Quote:
Originally Posted by LansdowneSt
Has the game been playing him there for a while? So, he earned the experience over the years? If he did that, he won't forget the experience. Afterall, it experience. But 200 is a lot of time invested. He won't get 2B-like skills from it. But one can be an experienced, terrible 2B. I mean, we all saw Offerman play the position. 
Anyway, if he earned the time there, then he gets the experience. Just a judgement issue of offense v defense. On the historical tab in league settings, on the lefthand side is it real life stats or AI evaluation? |
The sim started in 1962.
Hank played 1 game (2 innings) in 1966 presumably as some sort of a substition. Nothing wrong there! That year, the Braves started Ray Oyler (98 gs) and Ron Hunt (64 gs) at 2B.
But in 1967 he started 122 games there for 1076.1 innings. Oyler and Hunt were still on the team, but reduced to 21 and 16 gs, respectively. The team had acquired Roberto Clemente and he was installed in RF.
While it is easy to think "oh that makes sense", we have to remember that Aaron was completely unrated at 2B by this point so he was basically sent to be a butcher at 2B because he had played there 12 years ago. Does that make any sense at all? I would suggest that perhaps the AI made the trade because it wrongly considered Aaron an option at 2B. He was in no way suited for everyday starting. He had an atrocious -24.2 Zone Rating at 2B that year.
In 1968, OF Don Lock was sent to the bench, making room for Aaron in LF. Denis Menke took his spot at 2B. Aaron did not play an inning at 2B.
In 1969, OF Billy Williams joined the team (crap no wonder these guys were so hard to beat in the division) and Aaron moved to 1B. Denis Menke remained at 2B.
In the current 1970 season, 1B Mike Epstein was acquired and Aaron went back to 2B (where he is still a butcher). Menke moved to 3B to replace the retired Eddie Mathews.
Now you might be thinking... if Eddie Mathews retired, wouldn't the Braves look for a new 3B to replace him? Well if Menke can play 3B and Aaron can (cough) play 2B because he has all of that sweet sweet 1955 experience, then why not trade for a 1B instead?
I've said it before... I love the idea of retaining experience for positions but this looks to be a degenerative case where experience at a terrible position somehow allows a big hitter to not just play there, but to start every day.
That said, the league settings error that gave Aaron 200 experience at 2B caused this, but it still could have legitimately happened if I started the sim in 1955. So ultimately you guys need to figure out how to better tune this experience/badposition ratio.
Also, it might make sense to decay experience at a position where the player is no longer playing. But even if you decay it to a point where there's only a minimal rating at a defensive position like SS, the AI has to know not to start guys there. Experience is important, but it should not trump ratings.
After all, it could be pretty sneaky to give a big hitter some experience at SS and then trade him to your contender who needs a SS and watch their defense go into the toilet.