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soxfan34 10-24-2012 10:08 AM

Strategy/Tips For Winning
 
I know this is a broad question, but I was wondering what some of you look at in terms of things like (among others) building your team, setting your lineups/rotations, drafting, league settings, etc. in order to build a winner in OOTP13. What types of players/ratings do you look for? What kind of coaches do you prefer? How do you manage your minors? I threw out some example questions, but feel free to leave this question open to interpretation and answer however you like :D

scott1964 10-25-2012 01:57 AM

I had Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Cy Young play for my Washington Senators and win three straight WS :p:woohoo:

JMDurron 10-25-2012 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soxfan34 (Post 3399082)
I know this is a broad question, but I was wondering what some of you look at in terms of things like (among others) building your team, setting your lineups/rotations, drafting, league settings, etc. in order to build a winner in OOTP13. What types of players/ratings do you look for? What kind of coaches do you prefer? How do you manage your minors? I threw out some example questions, but feel free to leave this question open to interpretation and answer however you like :D

Play the games - First of all, I have to say up front that I play out all of my games. Between wanting to take a patient approach at the plate and avoid the AI issues with reliever utilization, I'm controlling my own destiny. This has implications for my roster building strategies.

Players/Ratings - I'm looking at 3 primary factors for position players. Age, Offense, and Defense, in that order. A player with great ratings who is 34 is not worth as much as a player with good ratings at age 26, IMO. You don't want to be playing (and paying) the Geriatric All Stars. Also, don't let the offense obscure the defensive implications. You don't want to be the guy with Kevin Millar and Kevin Youkilis playing your corner OF positions because you have too many awesome hitters with no place to put them in the field.

-Within the offensive ratings, I look for contact over batting eye, because I manually force plate discipline via my manual game playing. If you sim instead, the eye rating becomes more important to you than it would be to me. The way you play must drive your roster decisions.

- Within defensive ratings, if two players have similar defensive skills, I prefer the guy ready to play 3 positions vs 1 due to the benefits of roster flexibility. It's frustrating to have a player who can play only one OF position well from day 1 due to experience when a top prospect or trade/FA acquisition needs to play that same position, and then I get stuck with learning on the fly while hurting the pitching staff for the first 4 months of the season. Using blowout games to shift players to potential future positions and/or backup positions is key here, and again goes with manually playing out my games.

soxfan34 10-25-2012 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3399538)
Play the games - First of all, I have to say up front that I play out all of my games. Between wanting to take a patient approach at the plate and avoid the AI issues with reliever utilization, I'm controlling my own destiny. This has implications for my roster building strategies.

Players/Ratings - I'm looking at 3 primary factors for position players. Age, Offense, and Defense, in that order. A player with great ratings who is 34 is not worth as much as a player with good ratings at age 26, IMO. You don't want to be playing (and paying) the Geriatric All Stars. Also, don't let the offense obscure the defensive implications. You don't want to be the guy with Kevin Millar and Kevin Youkilis playing your corner OF positions because you have too many awesome hitters with no place to put them in the field.

-Within the offensive ratings, I look for contact over batting eye, because I manually force plate discipline via my manual game playing. If you sim instead, the eye rating becomes more important to you than it would be to me. The way you play must drive your roster decisions.

- Within defensive ratings, if two players have similar defensive skills, I prefer the guy ready to play 3 positions vs 1 due to the benefits of roster flexibility. It's frustrating to have a player who can play only one OF position well from day 1 due to experience when a top prospect or trade/FA acquisition needs to play that same position, and then I get stuck with learning on the fly while hurting the pitching staff for the first 4 months of the season. Using blowout games to shift players to potential future positions and/or backup positions is key here, and again goes with manually playing out my games.

This is awesome, thanks! It's tough sometimes when you want to progress your team year over year quickly, but you're right it does make more sense to play out each game if you truly want to control your own destiny.

What type of settings do you use (scouts/ageing/fatigue/etc)? In regards to fatigue, when playing out your games do you still see players getting tired and needing rest? Or do you just do this manually?

The Game 10-25-2012 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soxfan34 (Post 3399082)
I know this is a broad question, but I was wondering what some of you look at in terms of things like (among others) building your team, setting your lineups/rotations, drafting, league settings, etc. in order to build a winner in OOTP13. What types of players/ratings do you look for? What kind of coaches do you prefer? How do you manage your minors? I threw out some example questions, but feel free to leave this question open to interpretation and answer however you like :D

For me I always try to build my team to match my stadium. Right now I am playing I Wrigley Field aka WGN Field. Wrigley favors right handed power hitters as Wrigley has not had a left handed hitter hit moire then 29 HR in decades. I did an inaugural draft so it was a little bit easier, but 3 of my 5 SP are ground ball sinker pitchers. I have good right handed power at my corner positions and my C. CF, SS,2B are my speed defense guys. Other then myself as the manager at excellent the rest of my coaches are average. I have won with the rest of the coaches being inexperienced, so I don't place high value on coaches except my scout. My scout is excellent overall his strength being minor leagues. I also am overly trade happy.
Playing day to day I check the waiver wire and put in claims on anyone i think can strengthen my team. I also shop a player at least once a day especially upcoming FA's. Right now I am dead last in budget and payroll but playing in Chicago with Oprah as my owner I am expecting that to change.
I find it is too easy to win in OOTP even with no custom players. Right now I am 18-13 but I expect to be .500 for the year. I have 3 20 yr old SP with 5 star potential. a 17 yr old starting C with 10 power potential. My minors are stacked with MR help and middle IF. I do lack a backup C or C prospect and a 1B prospect.

JMDurron 10-25-2012 10:52 AM

Ok, I'm just going to post sectional Strategy/Tips that I happen to use in individual areas, so people who use/avoid the same areas/tactics can just pick out what posts they find interesting.

I only play MLB Quickstart and MLB Historical, so keep that context in mind. I generally focus on the Quickstart unless otherwise specified.

Playing The Games

I play out my games.

Settings

For the sake of expediency, I set the PbP text to instant/fastest (I forget the setting names, but it's quick-clicking and I never read all of the text. The last line is generally what matters, I scroll up as needed). I also go with single-pitch mode, no reliever warmups, and I can't recall any other meaningful setting changes.

On offense


I enforce strict plate discipline on my teams, as I have described elsewhere in threads relating to "Take Pitch." One man's strategy is another man's exploit, but I suspect the game may not handle my particular method very well. I'm playing to win, not necessarily to be realistic, so keep that in mind when considering my tactics. I'm here to sweep the leg, not enjoy losing a realistic number of games. If I wanted to savor losing, I'd watch replays of the real Red Sox.

