Historical League with fictional expansion

[fredbeene]

How can you do historical league then have fictional expansion
So start in 1960, have the normal expansions then say in 1972 add 2 new teams. But then also have the regular expansion in 1977 with toronto/seattle?

I

[canaveral]

If you start with an historical league setup and do an extra expansion, say in 1972, then the AI will flip everything back to be historically accurate for 1973, and you'll lose your extra expansion teams.


So, begin with a fictional league setup, dump all the teams and all the players, and import the teams from the year you want to begin with. This means you will have to manually schedule all the expansions, regular and extra.



Also, your new teams won't have any rookies coming in each year, so you'll have to go with free agents - which means the rookies won't likely appear on their proper teams - or fictional players.



Maybe someone else has a better way, but realize you are drastically changing history with extra expansions.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by canaveral

If you start with an historical league setup and do an extra expansion, say in 1972, then the AI will flip everything back to be historically accurate for 1973, and you'll lose your extra expansion teams.


So, begin with a fictional league setup, dump all the teams and all the players, and import the teams from the year you want to begin with. This means you will have to manually schedule all the expansions, regular and extra.



Also, your new teams won't have any rookies coming in each year, so you'll have to go with free agents - which means the rookies won't likely appear on their proper teams - or fictional players.



Maybe someone else has a better way, but realize you are drastically changing history with extra expansions.

pretty much correct in the above. except if you create a text file of the historical players, and import them each year before the draft, you can get them into the draft pool. you'd have to go to the .csv files (both major and minors) and copy the players ID and year of entry, into a text file. It's slow. it cumbersome. it's a pain, but it works. i use it for my current league, now 55 years into with, mixing historical major league players entering in the correct year with fictional ones.


one BIG issue is if you use both the minor league & major league csv, you'll start getting duplicates. You'll get tris Speaker as a minor leaguer, and later as a major leaguer .... i quit using the minor league data base in my text imports due to that issue.


can't say i recommend do it this way, unless you're patient and meticulous. But by using the .csv files, all the data you need is there to import the players via a text file. if you're serious about trying it, i've got a write-up somewhere on my computer with how to create a text file to import in more detail. you can PM me, as i probably won't see it in this thread, and it may take me a day or two to get back.


good luck.

[WahooSam309]

Mitchkenn, I've been doing this in 1871 to 1878 using the playerid (which is, I think, also the Lanham ID) to import major league players, and it's worked great. In 1879, though, there are some minor league debuts. Those guys don't have Lahman IDs, though. What should I use in the text doc? The BBrefminorsID?

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by WahooSam309

Mitchkenn, I've been doing this in 1871 to 1878 using the playerid (which is, I think, also the Lanham ID) to import major league players, and it's worked great. In 1879, though, there are some minor league debuts. Those guys don't have Lahman IDs, though. What should I use in the text doc? The BBrefminorsID?

i believe that should work. the game also has a minor league csv. their ID's to import would be in that for certain.

[Garlon]

Just go to League Setting>Historical and turn off Automatically Expand League. Then when you want to expand after a season ends, just go to League Settings>Functions>Expand League and Schedule Expansion Draft. For expansion drafts I suggest limiting the protected players to no more than 12-14 players, and make sure that the number of rounds in the draft is probably no more than 25-28 players.

[Brad K]

The primary effect on the quality of expansion teams is not the number of protected players but the number of unprotected players.

The suggestion above of allowing 12 or 14 to be protected may be a good suggestion when expanding from 16 to 20, but may not be when expanding from 24 to 28.

Just to make the numbers easier, assume all the players protected are on the 25 man roster. With 14 protected, this leaves 11 MBL quality players to be drafted per team x 16 teams = 176 / 4 expansion teams = 44 per expansion team.

But the same situation with a league that's already 24 teams is this.

11 per team x 24 teams = 264 / 4 expansion teams = 66 per expansion team.

I just did an expansion from 24 to 28 with 25 protected players per team. One team went 79 - 83. Two finished last. Overall the four teams played .414 ball.

The question is how good is it desired for first year teams to be? I certainly don't want a Vegas Golden Knights situation. but neither do I want the 62 Mets.

Also it seems likely that small changes in the number of protected players per team can make a big difference in the results. After all, every additional unprotected player adds quality to the top of the quality list.

If I had to do my draft over again, I might cut the protected list to 23, but no lower.