How to add a Fictional League with real players to your MLB setup
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I was asked if I could explain how I set up my league with minor league teams in the 1900-1920 range as the game does not add any additional leagues until the Federal League and Texas League begin in 1914 and 1919. I have never written a tutorial so hopefully those who would like help with this can follow my instructions. If not, feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to answer. Finally if you can come up with a better way to do it please share.
Thanks When you enable minor leagues and start in 1901 or anytime before the Federal League (1914) or Texas League (1919) enter the game there are tons of players sitting in the free agent pool because there is no where for them to play. I found a nice work around was to create a fictional AAA level league or two so there would be teams for many of them to play on. I talk about it in more detail in my current dynasty which can be found here http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=275948 For anyone interested here are the steps I take to do this. 1. From the OOTP18 start screen select NEW CUSTOM GAME. Also be sure to say no to challenge mode. 2: From the Create game screen Enter your game name and starting year. (see Image 1) 3: Choose ADD NEW LEAGUE and select League creation wizard from the drop down. From League creation wizard select "CREATE A FICTIONAL WORLD" (Image 2) 4: From the Fictional League Creation Wizard select your league setup. For a 1901 start there will be about 250 free agents so I would suggest start with just 1 sub league with 8 teams total as I select in IMAGE 3. Click on next step to move to Step 2 out of 5. |
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5: Set up your league and teams. I would suggest make it not be Major league level so I choose Triple A for my level. If you choose to keep major league level for it then be sure to uncheck add minor leagues.
In my example I am going to create a fictional league based on the Pacific Coast League so I name my league and teams as you see in Image 4. Once done I click on next step 6- On Step 3 out of 5 you set the league to the proper era (in my case 1901 settings) and click automatically adjust league strategy when advancing to new year. Make sure Hold Inagural Fantasy Draft is unchecked as we will be deleting all of the fictional players when the game starts. Set your season start date and number of games per team to how you want it. I generally move the start date to late April but not sure it is essential to do so. This page settings can be viewed in my Image 5 below. Click on next step 7- From Step 4 out of 5 the only change I make is to be sure ENABLE AUTOMATIC EVOLUTION OF THE LEAGUE IS UNCHECKED because I dont want teams moving or rules changing in this league without me controling the changes. advance to the next step IMAGE 6 8- From the final step 5 out of 5 all I do is check play in commissioner mode and then start Game. Don't worry that there are no historical teams in the league yet. IMAGE 7 Images 4-7 |
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9- The game is now set up with the only league being the Western Baseball League I created. We now want to get rid of all of the fictional players in the game. So go to the league settings tab under Game settings and select CLEAR ROSTERS. (IMAGE 8) It will ask you if you are sure. Choose OK.
10- All players in the game are now in the free agent pool. We want to delete all of these players because they are fictional. From the WBL tab at the top select REPORTS AND INFO and then FREE AGENTS. You should now see around 300-350 players sitting in the free agent pool. Select all of the players and then Delete all Free Agents. Your league should now have 8 teams with no players on them and no free agents in the league at all. IMAGE 9 11- Go back to league settings for your Western Baseball League and from the rules tab uncheck enable amateur draft and then check disable automatic creation of free agents. I also uncheck allow trading with other major leagues, and uncheck enable 2012 CBA rule changes. In addition because it is a 1901 league I lower my active roster size to 23, cap my reserve roster at 15 and lower the spring training roster size as well.(See Image 10) 12- Go to the FINANCIALS tab for your league and scroll down to where you see allow players to be purchased by other leagues for: and enable it as well as put a $ amount in. I use $1000. This will allow MLB teams to buy players from my Western Baseball League. (IMAGE 11) Images 8-11 |
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13- From the OPTIONS tab make sure the historical year is set to 1901, and the following choices are enabled:
automatically adjust league strategy when advancing to next season import adjusted financial settings after each year Automatically adjust league totals modifiers after each season for accuracy Automatically import historical player-creation modifiers The last one I just check in case somehow fictional players sneak into my league. For some reason I did find a couple each year seemed to show up. From the other side of this screen you can set your playoff settings how you want them and also your schedule and spring training options. I tend to leave all mine on default except I name the league playoff sereis as the Western Series or something similar.(IMAGE 12) 14- From the PLAYERS tab be sure to change the settings for free agents to zero or you will get a number of fictional free agents appearing every year. (IMAGE 13) 15- from the STATS & AI settings you should not have to do anything. It should already be set with 1901 modifiers. 16 - Now it's time to add our real major league players and teams to the game. Go to GLOBAL SETTINGS and click add New League to the Game. From the League creation wizard chose CREATE HISTORICAL LEAGUE. 17- As you see in image 14 I am selecting to add the 1901 major league and import complete history up to 1901 which will give me the history for players like Cy Young who also played prior to 1901. Very important is make sure Import Real Minor Leagues (1915+) is checked. This is where the extra players to fill up your Western League roster will come from. 18- Click on next step and let the game load the major league and minor league database and import players. It will now bring you to step 3 out of 5 on the Historical League creation wizard. I usually leave everything as it defaults but it's your game so you decide if you want player development to progress differently. I also leave Step 4 at it's default for the scouting accuracy and player ratings scale but you can change things if you like. Click Finish to let the game complete the process of adding the 1901 major leagues to your universe. 19- You should now have the major leagues as well as your WBL. Don't do anything yet. Before you start I would suggest going to the WBL and Reports and Info and VIEW ALL WBL players. Sometimes, but not always the game seems to refill the WBL with fictional players. If that happens you can very quickly check to make sure no real free agents have been signed. Easiest way to do this is select view batting stats 1, set the scope to All Levels, set the split to career. Odds are there will be a number of players with stats. These are real players so do not delete them. Choose FILTER and specify the condition to be Batting PA is below 1 (see IMAGE 15) AGAIN make sure the scope is set to all levels and the split to career before setting the filter. Now you will see a list of players who have never played a game anywhere. You might lose a rare real player but by selecting all and mass deleting them you will have rid your game of fictional players. Another alternative would be to one by one go through all of the players and anyone who did not have any real life stats would be fictional so you can delete them manually. You are ready to start your game. By opening day your WBL teams will have around 20 players each on their roster (IMAGE 16) and the free agent pool should be down to 20 or 30 players instead of the 300 or so when you don't have any minor leagues in the game. Also, the fictional league will not have a color barrier so Negro League stars of the early days will have a place to play instead of sitting around in the free agent pool until the Negro National League joins. If you wish to add more teams to your Western League you can do so by expanding as the free agent pool grows each year. I do a spot check every January 1st to see if there are fictional players in my league as for some reason a couple seem to show up every so often. If you are not as anal about it as I am you might not even care. I start folding my fictional teams in the 1920's as the real Pacific Coast League, Negro National League and others begin to join the game. |
Great write up, thanks
Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk |
In step 4 you can select any of the International Leagues in place of a fictional league. Just not the MLB. I use Mexico or Cuba most often.
The rest of the instructions still pertain. |
I tried this - pretty much exactly as TigerFan instructed - and it seemed to work, although I only got through the setup, and haven't actually simmed to see how things progress. Something I found that was interesting...
While there were 256 minor-league free agents imported to the fictional minor league, 17 players imported directly to the Los Angeles Angels, and 16 to the Sacramento Senators. All six other teams (same ones as TigerFan added to his league) had no players import to them. Also, in checking the free agents (all of those from A to D; last names), none of them had Real Life Stats for 1901. So I'm wondering if the game is actually only importing players who either 1) can import to valid team (valid meaning that there is a team in 1901 OOTP with the player's actual team name for 1901), or 2) did not play in (or did not have stats in the database for) 1901. And if that's true I'm wondering that if the other six teams (the ones that did not have players on them) had team names that were valid for 1901 if more players would import, and import directly to those teams... (EDIT: This is true. If more team names are accurate and match what's in players' history, more players import directly to those teams.) Who else has tried this, and what did you find? Anything like the above? |
I have done four long term tests using these instructions. Cuban, Mexican and two fictional.