I click "Take Pitch" until I have two strikes on my hitters. Every PA, haven't come across any exceptions yet. After that, it's "Swing Away" time.

For baserunning, obviously things get more complex. If I have a solid stealing thread (SPD and STE of 70+), I will generally select "steal 2nd" on every pitch until I have two strikes on the hitter, IF AND ONLY IF

1) The pitcher has a hold rating of 50 or worse
2) The catcher has an arm rating of 30 or worse
3) The game is playing out to be a low-scoring affair, requiring aggressiveness on the basepaths, the catcher has a sub-30% caught stealing percentage so far on the season, and the pitcher hold/catcher arm ratings are both below 60.

If I get good stealing runners on both 1st and 2nd, I am quite aggressive with "double steal", as for some reason I seem to perceive a higher success rate than I would otherwise expect in these situations.

I won't double steal with 2 outs in general, I will go for 2nd regardless of the number of outs if I get the right pitcher hold/catcher arm conditions.

Hitting and Running - If I have a good basestealer and the catcher arm rating is sub-80, I will execute "Run and Hit" with less than 2 outs if the count is 2-2 or 3-2 on my hitter. My experience has led to too many 1-2 pitches that lead to thrown out runners to be as aggressive then, unless the catcher arm is sub-30.

Advancing bases against throws - I am as conservative here as I am aggressive with stealing. Since my Take Pitch approach leads to a relatively high team OBP, runs scored, and tired opposing pitching staffs, I generally avoid running into outs when the ball is put in play. The ball has to be shallow or deeper, with an average or worse arm for me to try to advance with any of my non-elite baserunners. I will be more aggressive in late inning/low scoring game situations.

Starting Pitching

Much more straightforward than my offensive approach. Pitch away, take my chances.

Once the starter is tired, unless it is the 5th inning or earlier AND I have a huge lead/deficit, he's out of the game ASAP.

Once the starter hits 100 pitches, he is out with his next non-error baserunner, UNLESS it is late in the game and he has been dominant. I will stretch things to get shutouts, because I like getting individual performance e-mails. :woohoo:

Once the starter gives up 5 ERs, unless I am in a long stretch of games without a day off and/or have a tired bullpen, he's gone. This is highly dependent on whether or not my bullpen carriers a long reliever.

Once a starter gives up consecutive baserunners in an inning, I always visit the mound. Not sure if it helps or not, but it doesn't seem to hurt.

Relief Pitching

For normal bullpen situations (at least 3-4 pitchers available, 6th inning or later), I have some general rules that I follow.

Once the reliever gives up two baserunners, I visit the mound. Once the reliever gives up 3 baserunners, he's gone.

I don't heavily consider handedness in my reliever selection, I tend to try to go for dominance over specialty guys, and the AI's roster decisions make this feasible in general (waiver wire = WIN!).

Once the reliever has thrown 20+ pitches, he's gone with the next baserunner. I don't take the reliever out based on an arbitrary number of outs, I care about effectiveness.

Once the reliever is tired, he's gone, I don't care if he's faced 7 batters and struck them all out on 21 pitches. Scram!

I make sure that G/B% is displayed in my default pitching view. If the first reliever or starter has left the bases loaded with nobody out late in the game, you'd better believe that I'm picking the reliever with the 70% G/B rate to come try to clean up that mess.

I do reliever selection somewhat crudely, based on ERA+ once I have 10+ IP by all of my relievers. April choices are driven by IP, outside of key late situations, where I'm going with the guys I expect to be my relief aces. After that, it's in-season results.

For blowouts, the worst relievers by ERA+ come in, unless my top guys haven't pitched in 4+ days. In close games, the top ERA+ reliever comes in first, regardless of innings. Saves are not a focus for me, outs and wins are.

In every game, I focus on 100% rested relievers first. This helps to spread out the workload despite my ERA+ rules. It's more important to not torch the entire bullpen for a week than it is to win any single game if I can help it. I also generally have 7-8 relievers, particularly early in the season, in order to see what I have.

Controlling The Running Game

If a baserunner reaches against me with any kind of SPD/STE rating that indicates a potential attempt, I pitch out on the first pitch. The AI seems inclined to steal early in the count, and for the sake of an example, I went through an entire season with a catcher with an Arm rating of 43 throwing out 50% of opposing baserunners.

I also make a pickoff attempt to every base available at the start of every plate appearance by the opponent. I generate some extra errors this way, but I think I come out ahead overall. I find that I catch the lousy baserunners way more often than the good ones, but an out is an out.

Blowouts

I define a blowout as:

- A 10-run lead at any point in the game
- A lead of 7-9 runs after the 7th inning or later

I implement blowouts by:

- Picking relievers based on rest level, then worst ERA+ available
- Deploying all bench players
- Shifting remaining starters to potential future or backup positions.

As an example, my current RF is in the last year of his deal, the CF has a low rating in LF due to lack of experience, and my LF hasn't quite maxed out his potential capability in RF. So, in a blowout, my backup OF replaces the RF, and plays CF. The CF moves to LF, and the LF moves to RF, because I will promote a prospect from AAA to take over CF next season, and I want the future LF and RF to have as much experience as possible before that happens.

In the event that position ratings are maxed out or irrelevant, besides C, I generally use my backup IF/OF to rest whichever player has the highest OPS among the starters, to try to keep that player as fresh as possible. If I win/lose enough blowouts, that might be the difference of a full extra game before that player needs to rest. The 10 run threshold is key to this effort, I love nothing more than getting a 10-run lead in the 3rd, or at least have an upside to being down by 10 that early in the game.

JMDurron 10-25-2012 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soxfan34 (Post 3399543)
This is awesome, thanks! It's tough sometimes when you want to progress your team year over year quickly, but you're right it does make more sense to play out each game if you truly want to control your own destiny.

What type of settings do you use (scouts/ageing/fatigue/etc)? In regards to fatigue, when playing out your games do you still see players getting tired and needing rest? Or do you just do this manually?

Yeah, it's definitely a balancing act between my inner control freak and my desire to oversee the grand, long-term evolution of the team. My inner control freak wins.

Default aging and fatigue settings. I do see players getting tired and needing rest when I go 6+ games without a day off, which is realistic. Lineup/roster management is also a factor here, as players with similar performance between starter and bench will tend to have "Every 3-5 days" set for their lineup/rest rotation to help provide PAs to the bench players who deserve it.

