Shohei Ohtani

Apologies if this has already been addressed but does anyone know how Ohtani will be handled next year?
Will he have 2 cards (hitter, pitcher) that count for one roster spot?

This question is asked with the assumption that he will have enough at bats and enough IP to generate a card for each.

Thanks,
TVF

Most likely it'll be how he's set-up in the Daily game - from Garcia's blog:

"Of course, the most curious part of the set is the introduction to Shohei Ohtani, the SP/DH of the Angels. We have been able to create two separate cards for him - one as a pitcher, and one as a hitter. Only one of them may be owned and played at a time. However, if you own one of his cards, you have the exclusive option of dropping it and picking up the other one, though it would count as a regular free agent transaction, including drop penalty. It's the same as how ATG generally works when a player has more than one card in the set."

Well that's B.S. because that's not how the player is used in real life.

SOM claims to be a simulation to replay the season, then 1 card should be for both.

Or two cards that represent one roster spot.
Or at the very least there should not be FA penalties associated with Ohtani moves.
I guess that also means you can only have one Ohtani card active for the postseason?

You should not have to pay for changing from pitcher to hitter if you have him...thats why you would pay 13 or 14 million if you want him...in a 60 or 80 ,million dollar league that is a lot of your payroll

Or two cards that represent one roster spot.
Or at the very least there should not be FA penalties associated with Ohtani moves.
I guess that also means you can only have one Ohtani card active for the postseason?

After game 141 the card is locked in.

yea, cost should be high, and even take 2 roster spots, I would be ok with that. But you need to be able to use both hitter and pitcher cards all season without a salary penalty. Otherwise what is the point?

In theory all of you are right that you should be able to use both his hitting and pitching cards without penalty. However SOM would have to totally reconfigure their entire game system to accommodate this for one player. That is not going to happen.

I really don't believe it would take a complete reconfiguring of the system to allow Ohtani to be used exactly as he is being used in MLB. First, make him a starting pitcher with a value of say 15 million (the value of the pitcher should include his value as a hitter). Then make a hitters card that has a zero dollar value attached to it. Only the owner of the pitcher can use the hitter and he does not have to. Each time the pitcher is scheduled to pitch, code in an automatic three game injury (for the game before, the actual game started and the next game) for the hitter's card. That's only two system coding changes and neither is a major one. (I am not a coder, although I can copy and paste html with the best of them).

But given this configuration he would count as two players for purpose of the 24 man minimum roster. So cannot be as simple as pitcher cost 15 mil and hitter cost 0. Not sure how it is now but when I owned the cdrom game a team could not have two players with the same last name and the same first initial. Do not remember who the players were but remember one year a team had a situation like that and they doctored the name of one of the players with an explanation with the card set when it was issued.

I think now they have each card assigned a numerical id to eliminate that issue. But given the inflexibility of many of their settings there are probably several items that would need to be coded differently. But if he continues to be successful I think they have to plan for allowing this in the future because if it goes well others will be given the opportunity.