What Are The Best Settings For A Random Debut League?
 

I have done various Rd leagues but i lose interest in them quickly for various reasons and i hate starting in 1871 since players like Bonds will hit no more then 10-20 HR til after 1920.
So in a modern baseball environment using real stats what are the best settings?

The random debut league I'm currently playing started in 1946 and I just finished the 1977 regular season last night. I've let the game import historical settings/modifiers each year. I use one year recalc, with development on. 100 talent change randomness. I'm using the DH and I usually set bullpen size to at least one more pitcher than the game calls for. I set my minimum year for player imports to 1902, as I don't think random debut deals with pre-1900 pitchers in a realistic manner. My home run king so far career wise is Vlad Guerrero with somewhere around 477. Season wise, Cecil Fielder just hit 59 for the 77 season, breaking the previous record of 56. Cecil also broke the single season RBI record with 161. I guess I should mention that I use the high(realistic) injury setting as well.

I plan on locking the modifiers/strategy settings in once I reach the 1982 or 84 season. Just don't want to get into the low stamina, pitchers go a 1/3 of an inning period. Plus, I've quick simmed a few random debut leagues through the 90's, up to current day and I find the numbers get a little wonky and exaggerated. I don't want guys hitting 80-90 homers.

I tried random debut during the deadball period and quit for the very reason you stated above. Guys like Richie Sexson, Rob Deer, Dave Kingman just don't translate to that period and I get bored fast.

You could still play in 1871 and have normal (or even inflated) HR totals if you set your stats output to a year of your choosing, and uncheck the box that says to import LTMs for each successive season. I use 1984 for my stats output and my PCMs and strategy settings. So, even though it's 1901 every bullpen has six pitchers and five man rotations are the standard. You could use a "steroid" year, but be forwarned that Sir Spritze has said this results in totally kooky HR numbers and you may not like that either. The possibilities are limitless really. :) I also use a 162 game schedule every year regardless of whether there was one or not and have a DH in the American League and no DH in the National League.

Most fun I had with a random debut league was start with a fictional league in 2014, and then used the random debut for the draft pool.

Are you using the DH in both leagues? As for the 1902 limit, I see your point, but I go back and forth on this one because I can't stand the thought of excluding Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Kid Nichols, Nap Lajoie, Cap Anson, Christy Mathewson, Roger Connor, Dan Brouthers, Eddie Plank, George Davis etc etc etc. Those are some all-timers, and it would somehow feel wrong for me to arbitrarily decide they can't play in my world. Yeah, I'm an old softy. :o Guilty as charged. :p

In order to get around the whole deadball era problem, you could set it up so that you auto-calc the stats from a season that doesn't have those issues. I started in 1901 using 1984 for my stats base, strategy settings and PCMs and I've waltzed right through the deadball era with decent results. In the deadest of the deadball years (1908), a 23 year old Dave Kingman socked 31 HR, 112 RBI, and struck out 186 times (all led the NL), and even managed to steal 32 bases (lots of stolen bases to go around when you use 1984 :D , and he did steal 16 IRL).

"Kong" just hit his 500th HR at the end of 1922. Frank Robinson has 510 and that's it for 500 HR hitters over 22 seasons so far. I had a blip where I was adjusting the HR modifier upwards because there just weren't enough HR being hit, but then I had a season where 18 guys hit 30 or more, including 6 with 40 or more, and decided to leave well enough alone and let the talent in the game determine how many HR there are gonna be. At least that's how I'll do it when I stop tinkering with this test league, and get going on my "real" league. :p

I have 4 HoFers so far: Zach Greinke, Paul Goldschmidt, Ewell Blackwell, and Thurman Munson. All were short career, high peak guys. Frank Robinson is still going and has been an absolute beast with 6 MVPs, 4 2nd place MVP votes, and 2 3rd place MVP votes to go with 1 ROY, 15 All-Star selections, 13 Silver Sluggers, 2 Gold Gloves, 2 Championships, and 1 World Series MVP. I guess the only question is will he be unanimous or not?

