OOTP Baseball:Screens and Menus/Player Development Lab

The Player Development Lab (Also known as Practice Facility in Historical Games). provides the ability to influence the development of a limited selection of players. Development programs can be assigned during the off-season with each program targeting a specific set of player skills

Find out more information about the lab here, in the developer's guide to the program. (Also check out Player Development Sliders)

Development Lab Settings

Development Lab Settings

Development Lab settings can be found under Game > Game Settings > Players & Teams in the Player Development Settings section.

• Disable Player Development Lab - Disables the Development Lab.
• Development Lab Size - Changes the number of player slots available.
• Updated in OOTP 26 - the size you can choose from is now 1-30 slots. Default size is 8. For OOTP 25 - the size you can choose from 1 to 20. By default 8 players can be assigned. Default size is 6.

• Display Lab Specific Ratings Changes in Completion Email - Enables the display of rating changes in the program completion emails. Examples of the information sent in the emails:

Development Email with specific changes disabled

Development Email with specific changes enabled.

The rating changes displayed in the completion emails depend on the rating scale in use.

New settings for OOTP 26 Development Lab 2.0:

These settings can also be found in the Development Lab section of Game Setting>Players & Team.

• Overall program Difficulty - adjust how difficult the development lab is.
  • Setting that can be chosen are:
    1. Less Difficult - Makes the programs slightly easier to complete. More positive outcomes.
    2. Default - The default setting.
    3. More Difficult - Makes the programs slightly harder to complete. Less positive outcomes.
• Program Improvement Magnitude - This setting adjusts the numerical outcome when you positively complete a program.
  • Settings that can be chosen are:
    1. Smaller - This setting will make your bonus for completing programs slightly smaller. You will get less of an improvement.
    2. Default - This is normal improvement.
    3. Larger - This setting will make your bonus for completing programs slight larger. You will get more of an improvement.

Midterm Update Email

• GM's will now receive midterm update emails about players. On this date you can decide to remove players from their program. If you remove them while they are struggling, it will incur the same penalty as if they finished the program struggling. In all other cases you will simply free up the slot.

Using the Development Lab

The Development Lab can be found from the Team Menu under Player Development.

The development lab facility is open during the offseason and preseason, and includes weight rooms, batting cages, bullpens, training equipment, and more. While this facility is open you can send players here, where they will follow a training program designed to improve a specific part of their game.

Programs take different amounts of time to complete. There are short programs (4 to 5 weeks) and long programs (4 to 5 months).

The time allotted to the short and long program lengths will adjust to the amount of time between seasons (the offseason). A short schedule with more offseason time will increase program lengths (ex: 5 to 6 weeks or 5 to 6 months) and a long season with a shorter offseason will decrease program lengths. A player should be able to complete "3 short programs" or "1 long program and 1 short program" in an offseason.

Assigning a Player to a Development Program

To assign a player to a development program simply drag a player from the left side to the right side and select the program for the player. The available programs are listed below.

Notes

• Some programs may not always be available to all players. Ex: a player may already be at the maximum level and cannot improve further
• Injured players may not be able to participate in development programs.

Development Lab UI

With Development Lab 2.0 the UI has been updated to give you much more detail of how your players are progressing in their programs. There are different colors that represent how a player is progressing. NOTE: Just because a player is frustrated does not mean they will remain frustrated. As your player progresses through their program their potential outcome will fluctuate and can possibly pass the next threshold but, it can also regress to a lower possible outcome. Near the right side of the UI are 3 lines in the color of Orange, Green and Blue. Each of these line show the threshold of the next level of progression.

• Red - means a player is doing poorly in their program. If they remain poor there is a chance they may get a negative outcome.
• Orange - means the player is frustrated in their program.
• Green - means the player is on track to have a chance at a successful outcome.
• Blue - means that the player is excelling in their program and have a chance to have an outstanding outcome.

The dark bar is the possible outcome and will fluctuate up and down as your player progresses through their program. If that bar goes past one of the lines on the right, it will change color to that new level. The bright bar is your current progression. Once that bar goes past one of the lines on the right, that means that the player can no longer regress below that progression. So if it goes past the green line, that means it is guaranteed that your player will have a successful outcome.

List of Development Programs

Development programs are split between common programs, pitcher specific programs, and batter specific programs. Programs have varying difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard, and Very Hard). The difficulty impacts program length and likelihood of success.

Common Programs:

Common programs are available to both pitchers and position players.

Updated in OOTP 26 for Development Lab 2.0

The Improve Defense program has been adjusted in OOTP 26. You now have the choice of picking either Improve infield defense or improve outfield defense. Some players will only be able to pick one or the other and some players will be able to pick both. The reason is, if a player has experience in both an infield and outfield position they can train in both. You can now also choose to run both programs in the same off-season.