Scouting...yeah. This is a family site, so I won't use the simplest term for how I play this, but if one were to quote a person I might refer to as "The Hollywood Casual Sports Follower Who Gambles", I am the Cobra Kai. Daniel-San should not adopt my ways.

In my MLB League (Scouting off in my historical league), I go with very low accuracy, put all of my scouting emphasis on discovering foreign talent, and I evaluate my own players my looking behind the curtain at their editor ratings. In short, I'm a very naughty boy. The AI still generally does a decent job of not trading their gold for my scrap, though, so it's not a completely cartoony environment.

This is not the way to go if you're interested in realism, as opposed to crushing all those who would dare to oppose you.

soxfan34 10-25-2012 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3399560)
Ok, I'm just going to post sectional Strategy/Tips that I happen to use in individual areas, so people who use/avoid the same areas/tactics can just pick out what posts they find interesting.

I only play MLB Quickstart and MLB Historical, so keep that context in mind. I generally focus on the Quickstart unless otherwise specified.

Playing The Games

I play out my games.

Settings

For the sake of expediency, I set the PbP text to instant/fastest (I forget the setting names, but it's quick-clicking and I never read all of the text. The last line is generally what matters, I scroll up as needed). I also go with single-pitch mode, no reliever warmups, and I can't recall any other meaningful setting changes.

On offense


I enforce strict plate discipline on my teams, as I have described elsewhere in threads relating to "Take Pitch." One man's strategy is another man's exploit, but I suspect the game may not handle my particular method very well. I'm playing to win, not necessarily to be realistic, so keep that in mind when considering my tactics. I'm here to sweep the leg, not enjoy losing a realistic number of games. If I wanted to savor losing, I'd watch replays of the real Red Sox.

I click "Take Pitch" until I have two strikes on my hitters. Every PA, haven't come across any exceptions yet. After that, it's "Swing Away" time.

For baserunning, obviously things get more complex. If I have a solid stealing thread (SPD and STE of 70+), I will generally select "steal 2nd" on every pitch until I have two strikes on the hitter, IF AND ONLY IF

1) The pitcher has a hold rating of 50 or worse
2) The catcher has an arm rating of 30 or worse
3) The game is playing out to be a low-scoring affair, requiring aggressiveness on the basepaths, the catcher has a sub-30% caught stealing percentage so far on the season, and the pitcher hold/catcher arm ratings are both below 60.

If I get good stealing runners on both 1st and 2nd, I am quite aggressive with "double steal", as for some reason I seem to perceive a higher success rate than I would otherwise expect in these situations.

I won't double steal with 2 outs in general, I will go for 2nd regardless of the number of outs if I get the right pitcher hold/catcher arm conditions.

Hitting and Running - If I have a good basestealer and the catcher arm rating is sub-80, I will execute "Run and Hit" with less than 2 outs if the count is 2-2 or 3-2 on my hitter. My experience has led to too many 1-2 pitches that lead to thrown out runners to be as aggressive then, unless the catcher arm is sub-30.

Advancing bases against throws - I am as conservative here as I am aggressive with stealing. Since my Take Pitch approach leads to a relatively high team OBP, runs scored, and tired opposing pitching staffs, I generally avoid running into outs when the ball is put in play. The ball has to be shallow or deeper, with an average or worse arm for me to try to advance with any of my non-elite baserunners. I will be more aggressive in late inning/low scoring game situations.

Starting Pitching

Much more straightforward than my offensive approach. Pitch away, take my chances.

Once the starter is tired, unless it is the 5th inning or earlier AND I have a huge lead/deficit, he's out of the game ASAP.

Once the starter hits 100 pitches, he is out with his next non-error baserunner, UNLESS it is late in the game and he has been dominant. I will stretch things to get shutouts, because I like getting individual performance e-mails. :woohoo:

Once the starter gives up 5 ERs, unless I am in a long stretch of games without a day off and/or have a tired bullpen, he's gone. This is highly dependent on whether or not my bullpen carriers a long reliever.

Once a starter gives up consecutive baserunners in an inning, I always visit the mound. Not sure if it helps or not, but it doesn't seem to hurt.

Relief Pitching

For normal bullpen situations (at least 3-4 pitchers available, 6th inning or later), I have some general rules that I follow.

Once the reliever gives up two baserunners, I visit the mound. Once the reliever gives up 3 baserunners, he's gone.

I don't heavily consider handedness in my reliever selection, I tend to try to go for dominance over specialty guys, and the AI's roster decisions make this feasible in general (waiver wire = WIN!).

Once the reliever has thrown 20+ pitches, he's gone with the next baserunner. I don't take the reliever out based on an arbitrary number of outs, I care about effectiveness.

Once the reliever is tired, he's gone, I don't care if he's faced 7 batters and struck them all out on 21 pitches. Scram!

I make sure that G/B% is displayed in my default pitching view. If the first reliever or starter has left the bases loaded with nobody out late in the game, you'd better believe that I'm picking the reliever with the 70% G/B rate to come try to clean up that mess.

I do reliever selection somewhat crudely, based on ERA+ once I have 10+ IP by all of my relievers. April choices are driven by IP, outside of key late situations, where I'm going with the guys I expect to be my relief aces. After that, it's in-season results.

For blowouts, the worst relievers by ERA+ come in, unless my top guys haven't pitched in 4+ days. In close games, the top ERA+ reliever comes in first, regardless of innings. Saves are not a focus for me, outs and wins are.

In every game, I focus on 100% rested relievers first. This helps to spread out the workload despite my ERA+ rules. It's more important to not torch the entire bullpen for a week than it is to win any single game if I can help it. I also generally have 7-8 relievers, particularly early in the season, in order to see what I have.

Controlling The Running Game

If a baserunner reaches against me with any kind of SPD/STE rating that indicates a potential attempt, I pitch out on the first pitch. The AI seems inclined to steal early in the count, and for the sake of an example, I went through an entire season with a catcher with an Arm rating of 43 throwing out 50% of opposing baserunners.

I also make a pickoff attempt to every base available at the start of every plate appearance by the opponent. I generate some extra errors this way, but I think I come out ahead overall. I find that I catch the lousy baserunners way more often than the good ones, but an out is an out.