As for my settings, I use 3 yr recalc double weighted, with player development on and all those settings at default. I use the DH in the AL, no DH in the NL, use a 162 game schedule, top two teams in each league make the playoffs. I use the 1984 strategy settings, so my game has five-man rotations, with six-man bullpens, 14 position players on each team. Injuries on "high (realistic modern day)", position player fatigue on "average" seems to yield the most realistic results for me in terms of enough players getting enough plate appearances per season.

I have a custom schedule I made for this league, which I suppose I could take as far back as 1882 in the future if I want to (16 teams in 1882 I think), but I think I prefer to start in 1901 when all the uniforms are as they should be etc. I use a five round draft, and I think I'll start importing 2 non-MLB players (PCL, ***, Negro Leaguers who didn't play MLB) from the Spritze database for every draft with the import historical player tool (I use the default database neutralized stats for my MLBers), as well as an entire round of them for the inaugural draft, so 45 players per team at the start, and 82 players entering with each draft. My Player Evaluation AI settings are set to 10/60/20/10. This post is getting rather lengthy so I'll end it here. The Game, let me know if there are any other settings you want to know about OK? ;)

I use a one subleague setup. 14 teams, 2 seven team divisions. 154 game schedule. I miss having the guys you mentioned, but there are so many players, I doubt I will ever come close to running out of players. Especially since my draft is only 5 rounds each year.

Oh yeah. There are enough players for about 200 years methinks. :laugh: It's just...I can't let go of any of them. :o

33 years in and I'm yet to have a guy reach 3000 hits. Vada Pinson retired with 2958. Rusty Staub is 35 years old and currently has 2738.

Ken Griffey Sr. did it in my league. He finished with 3256. Hal Chase has 2993 at age 41, but he's slowed to a crawl. Got three hits in 1922. :p Can't see myself putting either one in the HoF. I'm a WAR/JAWS guy, and Griffey Sr., while close to my threshold, isn't there for me despite easily passing 3000 hits. Same thing for Kingman and his 500 HR.

Above you said you use 3 year recalc. What is the highest average a player has hit for a season? What's your highest career batting average? I've had 2 players hit +.400 for a season. Eddie Collins hit .405 in 1947 and Ty Cobb hit .401 in 1969. Wade Boggs has played from 1971-1978, he has a .342 career average. Ty Cobb has hit .341, 1965-1978.

I use 3 yr recalc double weighted for the current year. Hal Chase has my all-time high single-season batting average at .355 in 1915. Reggie Smith (absolute beast so far 5 seasons in at age 24) hit .352 in 1921, and Riggs Stephenson hit .351 in 1920. Some dude named Vin Campbell is my all-time career batting average leader at .321, followed by Hal Chase at .317, and Zack Wheat at .309. I only have eight .300 career hitters. Nomar Garciaparra is number 8 at .300 on the nose. Of the guys I listed, I'd say only Wheat is going into the HoF. Reggie Smith looks really good for it, but it's very early to be making such pronouncements of course.

I think the reason I'm not getting .400 hitters is that I'm using 1984 strategy settings, which means more relievers. IRL, there hasn't been a .400 hitter since 1941, so I think there's something to having to face multiple pitchers in a game rather than getting multiple looks at the starter. Just a theory of course, but I think it's why we haven't seen any .400 hitters in over 7 decades.

Also, in 1984 the league average was .260, and that's about what it's been over the 22 years of my league. Hard to hit .400 when the league average is .260 and you're not facing the same pitcher in all your at bats in a game.

Lately, the NL has been outhitting the AL despite not having the DH. Huge talent disparity I guess. Weird. :laugh:

The year Eddie Collins hit .342, the league average was .264. Cobb's .401 the average was only .249. Don't you just love this stuff. Reason, I asked, I'm thinking I will use 3 year recalc for my next go round. One thing I love about 1 year recalc is you get the big seasons from players, such as guys hitting .400. But, you also get guys going from ace on the staff one season, to the bottom of the bullpen due to reality. Might be nice to not have these huge swings.

Interesting. Maybe I still have a shot at a .400 season. We shall see. :thumbup1:

I asked above, but do you use the DH in both of your sub-leagues or just one?

