Does anyone know if the position played by a prospect has any effect on their player progression?  For example, if a player's fielding attributes are projected to be say 100 across the board, will the player have the same pace of progression/likelihood of hitting those projections regardless of position?  Or will a player playing SS progress faster and have a better likelihood of hitting their projections than if you played him at 1B? 

Supposedly players progress faster playing the harder positions.  Admin has said as much in devchats.

Which, of course, makes no sense.   If you have a 1B prospect in LoA with no legit MIF prospects, wouldn't it be a good idea to play him at SS if players develop faster/better at the harder position?    Wouldn't it be silly to design a game that encourages such nonsense?

Got it. So it might stand to reason that if a player's projections have him just barely able to play 2B in the majors that he might benefit from being played in say CF throughout the minors?

I don't think so but the devchat says play him at SS.

Play him at the position at which the "Show Recs (Proj)" button on the "Position Assignment" pop-up suggests for the player, and he will develop fine.

Once he gets to the majors, only play him at the positions you feel he is defensively competent enough to play.

THAT depends on your ADV.   Lots of players are competent, or better, than the recommendations.     Catchers with low range will show as DH.   Who cares about range at C?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/2/2010 10:06:00 AM (view original):
I don't think so but the devchat says play him at SS.

Echoing this, how do people's observations jibe with the devchat statement that playing prospects at a demanding position will help their development?  I personally am not certain that the position you play them at matters for their development at all, but I've never tried anything like playing a minor league SS at C to see if his range stagnates... has anyone observed development clearly consistent or inconsistent with the devchat statement?

I won't dig it up again but I posted a handful of SS who were sometimes forced to play 2B, 3B or CF because I had a better SS prospect in my system.   There wasn't any noticable difference in their development.    One of them was Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Angel Hernandez.   As you can see, he played less than half of his innings at SS in the minors.   In the seasons where his glove took the biggest jumps(S13), he played CF the most.   

Could he have been better had he played SS the entire time?  Maybe.    But the season his glove became SS-like, he was playing CF/3B for over 600 innings and SS less the 300. 

Im not sure how much of an effect position played = improvement made, but it seems stupid that improvement would depend on that.  Just seems a stupid philosophy.  Why not play a DH at SS, maybe he'll hit 1B/LF recs right?

Posted by firemanrob on 12/2/2010 4:48:00 PM (view original):
Im not sure how much of an effect position played = improvement made, but it seems stupid that improvement would depend on that.  Just seems a stupid philosophy.  Why not play a DH at SS, maybe he'll hit 1B/LF recs right?

No.  He won't advance beyond his true projections.

But it makes perfect sense that position played would have a direct impact on development.  How can a potential SS develop and gain experience/instincts as a SS if he spends all his minor league time playing 1B?

Then, since the biggest ***** around here is "My players never reach their projections", wouldn't it make sense to play your LF at SS so he can do everything possible to reach his LF fielding projections?    Now, if you say "Yes but he'll struggle and that will hurt him", I will find out where you live and burn your car.  Because then you'll be saying minor league results affects development and I don't think you're dumb enough to believe that.

Are you talking about how it should work, or how it does work?

Are you telling me that you play your LF at SS if you don't have a SS prospect?

I think tec's dumb enough to believe almost anything.