Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

[Frozen Stiffer]

So, I've been simming my Florida Marlins in a Replay_2006 association and I just received notification that Trot Nixon, who I received in a trade the previous year, has now qualified for CF as his secondary position; RF remains his first.

[&:]

I'm not complaining mind you, I scarcely used him in LF; mostly CF, occasionally RF. However, what strikes me as odd in all this is that before this notice, he was qualified at RF and LF. I was always under the impression that if your two position "slots" were taken, you cannot learn another. You can MAKE them learn another by adjusting his Player Bio, but otherwise it would not happen "on it's own".

Is this normal?

[KG Erwin]

At what position was he imported as from the Lahman database? To my mind, it seems that an outfielder is easier improved at one of the other OF positions than the infielders. You might come to find out that he's better suited at left or right rather than center. I've done some shifting in my OF positioning in my real-player league. That's why I put Duke Snider in LF, even though his "imported" position is CF. "Primary" positions can be easily edited for game purposes, but I wouldn't take it too far.

[Frozen Stiffer]

Well, when I first received him, he was playing RF but was also qualified for LF; I remember this clearly because his original destination was RF and I enjoyed the option of pushing him into LF should Willingham (Josh, LF) get injured or begin to suffer performance-wise. I agree that an outfielder learning a different outfield position is more likely than an infielder learning an infield position. However, my greatest shock wasn't WHICH position he qualified for more than the fact that he qualified at all!

[:)]

[KG Erwin]

I haven't seen this personally, as I have yet to complete a season. Now, yes, I can see the advantages, but at my early stage, I'm more concerned with the young guys perfecting their craft (i.e, becoming better pitchers & hitters, NOT necessarily learning new positions).

[alliercollins]

It is normal for a guy with no second position to pick up a qualification at a new one and for one with a second position to have it switched to a new qualification. There are two unfortunate things that I have noticed about this game. First off there are only two positions any one can play and second it doesn't seem to take into account past abilities. Lets say for example you have a guy who plays 4 positions really well in real life, but the game of course only has him at 1 or 2 positions. You can't make that guy play 4 well and if you switch him to a position that is not one of the two, the new position will likely eventually become his 2nd position. This seems like it shouldn't be that annoying on paper, but here is what happens. Lets say you have a team that has no backup shortstop and you have in your possession some guy who plays shortstop all the time in real life, but also plays 3 other positions and shortstop is not one of his 2 positions on the game. They guy will be just as likely to play shortstop as anyone else on the team, but none of them will be any good at it. The game just randomly picks guys to backup positions or even start if no one is available. Eventually those guys may even pick the position up and become better at it, but it can in some cases block their abilities at other positions.

I personally would like to see the ability to play all the posiitions, with a seperate rating for each, but since this may not be possible with the way the game is built, then I would like to see utility infielders/outfielders who simply are listed as that and can play all the positions of each one well. It could probably be edited into the game as simply a new position and when it is selected it covers 3 or 4 of them.

One more thing. Erwin, it actually probably helps young players, though I think more position abilities from the beginning would be more real, but in your case lets say you stick your new center field prospect up on your bench. He will fill in at other positions as the game needs him and may eventually even start at one when needed. Regardless of whether he develops a second position, he will still be getting playing time to become a better hitter. The unfortunate thing is the game just seems to guess at where they stand when they learn a new position and doesn't give them the ability to learn it over time, slowly or even in some cases quickly becoming better at it. Think guys like Pujos or Michael Young who switched positions, then were on and off for a couple of years, before looking like high quality gold glove candidates.

One thing I noticed though, that just occurred to me is that sometimes guys are imported at different positions and it doesn't seem to take into account positions they eventually played. Like a young Todd Helton was imported as a LF, yet I saw a young Alfonso Soriano imported as a LF as well. By one standard. Alfonso never played outside of the infield until last season, but Todd played LF a little more than the other positions his first season called up. The game seemed to take into account that Alfonso was eventually a left fielder, but not that Todd was eventually a 1B. I found that a little weird. 1B wasn't even listed as his second position, even though he played that a bit the same season.