Blowouts

I define a blowout as:

- A 10-run lead at any point in the game
- A lead of 7-9 runs after the 7th inning or later

I implement blowouts by:

- Picking relievers based on rest level, then worst ERA+ available
- Deploying all bench players
- Shifting remaining starters to potential future or backup positions.

As an example, my current RF is in the last year of his deal, the CF has a low rating in LF due to lack of experience, and my LF hasn't quite maxed out his potential capability in RF. So, in a blowout, my backup OF replaces the RF, and plays CF. The CF moves to LF, and the LF moves to RF, because I will promote a prospect from AAA to take over CF next season, and I want the future LF and RF to have as much experience as possible before that happens.

In the event that position ratings are maxed out or irrelevant, besides C, I generally use my backup IF/OF to rest whichever player has the highest OPS among the starters, to try to keep that player as fresh as possible. If I win/lose enough blowouts, that might be the difference of a full extra game before that player needs to rest. The 10 run threshold is key to this effort, I love nothing more than getting a 10-run lead in the 3rd, or at least have an upside to being down by 10 that early in the game.

Extremely detailed, I am going to implement some of these! Thanks!

soxfan34 10-25-2012 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3399567)
Yeah, it's definitely a balancing act between my inner control freak and my desire to oversee the grand, long-term evolution of the team. My inner control freak wins.

Default aging and fatigue settings. I do see players getting tired and needing rest when I go 6+ games without a day off, which is realistic. Lineup/roster management is also a factor here, as players with similar performance between starter and bench will tend to have "Every 3-5 days" set for their lineup/rest rotation to help provide PAs to the bench players who deserve it.

Scouting...yeah. This is a family site, so I won't use the simplest term for how I play this, but if one were to quote a person I might refer to as "The Hollywood Casual Sports Follower Who Gambles", I am the Cobra Kai. Daniel-San should not adopt my ways.

In my MLB League (Scouting off in my historical league), I go with very low accuracy, put all of my scouting emphasis on discovering foreign talent, and I evaluate my own players my looking behind the curtain at their editor ratings. In short, I'm a very naughty boy. The AI still generally does a decent job of not trading their gold for my scrap, though, so it's not a completely cartoony environment.

This is not the way to go if you're interested in realism, as opposed to crushing all those who would dare to oppose you.

LMAO!

Why not just play with scouting off instead of peeking behind the curtain?

JMDurron 10-25-2012 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soxfan34 (Post 3399569)
LMAO!

Why not just play with scouting off instead of peeking behind the curtain?

I want international prospects, and Scouting must be on for international prospects. The choice was between 100% accurate and very low, and I wanted very low mostly so that the AI would actually make occasionally uneven/silly trades amongst themselves, reflecting real life. I want my league environment to have the occasional Lowe and Varitek for Slocumb, Bagwell for Andersen, or Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez type deals.

I also like seeing how the player ratings translate into neutral environment OPS/ERA behind the curtain.

MBarrett 10-25-2012 11:49 AM

"Pitching, defense and the three-run homer." ;)

JMDurron 10-25-2012 01:32 PM

League Settings

This is basically a prereq for any follow-on posts for the context to make sense. The highlights to my league settings:

MLB Quickstart (Modern, Current, Real Players)
Scouting Very Low
Instant Injury Reports (I want data NOW!)
Cash Limit - One Billion Dollars [/Dr. Evil voice]
Draft Pick Trading Enabled
Advanced Draft Pick Negotiations Disabled.
AI Evaluation: 25/25/25/25
Trading AI: Defaults
Injury Frequency: Very Low

I'm only in year two, but I haven't seen ridiculous salary inflation due to the cash limit yet. A fair number of teams have positive or negative projected budgets, most of those with negative budget room have decent cash balances to compensate.

I don't think there are any other major changes.

EDIT #3 for Draft Pick Negotiations
EDIT #4 - Injury setting

JMDurron 10-25-2012 05:44 PM

I'm probably just going to have to give up on finishing large versions of these posts, and just come back and edit in other info as I think of things. Onto the "building your roster" section.

The Waiver Wire

1) In the Beginning

The effectiveness of this tactic is inversely proportional to the level of scouting accuracy. I have previously played with Very High accuracy in OOTP12, and seen some similar behavior with Very Low in OOTP13.

Particularly early in a league with scouting enabled, the AI does not always have a great sense of the talent level of their own players. This seems to particularly apply to relief pitching. This may also be true for you, depending on your selected scouting level and/or use of the editor ratings. Regardless of whether your scout, perfect knowledge, and/or intuition suggests that you may want to upgrade a position, you don't necessarily need to make an immediate trade. At default settings, if you want to upgrade a mediocre piece, you probably can't do so via trade anyway. My experience is that trading tends to work at the high end (move stars/prospects) and the very low end (bottom end of the roster guys), but that the middle is best addressed via the waiver wire.

The AI tends to have plenty of churn with it's #20-25 spots on the roster, so by keeping a VERY close track on the waiver wire, you can probably significantly upgrade your bullpen and bench. Particularly early in a franchise, the AI may cut a stud instead of a scrub if that initial, high-variance scouting report leads them astray. This is when you pounce.

Obviously, this means you need to do something with whoever you are displacing. If you have options, great, AAA backup is key, and it's always a morale boost to see your minor league team playing well with AAAA backups. For guys with no options, or salaries you would like to dump, it's time to shop that player. I will address my trading strategies in a different post, as that is an entirely separate beast.

2) The Coming of Stat Shadows

If you have any kind of emphasis on current-year stats with your AI evaluation settings, you may see some highly rated players (again, usually relievers) getting cut by the AI. You need to be checking the waiver wire for potential acquisitions at least every three days, due to the waiver availability period. Make the Waiver Wire a keyboard shortcut and train yourself to hit it out of sheer reflex. The AI may make some stupid decisions with respectable players that could have value to you due to small sample sizes if you are fortunate. It won't happen often, but you can't afford to miss it when it happens.

3) The Point of Huge Returns

Amateur Draft Day. That's another post, but it's from the INSTANT the draft ends that the Waiver Wire becomes a HUGE option for adding some MLB-ready talent.

For whatever reason, even with advanced draft pick signing turned off (need to add that to my settings post, oops), the AI gives MLB deals to some of their draft picks. This means that their 40-man roster, which always seems to be maxed out during the season, needs some pruning. Sometimes they cut the wrong branch, and you can pick up that branch, whittle it into a spear, and stab the AI teams through their cold, dead hearts and watch them turn into dust.

