Cannot get pitchers to develop

[22tbrads22]

Cannot get my pitchers to develop over 2 stars. A lot of them still have high potential but going into their age 25-26 seasons I don’t see how they reach those potentials. This is the case for many teams. Any tips on how to develop pitchers in this game. Feels much harder than previous years.

[rwd59]

Join the list of people who have complained about this issue. I wish I could give you some advice but just doesn't seem like there is any to be found. I don't see why they would keep those same high potentials after 6-7 years in the low minors when their actual ratings do not develop. It would be one thing if those potentials began to crater but so many of them still keep very high potentials at 28-30 years old. I am not a fan of the development changes that have been made this year so far.

[22tbrads22]

Yeah its really the potentials staying the same that bothers me. im fine with less 4.5 5 star pitchers than previous years, i actually think thats great for the parody, and more realistic. but the potentials staying the same and them being 27 28 is annoying. it used to be if you took that 2/4.5 star 21 year old in the draft hed be functional at 2.5 star 3 by the next season and ready to fill in as you 5 starter or swing man. a lot tougher this year and took me about 7 seasons of in game play to understand they simply are not developing.

[22tbrads22]

Bumping this for another question, Is there nothing within the settings that we can do as players to help pitchers develop and develop their stuff. just frustrated all these drafts and not one pitcher above 2.5 stars. Have any of the devs acknowledged that they are seeing this problem as well and plan to tweak things previously?

[ctmccarty]

Grab some data, screenshots, information and throw it in the bug report threads

[Eburaci]

Perhaps I am in the minority... but I actually like that potential holds at ages 28-30 for several reasons.
1. It helps shift the game from a pure evaluation game (who are the best players/prospects? I'll trade for them) to a development game (can I use the dev sliders/lab to help this guy reach his potential?)
2. It helps solve a user problem. In real life baseball, many top prospects may have a FV of 45-50 (see Fangraphs). If OOTP mirrored real life to that extent, it might be boring as these prospects are not exciting to draft/acquire in trades. Having high & sticky potential is much more intriguing -- whether that potential is realized or not.
3. More dynamic feel to player development. In past editions, players were basically done developing at 24. At this point, pot/ovr tended to match, meaning there was no real upside to investing further development time into a player. Perhaps much of the development is still done by 24, but there is a dynamism where players are still worth working on in their later years. This also mirrors real life where players continue to have a chance to make meaningful strides each off-season. How often have we read about pitch design changes from older players improving their game?

That being said -- I do wish that the OOTP26 did not segregate stuff attributes from other pitching attributes in the development sliders. I understand the change -- to prevent 4/5 pitch guys from having more points to use anywhere -- but in reality, it makes stuff hard to develop. I can't allocate more resources to one pitch without taking from another pitch -- ultimately, hurting stuff. In real life, it seems to me that stuff can be developed at the cost of stamina/control. That was possible in v25, but not v26.

Ultimately, I think the new development system is a little more interesting and sliders can always be adjusted to get what you want out of the game. I do agree that base stuff rates should be adjusted to develop more quickly -- or return to the dev sliders of v25 -- but I don't mind that there is extra potential for players to possibly achieve (through the dev lab most likely) in later years.

[MisterTidster]

Just guessing, but I think it’s probably by design. Development Lab rejects players that have reached their potential in a category that you’re trying to train. I’m guessing there’s a hidden limit to how far a player can develop their overall rating, but some players still have potential above that to allow you to continue developing them in the lab.

[sofla97]

Are you manually setting the Development Sliders for your players or are you letting the AI control them?

[rwd59]

A number of you post about the development lab. I turn that off. Lab and focus are not for me. I understand however that it is something other people like. I am trying to figure out what I can do in v26 to get players to develop. In previous versions I knew what to do. I would max out my development budget. I still had more that did not fully develop than those who did. But at least I did have some who would develop. I just don't believe it is realistic to have players whose potentials are the same or even higher than they were when the player was drafted after 6 years or more in the minor leagues. I end up just hanging on to them in the false hope that suddenly they will develop. If I do finally decide to trade them then nobody will offer me anything of value. I know everybody has their favorite way of playing. For me it was about taking the Tampa Bay method of developing players rather than signing free agents. I would also trade players who were about to be free agents to replenish my farm system. I would build a team into a WS champ and then resign and go to one of the worst teams in the Majors and start the process over again. V26 makes this extremely difficult to do. This development issue makes this my least favorite version of the game since 2006.

