a point; there would have to be allocations made for older players who might actually need a day or two off per month especially if they have a poor injury history. While it seems like it might be crazy to program something like that perhaps the teamining up with SI might make it a genuine possibility if/as the game gets deeper with more individual player AI.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Then why do players ever get a day off?

It really doesn't happen that often with the best players on good teams. If you go back and look through the league champions in baseball history, you'll find that most of them were using their top players in 90% or more of their games. This is even the case today.

If a player is truly important to the team, he's rarely going to get a day off. However, managers will tend to rotate the rest of the players to keep them fresh, motivated, and hopefully playing up to their limited ability. Also, a team out of the pennant race will probably rest its players more often, to get a chance to see younger players and to keep veterans fresh for the next season.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

It really doesn't happen that often with the best players on good teams. If you go back and look through the league champions in baseball history, you'll find that most of them were using their top players in 90% or more of their games. This is even the case today.

If a player is truly important to the team, he's rarely going to get a day off. However, managers will tend to rotate the rest of the players to keep them fresh, motivated, and hopefully playing up to their limited ability. Also, a team out of the pennant race will probably rest its players more often, to get a chance to see younger players and to keep veterans fresh for the next season.

Sure, rarely because even tired he's usually going to be the best choice for a game. But players do take days off. Even Ichiro had a day off last week. Those who don't... well, there was a lot of speculation that Cal Ripken didn't age nearly as gracefully as he could have.

I agree that some (select few) players should not ever have to take days off because they lose so little from day to day that they more or less make it back up the next day. The question is, how do you handle this? Is there really "fatigue" in the game sense the way there definitely is, for example, in a basketball game where a guy who plays 40 minutes one night might be useless the next because his legs have turned to jelly? Or is it that some guys play through minor injuries, headaches, the flu, and so on while others don't? In addition, maybe some guys train better than others or have a better diet or what have you (that doesn't explain Gary Payton, who was on the town every night but had a stretch where he missed like 2 games in 7 years - but that's another sport), I don't know.

I'm not saying that the fatigue system works 100% well - actually, this is the first version where I actually use it. Prior versions were terrible in that *everybody* would miss 10-15 games a year. Nowadays you do see guys playing all 162 (or in my case 154) games with fatigue on and it doesn't appear to turn All-Stars into .220 hitters like it did before, so it's okay by me. But sure, it's probably not exactly how the game *should* do things... eventually anyway.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I'm not saying that the fatigue system works 100% well - actually, this is the first version where I actually use it. Prior versions were terrible in that *everybody* would miss 10-15 games a year. Nowadays you do see guys playing all 162 (or in my case 154) games with fatigue on and it doesn't appear to turn All-Stars into .220 hitters like it did before, so it's okay by me. But sure, it's probably not exactly how the game *should* do things... eventually anyway.

I think the only guys who do play 162 games in OOTP are ones where there is no backup on the roster....

Baseball is NOT a grueling game like basketball and football (except for pitchers and catchers). Mostly you're just standing around waiting for something to happen. Maybe four or five times a game you'll have to really exert energy. For anyone to think that saving one day of five exertion bursts has any magic recuperative effects is silly.

Professional ballplayers DO become fatigued over the course of the long season, but not because of playing games. It's all the travel and the pressure to perform that takes a mental toll and begins to sap energy.
And the odd off day doesn't relieve any of that lifestyle stress...

Players sit for various reasons: injuries or illness mostly, but sometimes the team's facing a pitcher that owns a hitter and the hitter's been in a little slump anyway, so let's just let him sit and maybe that will change his bad karma.... No everyday regular ever sat out a game because he was just too tired to play (hangovers, excepted, of course)....

[Syd Thrift]

Hmm. Vets sit out the day games after night games quite a bit. Especially catchers, but I see older players in particular do this as well if the team's set to face a same-handed pitcher that day. No, baseball is not as grueling as those games, but they play 10 times as many games as football and twice as many as basketball (in a shorter amount of time for the latter), so in some respects that's not a fair comparison.