Again, the effectiveness of this depends greatly upon how you set your scouting settings. I am evil, you may not be, but the same principle applies, just with more variability as you play more fairly with the AI.

In my 2012 MLB season, I found 7 high-potential relievers on the waiver wire that I deployed to devastating effect...via trading. The trading post is extremely, EXTREMELY dependent on my settings, particularly the draft pick trading. You'll see why this post comes first later.

4) No Surrender, Many Repeats

This is where the trading post comes into play and I can't talk about one without the other. The AI cuts potentially valuable players due to a 40-man roster crunch. You then pick up those players from the waiver wire. If you win the claim, you have 10 days where the players are designated for assignment prior to having to deal with your own 40-man roster crunch. During that 10 day period, you can try to trade those players.

This is where the time to ask yourself how realistic you are vs how competitive and/or evil you are. I am evil, and I am fine with that.

I was able to claim 6-7 relievers with sufficient potential/current ability to have trade value to other AI teams, and trade them in a package of 3-4 players each time to those other AI teams. Those AI teams then put them on the waiver wire due to a lack of 40-man roster space, possibly keeping one of those relievers and waiving the other 2-4, depending on the package I put together. I then claim those 2-4 relievers again, get awarded the claim, and trade them *to that same team* repeatedly. Now, these relievers are still not huge value targets, so it's not like you can trade 4-5 waiver wire relievers for, say, Bryce Harper. But, if you find the happy midpoint of value to the AI, you can execute the same or similar trade repeatedly from the day of the Amateur Draft through the end of the season. The only variation is after July 31, when you add another 3 days to the outbound waiver wire as you trade them again.

In OOTP12, a ton of teams would sign their #1 picks to MLB deals, then waive them at this time. To the credit of the dev team, this no longer appears to happen. Now the problem is that teams sign those picks to MLB deals (or some of them, anyway) for no apparent reason, waive other players on their 40-man, pay no attention to players waived by other teams, and are then willing to trade value for those players that they did not care about on the waiver wire, given default trade settings. It's odd, and a reasonable person could argue that this is "cheesy" or "an exploit." I personally don't care, as I enjoy my dark side cookies.

5) The Wheel of Talent

Then, we have the offseason. By now, at least a full year into the league, the AI (and you) seems to have a better sense of the talent level of its own MLB players. As free agency comes about, and players sign with new teams and/or are traded, now is when the low-frequency, high-upside waiver wire hits come in.

For whatever reason, during the offseason, the AI still WILL put some of their high-upside, recently drafted talent onto the waiver wire. More importantly, it will do this despite those players BEING ON MINOR LEAGUE CONTRACTS. You can claim top 100 type prospect talent on the waiver wire without consequence to your 40-man roster limit, although other teams are better about putting their own claims in as well, so at least it's not quite as one-sided as the in-season waiver claims.

There is also a small surge of potential targets prior to the Rule V draft, but the AI seems to do a decent job of keeping top talent, or even useful talent, from coming out here. I believe that is the improved familiarity with internal talent factor coming into play.

If you automatically sim to any given date in the offseason, you are missing out. The tedium to going day-to-day from November until Spring Training is more than balanced out by the thrill of seeing a stud prospect come across the wire and land squarely in your lap. You can then keep that player, or trade him depending on your needs.

I think this covers my waiver wire tips fairly comprehensively. Again, these are tips for WINNING, not for realism, and may be highly dependent on my particular settings in the earlier settings post.

JMDurron 10-26-2012 10:37 AM

Somehow I have a feeling I'm going to run out of gas before finishing these, but oh well.

Trading

At the start of the franchise, you're going to have some crap contracts to deal with. The "Shop A Player" function is your friend, particularly on day 1 of the League, before additional stats and/or scouting reports have percolated through the league. Trade early, trade often, trade aggressively is my tactic. The approach has to differ based on where you are in the timeline.

Preseason/Offseason

I am all about clearing out older, more expensive contracts. This has to be done even with players who are producing, because even at default AI trade settings, the computer generally isn't stupid about trading value for garbage. If you try to dump a Daisuke Matsuzaka, you're not getting more than a Luke Hochevar in return. If you need to dump a John Lackey, you're going to have a staple a David Ortiz or an Adrian Gonzalez to him, but at least you can get massive salary relief that way. This actually seems quite realistic, given recent events.

There are two key dates, one for Day 1 of the League, and the other for every subsequent season. If you need to try to take a salary dump, you need to shop that player around IMMEDIATELY. This needs to be done on the day that players file for free agency, as that is the moment of greatest budget freedom for the majority of teams in the league. If only 1-2 teams are going to be interested in taking on an older, expensive player, you need to hit up those teams before they have executed the rest of their offseason plans.

One of the relatively few house rules I have is that I generally only try to work out a deal with teams that respond to a "Shop A Player" query. If no team responds, then you're in a "pick someone valuable you can lose to staple to the crap" situation, and you need to shop that valuable piece, then try to match up available budgets with interested parties to add in the player you want gone. As an example, this is how I ditched John Lackey in my MLB Quickstart. Shockingly, no teams responded when I shopped him. Since, for some bizarre reason, the MLB roster set I started with had David Ortiz signed at 12.5M per year for 4 years after 2012, so I shopped Ortiz around on the day free agents filed after the 2012 season. There were enough offers that I was able to trade Ortiz and Lackey together, when there was no way to trade Lackey on his own. You have to give up something to get something, but being aggressive in other venues can mitigate what you give up.

Every now and then, scouting and/or odd internal AI decisions lead to a "WTF?" offer. Take, for example, Carl Crawford. I shopped him on day 1 from his return from the DL in 2012, before he played a game, because I "knew" he would suck. Several teams responded with mediocre salary dump players in return, which is fair, but one team responded with a substantially valuable corner OF piece in exchange. You just don't know until you shop him. Assume Nothing, Shop Always is my motto. Obviously, these scenarios become less likely with harder trading settings.

Then, you have where the trading strategy merges with the waiver wire. You need to go into the offseason with a good sense of which players you are building around, and which players you can lose for the right deal. This is because when you pick up a potentially valuable piece from the waiver wire, even if you think you want him, you need to shop him. This is because some other team, despite ignoring him on waivers for some bizarre reason, may want him MORE. One of the high draft picks I claimed in the offseason waiver hunt led to a significant upgrade in youth and value at the DH spot just after my Ortiz/Lackey trade, so I ended up making a lateral move by combining a salary dump trade with a surprise easter egg hunt waiver wire maneuver.