[MisterTidster]

I did notice that I get more of those high potential guys that are capped at two stars overall in AAA to develop if I put them in the MLB bullpen rather than leaving them in AAA. Might be something to do with the mechanic that correlates development with playing at a skill level that’s appropriate for the player. Could be that they’re really 2.5 stars overall and it’s just variation in your scouting evaluation that has them at two stars. If a guy is reasonably young, has two stars, and is putting up great numbers at AAA, it’s worth saving a roster spot for him so he can continue his development at the MLB level.

[22tbrads22]

Originally Posted by sofla97

Are you manually setting the Development Sliders for your players or are you letting the AI control them?

I turned off the dev sliders. far too tedious for me with every minor leaguer, also seemed to be weird the way the AI was doing it. so not messing with that, i did have it on for the first 3-4 years though, which may have caused some of this.

[22tbrads22]

Originally Posted by MisterTidster

I did notice that I get more of those high potential guys that are capped at two stars overall in AAA to develop if I put them in the MLB bullpen rather than leaving them in AAA. Might be something to do with the mechanic that correlates development with playing at a skill level that’s appropriate for the player. Could be that they’re really 2.5 stars overall and it’s just variation in your scouting evaluation that has them at two stars. If a guy is reasonably young, has two stars, and is putting up great numbers at AAA, it’s worth saving a roster spot for him so he can continue his development at the MLB level.

Started doing that about 2 season ago and havent seen much success but ill continue to hold 1 or 2 spots for a while more to see how it works.

[22tbrads22]

Originally Posted by rwd59

A number of you post about the development lab. I turn that off. Lab and focus are not for me. I understand however that it is something other people like. I am trying to figure out what I can do in v26 to get players to develop. In previous versions I knew what to do. I would max out my development budget. I still had more that did not fully develop than those who did. But at least I did have some who would develop. I just don't believe it is realistic to have players whose potentials are the same or even higher than they were when the player was drafted after 6 years or more in the minor leagues. I end up just hanging on to them in the false hope that suddenly they will develop. If I do finally decide to trade them then nobody will offer me anything of value. I know everybody has their favorite way of playing. For me it was about taking the Tampa Bay method of developing players rather than signing free agents. I would also trade players who were about to be free agents to replenish my farm system. I would build a team into a WS champ and then resign and go to one of the worst teams in the Majors and start the process over again. V26 makes this extremely difficult to do. This development issue makes this my least favorite version of the game since 2006.

Yes I agree with your final point. It is really hard to have good homegrown pitchers. Which I understand is hard or some organizations to do in real life, but my minor league coaches are great. All of my yearly budget is spent on free agent pitchers and trading for good arms on big contracts. I do not yet understand it.

[22tbrads22]

Originally Posted by Eburaci

Perhaps I am in the minority... but I actually like that potential holds at ages 28-30 for several reasons.
1. It helps shift the game from a pure evaluation game (who are the best players/prospects? I'll trade for them) to a development game (can I use the dev sliders/lab to help this guy reach his potential?)
2. It helps solve a user problem. In real life baseball, many top prospects may have a FV of 45-50 (see Fangraphs). If OOTP mirrored real life to that extent, it might be boring as these prospects are not exciting to draft/acquire in trades. Having high & sticky potential is much more intriguing -- whether that potential is realized or not.
3. More dynamic feel to player development. In past editions, players were basically done developing at 24. At this point, pot/ovr tended to match, meaning there was no real upside to investing further development time into a player. Perhaps much of the development is still done by 24, but there is a dynamism where players are still worth working on in their later years. This also mirrors real life where players continue to have a chance to make meaningful strides each off-season. How often have we read about pitch design changes from older players improving their game?

That being said -- I do wish that the OOTP26 did not segregate stuff attributes from other pitching attributes in the development sliders. I understand the change -- to prevent 4/5 pitch guys from having more points to use anywhere -- but in reality, it makes stuff hard to develop. I can't allocate more resources to one pitch without taking from another pitch -- ultimately, hurting stuff. In real life, it seems to me that stuff can be developed at the cost of stamina/control. That was possible in v25, but not v26.

Ultimately, I think the new development system is a little more interesting and sliders can always be adjusted to get what you want out of the game. I do agree that base stuff rates should be adjusted to develop more quickly -- or return to the dev sliders of v25 -- but I don't mind that there is extra potential for players to possibly achieve (through the dev lab most likely) in later years.

