Spring Training Question: New Pitching Roles

[daniducci]

Sure, it's a little late. But I need this explained anyway. In Spring Training, you can have a player learn a new position. I understand that. But similarly, you can have a pitcher learn a new role. Now this confuses me. With hitters, if I try to change their position normally, I can only cycle through the positions they're rated for (which I can easily find by looking at their fielding ratings). However, for pitchers, I can cycle through all three roles no matter what. I can't find anywhere where it tells me a pitcher is only rated for a specific role. So I change roles willy-nilly only looking at endurance as a guide. The fact that there is a "Learn New Role" capability in ST suggests I shouldn't be switching a pitcher's role like I have. But how do I know what a pitcher's natural role is?

Right now I'm playing OOTP in career mode to try and learn what the heck I'm doing. I have a guy with an endurance of 3 in my Single A club. He's slotted as a MR, but has a prospect rating of 5 stars. So I'm thinking maybe I should slide him into the closer's role. But can I just do that, or does he need to learn the role in ST first? And how will I know that he's learned the role successfully?

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

[Kingdom]

You're putting too much thought into it. If he has the ratings, he can easily be a closer.

[daniducci]

So there aren't separate ratings for each role like there are for fielding positions? So what good can come of teaching a pitcher a new role in spring training? With position players, it actually unlocks that position for them, and assigns them a fielding rating. For pitchers, does it effect anything?

[HollywoodLeo]

Nope.

If he's a pitcher he can do any role, be it starter, middle reliever, or closer.

The only thing that you have to look at is endurance if you're trying to make him a starter.

All my starters have to have, at least, a 7 on endurance.

That doesn't mean they can't start with less than 7 endurance....they just won't last that long in the game.

[daniducci]

So "Learn New Role" in Spring Training is a completely pointless function? That's stupid.

Okay, that's how I've been approaching the pitching. I just got concerned that I was doing it wrong because of that "Learn New Role" thing. Thanks for the info.

[HollywoodLeo]

It's more for organization purposes so that the guy you're using as a MR can be listed as a MR and the guy you're using as a CL can be listed as a CL I guess.

I don't even know anything about that, though, I don't have OOTP so if I want someone to change their role I just tell Crazy and he does it for me.