Check out every player offered to you, every time, if you have the patience to do so. You never know when a team might significantly differ from your evaluation of the talent level being offered by you, or by them. You can get major pieces in seemingly random trades during the offseason.

If you have a waiver wire pickup/trade scenario that you want to combine with a salary dump, be absolutely certain that you execute it BEFORE SPRING TRAINING STARTS. As noted in another recent thread, Spring Training adds the salaries of all 40-man roster spots to the projected budget calculations, which shrinks the available budgets by 2-5 million per team. That will cut out a fair number of potential buyers for your 10-20 million dollar salary player that you want to try to ship out. Once you hit ST, you're generally stuck with him.

If you enable draft pick trading, as I have, always, ALWAYS try to upgrade your draft spot in every single deal you make. Once I get a deal agreed to, I always make a habit of seeing if I can trade a 2nd for the other team's 1st (basically never happens), 3rd for a 2nd (also rare), 4th for a 3rd, etc.. Once you get into the "4th for a 3rd" range, the AI tends to bite more often in my experience. No single deal is likely to make a major impact on your draft position, but adding this into every deal attempt will add up to that major impact.

Also, when you make your salary dump trades, if said salary dump is of a genuinely good player (think Ortiz or Adrian Gonzalez as opposed to Crawford or Lackey), you can try to target the team with the highest draft pick in the set of teams that responded to your offer, and see if you can build a package around that player for the team's #1 pick. That is where adding your 2nd to a request for their 1st can pay off.

After The Draft

As pointed out in the waiver wire post, this is where things get hectic, but in a fun way. If you can pick up a set of 5+ relievers on the waiver wire, you can shop those relievers around for packages that can make a significant impact on your team. You can focus on the present or the future, but I tend to try to use these deals more for the long term than the short term.

The key information here is to keep track of the relative draft positions of teams, and the team focus. "Win Now!" teams will tend to make more aggressive trades for relievers, so you want to focus on them.

Fair warning, we are now in the cheesy evil zone, so those of you picking up minor, legitimate tips and want to stay realistic should probably just skip this part.

[Begin Evil]

Using these relievers, target the "Win Now!" team with the best draft pick position at the time, or the Win Now team with the highest position that has responded to one of your shop player offers. I generally try to shop the players with the highest OSA ratings first, as I use that as an approximation of what other teams around the league might think about said player.

Unless you have a very specific need that the team (or one of the teams) can meet, there is where I go all in on the draft pick trading. Generally, these Win Now teams will give up a 4th-6th round draft pick for a package of 4-5 relievers put together. Since those relievers are generally ALL on MLB deals, the receiving team will then put all, or all but one of those relievers back onto the waiver wire. Claim them, target *the same team* again for the best draft pick you can get, and repeat to your heart's content. I personally only focus on 1st-6th round picks, I don't care once the 7th round comes up. Generally, I can get 4th-6th picks without giving up anything myself from 1-2 teams, then those same 4th-6th picks can be packaged with the relievers for upgrades into the 2nd or 3rd rounds. The AI is generally quite good at protecting their 1st round picks. It will take multiple 2nd/3rds plus the relievers to pull that off, which becomes feasible if you are dedicated and spend June-July making those trades every 3-4 days, followed by every 6-7 days in August-October.

Again, the key is to trade all 5 of the relievers to the same team, in order to ensure that at least 4 of them end up back on the waiver wire for you. Breaking up the trades into 1-2 relievers will leave you with a one-shot deal since the receiving team can make room for them on the 40-man roster more easily.

[End Evil]

I generally ignore trade offers via e-mail and emphasize the shop player functionality, but there are really no other hard and fast rules.

soxfan34 10-26-2012 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3400072)
Somehow I have a feeling I'm going to run out of gas before finishing these, but oh well.

Trading

At the start of the franchise, you're going to have some crap contracts to deal with. The "Shop A Player" function is your friend, particularly on day 1 of the League, before additional stats and/or scouting reports have percolated through the league. Trade early, trade often, trade aggressively is my tactic. The approach has to differ based on where you are in the timeline.

Preseason/Offseason

I am all about clearing out older, more expensive contracts. This has to be done even with players who are producing, because even at default AI trade settings, the computer generally isn't stupid about trading value for garbage. If you try to dump a Daisuke Matsuzaka, you're not getting more than a Luke Hochevar in return. If you need to dump a John Lackey, you're going to have a staple a David Ortiz or an Adrian Gonzalez to him, but at least you can get massive salary relief that way. This actually seems quite realistic, given recent events.

There are two key dates, one for Day 1 of the League, and the other for every subsequent season. If you need to try to take a salary dump, you need to shop that player around IMMEDIATELY. This needs to be done on the day that players file for free agency, as that is the moment of greatest budget freedom for the majority of teams in the league. If only 1-2 teams are going to be interested in taking on an older, expensive player, you need to hit up those teams before they have executed the rest of their offseason plans.

One of the relatively few house rules I have is that I generally only try to work out a deal with teams that respond to a "Shop A Player" query. If no team responds, then you're in a "pick someone valuable you can lose to staple to the crap" situation, and you need to shop that valuable piece, then try to match up available budgets with interested parties to add in the player you want gone. As an example, this is how I ditched John Lackey in my MLB Quickstart. Shockingly, no teams responded when I shopped him. Since, for some bizarre reason, the MLB roster set I started with had David Ortiz signed at 12.5M per year for 4 years after 2012, so I shopped Ortiz around on the day free agents filed after the 2012 season. There were enough offers that I was able to trade Ortiz and Lackey together, when there was no way to trade Lackey on his own. You have to give up something to get something, but being aggressive in other venues can mitigate what you give up.

Every now and then, scouting and/or odd internal AI decisions lead to a "WTF?" offer. Take, for example, Carl Crawford. I shopped him on day 1 from his return from the DL in 2012, before he played a game, because I "knew" he would suck. Several teams responded with mediocre salary dump players in return, which is fair, but one team responded with a substantially valuable corner OF piece in exchange. You just don't know until you shop him. Assume Nothing, Shop Always is my motto. Obviously, these scenarios become less likely with harder trading settings.