Team abbreviations are meaningless in the OOTP minors. The name is the driver. This how to is about adding FICTIONAL teams and leagues that can be populated with real players. Not trying to add whatever it is you are doing. The PCL did not even start up until 1903. So having empty rosters in 1901 would be expected anyway. There is so much mis-information, confusion and wrongness about your comment I think it is best ignored by me. Maybe it will help others realize what the how to is and is not. |
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In the end, I've tried repeatedly to follow TigerFan's excellent instructions to the letter, with the same results. Could I have misinterpreted and screwed something up? Sure. Hopefully someone can reply with something useful :thumbup1: |
not to change the focus of this thread ... but - wouldn't creating a template do the same thing? i set-up a mexican League last night, saved it as a template, but haven't had time to do anything else with it. Maybe it will work, when i import to my league, maybe not. Just asking if creating a league, making it a template - deleting the players, etc., then importing it wouldn't do the same thing. i dunno.
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OK. simmed a whole year. A couple things i did differently. One i didn't delete the players from the Mexican League, as i knew there weren't enough FA and incoming 1901 players to fill 16 more teams. Of course, all the players i kept were fictional. As this is just a test to see if Negro Leaguers and MiLB show up, it didn't matter.
i allowed posting, though it won't take effect for a while, as all players are in 1st year on contracts in Mexican league it seems. i allowed selling of players (either i am getting blurry eyed or something but had a heck of a time finding that option.) No color barrier. A lot of the early year players, such as Albert Toney and Home Run Grant didn't appear - but i imported them. i only checked a few Negro League players from a list i have. as well as a couple of Minor League ball players, and they were in game (both Majors and Mexican League, as well as Free Agent pool.) i think that needs to be checked better and in more depth, but on the surface, it seems to be working. :unsure: i do not have a draft enabled, but i did see it possible to use the Mexican League as a feeder for ML draft (and vise versa, which i wouldn't want). Anyone have ideas, experience with that feature? Anyway - the template idea does seem to work. It may need tweaking, refinement and a lot more testing. But i think potential is there. |
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Mitchkenn, if it's not too late in one of your tests, can you look at the Real Stats histories of the 1901 imports and see if any/many have any RL stats for 1901? As I noted above, in my test the minor-leaguers that imported as free agents all seemed to have no stats for 1901 (implying that they may not have played that year, or at least have no stats in the OOTP database)... The only ones who had stats were the 33 who - for some reason - imported directly to either LA or Sacramento. I'm guessing in your league these guys imported as FA's since you probably didn't have LA or Sac in a Mexican League.
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i use a list i made (not too accurate) a few years back, but have been double checking it lately with this one Spritze posted .... here's a link to download it. it's all the Negro League players in the game, i think, with their id's. i hjust sort it by year entered league.
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...3&postcount=24 |
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the only thing - anyone from Negro Leagues who initially entered before 1902 doesn't seem to be in game. Those i'd have to import manually i guess. |
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In the early stages of trying this for myself I'm finding that after just one season (1901) I was able to easily double the size of my fictional minor league from 8 teams to 16 for 1902, and I still have over 200 free agents... Not a problem, just curious... |
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As I found with the 1901 minor-leaguers, the 1902 minor-league imports also seem to be those who do not have real-life stats / did not play in 1902. Not the same for Major Leaguers and Negro Leaguers, though. They imported fine. |
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Once those players were deleted I changed the nation and renamed all my teams. I then folded my fictional Western League when the PCL began and folded the other one in the late 1920's as more minor leagues started to show up. |
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Should the game start with the color barrier off? |
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