I think theres some validity in some of your points, but these arms just never seem to work out. I do see your point about older players finding a second wind at 29-30, but that is what TCR has done for years. Randomly a 30 year old will grow a star and have 3 or 4 more good seasons past 31-32.

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by 22tbrads22

Yes I agree with your final point. It is really hard to have good homegrown pitchers. Which I understand is hard or some organizations to do in real life, but my minor league coaches are great. All of my yearly budget is spent on free agent pitchers and trading for good arms on big contracts. I do not yet understand it.

I used to use coaching but have turned that off as well for a few versions. So no coaches to help players improve/regress, maxed out development budget no longer seems to help players improve, and a minor league system full of 4-5 star prospects that never develop. Only real way to play historicals seems to be with recalc turned on because again, if a real life superstar player imports in a year where they don't play much or play poorly that season there current ratings are so crappy they will not make it to their actual potential or it will take so long for them to get there they will never make it to the level of player they actually were. Now I don't mind an historical player never developing as they actually did but I bugs me that the same group of players fail every time because of truly crappy current ratings when they are imported.

[Francoeurstein]

Originally Posted by 22tbrads22

Bumping this for another question, Is there nothing within the settings that we can do as players to help pitchers develop and develop their stuff. just frustrated all these drafts and not one pitcher above 2.5 stars. Have any of the devs acknowledged that they are seeing this problem as well and plan to tweak things previously?

I have not seen any of the devs acknowledge this. I wish they would. Game is very hard to play in its current state.

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by Francoeurstein

I have not seen any of the devs acknowledge this. I wish they would. Game is very hard to play in its current state.

I don't believe I have either and there has been quite a few posts started about this issue if you look back. I mean if they don't think it is a problem then just say it is doing what you want and you don't see the need for any changes. At least then I would know to quit talking about it anymore.




And go back to playing V25.

[DrSatan]

I've been messing with some settings, and while it hasn't solved the problemI think I've been able to improve development a little.

Batter/pitching Aging spd .880
Batter Dev spd 1.100
Pitcher Dev spd 1.300
Dev target age default
Aging target age much older
TCR 100
Dev lab size/difficulty/impact 10/less difficult/default
Disable Player Dev Focus

Since I've been playing with dev focus disabled, i've noticed SP stamina drops have pretty much stopped. The AI has wacky priorities so I took them out of the equation. I'm also seeing better development with pitchers and batters. Pitching still isn't great. I'm still seeing a lot of players with "frozen" development, meaning their ratings and potential don't really change at all. I also turned off the personality and morale systems. I have nothing to support those systems negatively impacted development, but I took them off the table just in case. I'm still trying to get aging figured out. As it stands there is very little value in signing free agents or renewing players after arbitration. They will 99% crap out at age 29-30.

[Paul Reuschel's Mustache]

Originally Posted by DrSatan

I've been messing with some settings, and while it hasn't solved the problemI think I've been able to improve development a little.

Batter/pitching Aging spd .880
Batter Dev spd 1.100
Pitcher Dev spd 1.300
Dev target age default
Aging target age much older
TCR 100
Dev lab size/difficulty/impact 10/less difficult/default
Disable Player Dev Focus

Since I've been playing with dev focus disabled, i've noticed SP stamina drops have pretty much stopped. The AI has wacky priorities so I took them out of the equation. I'm also seeing better development with pitchers and batters. Pitching still isn't great. I'm still seeing a lot of players with "frozen" development, meaning their ratings and potential don't really change at all. I also turned off the personality and morale systems. I have nothing to support those systems negatively impacted development, but I took them off the table just in case. I'm still trying to get aging figured out. As it stands there is very little value in signing free agents or renewing players after arbitration. They will 99% crap out at age 29-30.

Thank you for your feedback. I may apply your settings when I start my new save. But if you speed up development while slowing down aging for batters and pitchers, will that result in flooding MLB and MiLB with too many players who have overall ratings of 50 and higher after 5-10 seasons?

[DrSatan]

Originally Posted by Paul Reuschel's Mustache

Thank you for your feedback. I may apply your settings when I start my new save. But if you speed up development while slowing down aging for batters and pitchers, will that result in flooding MLB and MiLB with too many players who have overall ratings of 50 and higher after 5-10 seasons?

In the past, yes, but in 2026 even my settings might not be drastic enough.