Then, you have where the trading strategy merges with the waiver wire. You need to go into the offseason with a good sense of which players you are building around, and which players you can lose for the right deal. This is because when you pick up a potentially valuable piece from the waiver wire, even if you think you want him, you need to shop him. This is because some other team, despite ignoring him on waivers for some bizarre reason, may want him MORE. One of the high draft picks I claimed in the offseason waiver hunt led to a significant upgrade in youth and value at the DH spot just after my Ortiz/Lackey trade, so I ended up making a lateral move by combining a salary dump trade with a surprise easter egg hunt waiver wire maneuver.

Check out every player offered to you, every time, if you have the patience to do so. You never know when a team might significantly differ from your evaluation of the talent level being offered by you, or by them. You can get major pieces in seemingly random trades during the offseason.

If you have a waiver wire pickup/trade scenario that you want to combine with a salary dump, be absolutely certain that you execute it BEFORE SPRING TRAINING STARTS. As noted in another recent thread, Spring Training adds the salaries of all 40-man roster spots to the projected budget calculations, which shrinks the available budgets by 2-5 million per team. That will cut out a fair number of potential buyers for your 10-20 million dollar salary player that you want to try to ship out. Once you hit ST, you're generally stuck with him.

If you enable draft pick trading, as I have, always, ALWAYS try to upgrade your draft spot in every single deal you make. Once I get a deal agreed to, I always make a habit of seeing if I can trade a 2nd for the other team's 1st (basically never happens), 3rd for a 2nd (also rare), 4th for a 3rd, etc.. Once you get into the "4th for a 3rd" range, the AI tends to bite more often in my experience. No single deal is likely to make a major impact on your draft position, but adding this into every deal attempt will add up to that major impact.

Also, when you make your salary dump trades, if said salary dump is of a genuinely good player (think Ortiz or Adrian Gonzalez as opposed to Crawford or Lackey), you can try to target the team with the highest draft pick in the set of teams that responded to your offer, and see if you can build a package around that player for the team's #1 pick. That is where adding your 2nd to a request for their 1st can pay off.

After The Draft

As pointed out in the waiver wire post, this is where things get hectic, but in a fun way. If you can pick up a set of 5+ relievers on the waiver wire, you can shop those relievers around for packages that can make a significant impact on your team. You can focus on the present or the future, but I tend to try to use these deals more for the long term than the short term.

The key information here is to keep track of the relative draft positions of teams, and the team focus. "Win Now!" teams will tend to make more aggressive trades for relievers, so you want to focus on them.

Fair warning, we are now in the cheesy evil zone, so those of you picking up minor, legitimate tips and want to stay realistic should probably just skip this part.

[Begin Evil]

Using these relievers, target the "Win Now!" team with the best draft pick position at the time, or the Win Now team with the highest position that has responded to one of your shop player offers. I generally try to shop the players with the highest OSA ratings first, as I use that as an approximation of what other teams around the league might think about said player.

Unless you have a very specific need that the team (or one of the teams) can meet, there is where I go all in on the draft pick trading. Generally, these Win Now teams will give up a 4th-6th round draft pick for a package of 4-5 relievers put together. Since those relievers are generally ALL on MLB deals, the receiving team will then put all, or all but one of those relievers back onto the waiver wire. Claim them, target *the same team* again for the best draft pick you can get, and repeat to your heart's content. I personally only focus on 1st-6th round picks, I don't care once the 7th round comes up. Generally, I can get 4th-6th picks without giving up anything myself from 1-2 teams, then those same 4th-6th picks can be packaged with the relievers for upgrades into the 2nd or 3rd rounds. The AI is generally quite good at protecting their 1st round picks. It will take multiple 2nd/3rds plus the relievers to pull that off, which becomes feasible if you are dedicated and spend June-July making those trades every 3-4 days, followed by every 6-7 days in August-October.

Again, the key is to trade all 5 of the relievers to the same team, in order to ensure that at least 4 of them end up back on the waiver wire for you. Breaking up the trades into 1-2 relievers will leave you with a one-shot deal since the receiving team can make room for them on the 40-man roster more easily.

[End Evil]

I generally ignore trade offers via e-mail and emphasize the shop player functionality, but there are really no other hard and fast rules.

Let me first start by saying this is awesome. Long winded or not, this is the most comprehensive look at how another OOTP-lover plays the game I have ever read, so I very much appreciate it.

Now, as I am reading your posts, am I to understand that you basically put scouting at its lowest to give the AI teams "fog" in evaluating their players AND so you can get international prospects BUT you look at the editor ratings of a player so you have a 100% perfect evaluation as to what they will do? If so, one might consider this "cheating" but you call it "winning". In no way am I criticizing how you play, I just want to make sure I understand it clearly, so I can see your approach.

This is also to say you do not want 100% accurate scouting, as the AI teams would know what you know?

Again, no criticizing whatsoever, just trying to get an understanding of your goal in the game -- actually I find it rather entertaining.

soxfan34 10-26-2012 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3399646)
League Settings

This is basically a prereq for any follow-on posts for the context to make sense. The highlights to my league settings:

MLB Quickstart (Modern, Current, Real Players)
Scouting Very Low
Instant Injury Reports (I want data NOW!)
Cash Limit - One Billion Dollars [/Dr. Evil voice]
Draft Pick Trading Enabled
Advanced Draft Pick Negotiations Disabled.
AI Evaluation: 25/25/25/25
Trading AI: Defaults

I'm only in year two, but I haven't seen ridiculous salary inflation due to the cash limit yet. A fair number of teams have positive or negative projected budgets, most of those with negative budget room have decent cash balances to compensate.

I don't think there are any other major changes.

EDIT #3 for Draft Pick Negotiations

From what I've read in other posts, having cash max this high will cause player salary demands to be outrageous--i.e. 40-50mm/yr in some cases. Never actually tested it myself though.

JMDurron 10-26-2012 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soxfan34 (Post 3400074)
Let me first start by saying this is awesome. Long winded or not, this is the most comprehensive look at how another OOTP-lover plays the game I have ever read, so I very much appreciate it.

Now, as I am reading your posts, am I to understand that you basically put scouting at its lowest to give the AI teams "fog" in evaluating their players AND so you can get international prospects BUT you look at the editor ratings of a player so you have a 100% perfect evaluation as to what they will do? If so, one might consider this "cheating" but you call it "winning". In no way am I criticizing how you play, I just want to make sure I understand it clearly, so I can see your approach.

This is also to say you do not want 100% accurate scouting, as the AI teams would know what you know?

Again, no criticizing whatsoever, just trying to get an understanding of your goal in the game -- actually I find it rather entertaining.

Well, there are a few key quibbles that keep what I'm doing from being quite as all-powerful as you might think.