OOTP 26 Improve Defense
Player Position	Difficulty	Length	Successful Result	Outstanding Result	Notes
Improve Infield Defense	Hard		Hold, Infield Arm, Infield Range, Infield Error, and Turn Double Play
Improve Defense at Catcher	Hard		Catcher Arm, Blocking, and Framing
Improve Outfield Defense	Hard		Outfield Arm, Outfield Range, Outfield Error

For OOTP 25 Development Lab Improve Defense Programs

OOTP 25 Improve Defense
Player Position	Difficulty	Length	Successful Result	Outstanding Result	Notes
Pitcher	Hard		Hold, Infield Arm, Infield Range, Infield Error, and Turn Double Play
Catcher	Hard		Catcher Arm, Blocking, and Framing
Infield Defense	Hard		Infield Arm, Infield Range, Infield Error, and Turn Double Play
Outfield Defense	Hard		Outfield Arm, Outfield Range, Outfield Error

Miscellaneous
Program Name	Difficulty	Length	Successful Result	Outstanding Result	Notes
Bunting Drills	Easy		Sacrifice Bunt and Bunt for Hit
Strength and Conditioning	Hard		Durability	Pitcher: chance of velocity boost Batter: chance of small potential power rating boost	Only available if internal ratings thresholds are met. (All 4 injury proneness ratings above 20). Result will not specify specific area of improvement, only general durability.

Pitcher Specific Programs:

Program Name	Difficulty	Length	Successful Result	Outstanding Result	Notes
Secondary Pitch Improvement	Hard		Highest rated secondary pitch (non-fastball) will be slightly improved		Has no effect on fastball
Improve Control	Medium		Control	Control & Potential Control	Poor result may decrease rating
Increase Pitch Movement	Medium		Movement	Movement & Potential Movement
Improve Pitch Arsenal	Hard		Improves all pitches under an internal rating of 375 (including the fastball)		Program not available if all pitches are above the threshold
Increase Velocity	Hard		Improves Velocity if velocity is below 99-101 Mph		Program not available if velocity is above 99-101 Mph
Endurance Training	Hard		Stamina
Add Pitch to Arsenal	Very Hard		Adds a new pitch, selected randomly

Batter Specific Programs:

Program Name	Difficulty	Length	Successful Result	Outstanding Result	Notes
Baserunning Fundamentals	Very Easy		Baserunning
Base-stealing Technique	Very Easy		Stealing Ability and Aggressiveness
Running Mechanics	Medium		Running Speed
Plate Discipline	Medium		Eye	Eye & Potential Eye
Gap Power	Medium		Gap Power	Gap Power & Gap Power Potential
Quality of Contact	Hard		BABIP	BABIP & Potential BABIP
Two-strike Approach	Hard		Avoid K's	Avoid K's & Potential Avoid K's
Generate Batspeed	Hard		Power	Power & Potential Power

Development Outcomes

Programs have four possible outcomes: Poor, No Improvement, Successful, and Outstanding.

• Poor results may produce a negative outcome (decrease in ratings) in some, but not all programs.
• No Improvement produces no change in rating(s)
• Successful results produce an increase in rating(s)
• Outstanding results produce an increase in potential rating(s) in addition to current rating(s) and can sometimes produce a bonus improvement.

On program completion the results for each player will be emailed to the general manager. These results may not be directly visible or obvious when viewing player ratings or scouting reports. Changes occur to internal ratings (available in the player editor). Depending on the rating scale in use they may not always result in a change to the displayed ratings. The scouting system will also impact the visibility of a ratings change.

Tips and Tricks

Having coaches with good development traits, players with positive personalities and good morale could possibly give a slight bonus at getting better outcomes. Making sure your development budget has enough money can also help with the development lab outcome.

History

Version	Changes
26	Reworked the development lab UI to show a progress bar along with projected progress, as well as the various success cutoffs
26	Will now receive midterm update emails about players. On this date you can decide to remove them from their program. If you remove them while they are struggling, it will incur the same penalty as if they finished the program struggling. In all other cases you will simply free up the slot.
26	Added setting to adjust overall development program difficulty
26	Added setting to adjust overall magnitude of changes from development lab programs
26	Reworked defensive programs. Can now choose from Infield Defense, Outfield Defense, and Catcher Defense programs if the player can already play in that part of the field. Each program difficulty is now hard.
26	Secondary pitch improvement now medium difficulty
26	Improved AI logic when adding players to the lab
26	Improved outcome logic in general
26	Added league news articles for rare development lab completions around the league
26	Default lab size now 8, max now 30
26	New development lab queue