Players will occassionally become fatigued and/or injured for a variety of reasons.
Players will rarely be capable of playing a full 162 games in a season and will need occassional days off.
Catchers: Will be hit the hardest. Plan for your starting C to fatigue more quickly in games where he’s catching. His upper limit for games caught will be around 130.
DH: A DH will continue to recuperate more quickly than a position player. So moving a fatigued player to DH will help him bounce back while still playing.
Effects on Performance: Fatigue is represented by decreased health. And it directly translates to effectiveness. Once a player’s health decreases below 98%, his ratings scale downward. For instance, a 90 CH at 90% health is effectively an 81 CH!
Shuffle Your Lineup to Rest Players: The Fatigue & Injuries Settings now have an available Action of “Use Saved Lineup”. Using this you can choose an alternate lineup when a specific player requires rest.
Pinch Hitting, Pinch Running, and Defensive Replacements: Another way to help rest players is to use pinch hitting, pinch running, and defensive replacements to decrease playing time in games where it strategically makes sense. Cutting an at-bat or a few innings in the field from a game can help a player stay fresh. These settings live in your team’s Player Strategy page.
Platoons: Using the Saved Lineups feature you can specify different lineups versus left-handed and right-handed pitchers. This can be a way to include some days off for key players.
You can set your team to auto-manage fatigued or injured players by going to Manager > Fatigue & Injury Settings.
These settings will be evaluate before each game, and any necessary substitutions will be attempted, starting with the most injured/fatigued player first.
While the auto-managing feature is very basic, you can use your lineup, rostaion, and roster screens to assign players to the DL, and make other modifications when a player needs recovery.
Fatigue is indicated by a player's Health Rating, and can occur from the following causes:
There are numerous ways to manage a fatigued player:
Injuries can occur from the following causes:
Not all injuries require time on the IL/DL. Some merely require a few days off. When a player is injured the player profile will note the following:
Based on the Days To Recover, you can decide whether or not to place a player on the IL/DL.
It is not reccomended to play more severely injured players if you can avoid it. Playing a player with low health only increases the likelihood of further, more severe injury.
As in real life, each 4040 player has his own rate and severity levels of injuries. Some players are more durable, and less frequently or severely injured. Others are less durable, and more frequently and/or severely injured.
To keep things somewhat stable, you should experience no more than three simultaneous injuries, with two exceptions:
| Current Injuries | No. of Overused Pitchers, Health Below 90, or Age 35+ | Possible Additional Injuries |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 |