1) Everyone can get international prospects, not just me. I just enjoy that aspect of the game. Sure, I allocate 100% of my scouting budget to scouting as many countries as possible, but I still like the overall element of international prospect signings applying to the entire league.

2) I look in the editor to have a 100% accurate evaluation of what a player's capabilities are at that moment in time. This often has very little to do with what that player actually does. For example, the excellent replacement I found for David Ortiz has editor ratings that translate to an OPS of .996 per the editor. 2 months into 2013, he has an OPS that just now got to .800, and he is worthless against LHP despite strong ratings in the editor. The variance between capability and performance is part of what makes baseball, and OOTP's implementation thereof, so enjoyable. Relief pitching, in particular, is extremely variable from outing to outing and year to year, which is why I have such strict "pull the reliever" rules for my in-game playing.

I have also found, in general, that even at Very Low scouting, the AI is not quite as stupid about player evaluation on major pieces (really good or really bad players) as you might otherwise expect them to be at that level. As with any other sports game, I think the AI has some degree of visibility behind the curtain as well, although obviously I didn't code it. I mean, you can't set the AI evaluation to 100% current year stats, have Nick Punto go 3-for-4 on Opening Day, then trade him for King Felix.

All that said, yes, "cheating", "cheesing", or "winning" are all true ways to label my approach, depending on your point of view. :)

I don't want 100% accurate scouting less because the AI teams collectively will know what I know (although that is a factor), but more because every AI team will know, roughly, what every other AI team will know, and I want the fog of war between the AI teams almost as much as I want it between myself and all of them. It's the same functional effect, but the motivation isn't as purely self-serving as, say, looking at the editor ratings of the draft pool. Teams burn themselves with stupid trades in real life, I don't want to be the party involved with every uneven trade in the league. I want Kazmir-for-Zambrano trades happening elsewhere while I try to get my own Lowe/Varitek-for-Slocumb deals going. :D

Understanding my approach is pretty key to deciding which pieces of these tips/strategies to adopt/discard, so it is important for you or anyone else reading these tips to be able to understand where I'm coming from as much as possible. That's part of why I'm trying to deliberately point out where I'm being uniquely evil vs using generally recommended tactics, but the context matters too. Frankly, I'm surprised nobody else has been criticizing, since I know there is a very passionate "realism and difficulty above all" section of the community here, but I think the "live and let play" mentality is alive and well in this community. :)

JMDurron 10-26-2012 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soxfan34 (Post 3400106)
From what I've read in other posts, having cash max this high will cause player salary demands to be outrageous--i.e. 40-50mm/yr in some cases. Never actually tested it myself though.

I've read that as well, but I haven't seen the phenomenon either in my 5+ years of an OOTP12 MLB Quickstart, or in 1 year from my OOTP13 league. Frankly, I discount that objection a bit, since I think fans/pundits in real world 1980 would have called real world MLB contracts in 2000 completely outrageous too, so I'm not sure it's an unrealistic effect. I think there are some people who want to freeze the status quo salary structure while having leagues evolve otherwise without really considering that salaries trend upwards over time anyway, and that it only takes one dumb GM to ruin things for everybody else.

soxfan34 10-26-2012 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3400113)
Well, there are a few key quibbles that keep what I'm doing from being quite as all-powerful as you might think.

1) Everyone can get international prospects, not just me. I just enjoy that aspect of the game. Sure, I allocate 100% of my scouting budget to scouting as many countries as possible, but I still like the overall element of international prospect signings applying to the entire league.

2) I look in the editor to have a 100% accurate evaluation of what a player's capabilities are at that moment in time. This often has very little to do with what that player actually does. For example, the excellent replacement I found for David Ortiz has editor ratings that translate to an OPS of .996 per the editor. 2 months into 2013, he has an OPS that just now got to .800, and he is worthless against LHP despite strong ratings in the editor. The variance between capability and performance is part of what makes baseball, and OOTP's implementation thereof, so enjoyable. Relief pitching, in particular, is extremely variable from outing to outing and year to year, which is why I have such strict "pull the reliever" rules for my in-game playing.

I have also found, in general, that even at Very Low scouting, the AI is not quite as stupid about player evaluation on major pieces (really good or really bad players) as you might otherwise expect them to be at that level. As with any other sports game, I think the AI has some degree of visibility behind the curtain as well, although obviously I didn't code it. I mean, you can't set the AI evaluation to 100% current year stats, have Nick Punto go 3-for-4 on Opening Day, then trade him for King Felix.

All that said, yes, "cheating", "cheesing", or "winning" are all true ways to label my approach, depending on your point of view. :)

I don't want 100% accurate scouting less because the AI teams collectively will know what I know (although that is a factor), but more because every AI team will know, roughly, what every other AI team will know, and I want the fog of war between the AI teams almost as much as I want it between myself and all of them. It's the same functional effect, but the motivation isn't as purely self-serving as, say, looking at the editor ratings of the draft pool. Teams burn themselves with stupid trades in real life, I don't want to be the party involved with every uneven trade in the league. I want Kazmir-for-Zambrano trades happening elsewhere while I try to get my own Lowe/Varitek-for-Slocumb deals going. :D

Understanding my approach is pretty key to deciding which pieces of these tips/strategies to adopt/discard, so it is important for you or anyone else reading these tips to be able to understand where I'm coming from as much as possible. That's part of why I'm trying to deliberately point out where I'm being uniquely evil vs using generally recommended tactics, but the context matters too. Frankly, I'm surprised nobody else has been criticizing, since I know there is a very passionate "realism and difficulty above all" section of the community here, but I think the "live and let play" mentality is alive and well in this community. :)

Well said. I think oftentimes we forget that there's no set way to play a game or create entertainment. In the end it's all about what makes YOU happy and how YOU have fun.

soxfan34 10-26-2012 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron (Post 3400114)
I've read that as well, but I haven't seen the phenomenon either in my 5+ years of an OOTP12 MLB Quickstart, or in 1 year from my OOTP13 league. Frankly, I discount that objection a bit, since I think fans/pundits in real world 1980 would have called real world MLB contracts in 2000 completely outrageous too, so I'm not sure it's an unrealistic effect. I think there are some people who want to freeze the status quo salary structure while having leagues evolve otherwise without really considering that salaries trend upwards over time anyway, and that it only takes one dumb GM to ruin things for everybody else.

I agree. You'll have to check back and update me on how salaries start to trend in future years.


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