[tysok]

In the days of common astroturf stadiums, where the on field temp could be 130+ they did.

In todays game some players take a day game off after a night game... they're not sick or injured. Taking a day off from the pressure of performance can and does do players good.
Jeff Bagwell usually played 156-162 games
Barry Bonds only played in 150+ games 8 of his 20 years.
George Brett never played in more than 157, and only once. Only 5 times in his 21 years did he play in more than 150.
Joe Dimaggio only played in more than 140 games 5 times in 13 seasons.
Tony Gwynn played in 150+ only 5 of his 20 years.
Rickey Henderson only crested 150 games 2 times in 25 years.
Reggie Jackson only played 150+ 6 times in 21 years.
Willie Mays played in 150+ 13 of his 22 years... but only played in all 162 once.
Babe Ruth only palyed 140+ 9 times in 22 years.
Robin Yount played 150+ 9 times in 20 years.

Some of it can be attributed to very minor injuries or something equally small. But the game doesn't do tiny injuries, like a mild sprain that sits him 1 day. If it ever does, then fatigue would need to be looked at... but right now fatigue is simulating those tiny injuries, just in a different way.
Players have, and continue to be, given a day off occasionally. There's no reason to not include that as a fatigue factor in the game.

Since 1961 there have been 159 occasions where a player has played in 162 games, obviously including many multiples (like Cal Ripken).

[Questdog]

There IS a problem with the way the game simulates this: When I rest a player, I MUST rest him completely or he will still be fatigued. When the Reds give Jr. a day off, they still expect to have him available for PH duty. Now, if you're just simming out the seasons en masse, this means little, but if you're managing each game in a tight pennant race, this becomes a huge annoyance and is an unrealistic hurdle to have to overcome....

By the way, Jr. thinks the Reds are overly cautious in assigning days off...

[Questdog]

Also, I think a lot of this resting players and not over-working young pitchers is just one of those things that has become the norm because that's the way it's done, like having a speedy leadoff man back in the 60's and 70's. You put you're fastest guy at leadoff regardless of whether he can hit or not, because that's the way you do it. Or like only bringing your closer in to start the 9th. It's mostly just silliness and the guys who aren't afraid to admit the emperor has no clothes are the ones who set the norm for the next bunch of ninnies....

I read in a book on scouting how a scout went to a high school game to see this hot-shot prospect catcher who could boom baseballs a country mile. At the game, he found the player was 8th in the lineup and he asked the coach why was this kid batting 8th? The coach said 'cause he's a catcher and catchers always bat 8th....

[Dark Horse]

Fatigue should be tied to defensive innings played rather than games played. That way a player that pinch hits or comes in as a late inning replacement doesn't get as fatigued as a player that starts and goes nine innings. And a player that plays 15 innings in an extra inning game is more fatigued than a player that only played 9 innings.

[Bishop]

Craig Biggio gets days off for rest from time to time. Not a catcher anymore, but he is like 40. Not sure how the game models fatigue, if it's something you get hit with more the older you get. I can see that. Young guys should pretty much never need a day off.

That being said, yes, you -should- get counted as resting if you're only used for pinch hitting. Doesn't make much sense otherwise.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by Questdog

There IS a problem with the way the game simulates this: When I rest a player, I MUST rest him completely or he will still be fatigued. When the Reds give Jr. a day off, they still expect to have him available for PH duty. Now, if you're just simming out the seasons en masse, this means little, but if you're managing each game in a tight pennant race, this becomes a huge annoyance and is an unrealistic hurdle to have to overcome....

By the way, Jr. thinks the Reds are overly cautious in assigning days off...

Agreed on this point. If he just pinch hits he should get the credit for the day off. Poor guy just uses up too much energy walking to the plate that one time I guess.

The other point, resting players just because that's what's done, doesn't make sense to me, though I can see the rest. Everything else you mention is relatively new, resting players has gone on since Babe Ruth's time though.