I just found something else cool about 3 year recalc. It gives you access to players the year before their actual debut. For example, Oscar Gamble is a 17 year old (18 very shortly) in my amateur draft this year, and he didn't debut until he was 19. Very cool. :thumbup1: I wonder if 5 year recalc gives them to you two years early? Not that I want to try it because I prefer 3 year recalc, double weighted for the current year. That puts 50% emphasis on the year in question and 25% each on the sandwiching years.

EDIT: This is not universal. Some players are debuting when they should.

I don't use a 2 subleague setup. Instead, I have a 14 team, 2 division, 1 subleague setup.

Not a 3 year recalc thing. Happens using 1 year recalc as well. For example, Ken Griffey Jr. debuts at age 18. Boggs debuts at age 22.

Whoa! Boggs debuted IRL at 24. Cool. :ohmy:

Update for David Watts (and anyone else if you care): Ed Konetchy just hit .370 in my league in 1923, while Rod Carew hit .356, so those guys along with Hal Chase's .355 in 1915 are my new top three single season batting average guys. Also Bret Saberhagen has stalled at 275 wins and faces the uncertainty of Tommy John surgery at age 37. He could be done, which would be a shame, because he looked like a lock for 300 wins. You never know ya know!

What I plan on doing is starting in 2014 1 yr recalc fielding based on career. After year 1 i will expand the league by 4 teams. Seattle Pilots, St Louis Browns, Brooklyn Robins & Montreal Expos. All HOFers will be deleted in Inaugural Draft. Spritze DB.
Should I have pitching Stamina at Normal. high or Low? I will use steals for normal and pen on normal.

It's your game The Game, but out of curiousity why are you deleting all HoFers off the top? I have pitching stamina at normal, steals at normal, and use of relievers at often, but that's because those are the strategy settings for 1984, which I use for every season along with 1984 LTMs auto-calced at the beginning of each season, and 1984 PCMs. I use financials as they come up, but for the other three I use 1984.

Have you had Ty Cobb appear yet? In my RDL, he debuts at age 22. In real life he debuts at age 18. Strange thing is, if you click on his real stats tab, OOTP shows him starting his career at age 22 and playing until he's 46 years old. Very strange.

No Cobb, no Mays, no Speaker, no Mantle and no DiMaggio yet. I've had Griffey Jr. come through, but he was **** and won't be making the HoF. It was quite strange because there he was at age 23 in the inaugural draft, and he never really got off the ground. Led the league in HR twice, XBH once, and ISO once and that's it. He was really a non-factor, as he only racked up a 39.8 WAR in twenty seasons, which is absolutely lame for a RL inner circle HoFer. Oh well, it happens.

Herb Cobb, and Alex Cobb have been in my league, but no Tyrus Raymond as yet. :laugh:

Cobb is 36 in my league and has a career average in the .340 range. He's wrapping up an injury riddled 79 season in which he will be lucky if he appears in 80 games. Glad to see he is back on the team though. He kept having setbacks and I was trying to get myself ready for the dreaded career over message.

I hate that career over message. Does it have to be so gleeful? Career over! Hahah! Sucks to be you! Ok, I added a couple of things, but can't we have the proper tone? It's a sad day. What's with the exclamation point? :confused:

The next draft pool is out and whoa boy is it loaded. Johnny Bench, Lou Whitaker, and Ernie Lombardi are in it. Bench is the best catcher ever, Whitaker should be in the HoF, and Lombardi is a borderline guy who is in the HoF. The sad thing is the Yankees (7-time WS champs including three in a row going into this year) are in last place, and thus have the first pick with "Use pre-defined draft value for AI" turned on. They already have Cal Ripken for criminy's sake. Bench and Ripken? Oye! :p

Whitaker was just forced to retire in mine last season due to a concussion. Age 39, .291, 2588 hits, 270 home runs, 1158 RBI, .371OBP, .434 SLG, .805 OPS, 3 Gold Gloves and a 75.3 WAR.

Awesome. Looks like a HoFer to me. What's his JAWS?

EDIT: I could talk about this stuff all day. Does that make me an OOTP geek? Guilty as charged your honour!

JAWS is 61. League average is 59.

Reggie Smith is an Uber God in my league. He just had a .344/.411/.645/1.056 season (.448 wOBA!) with 53 HR, 139 RBI, 127 R, a .301 ISO, 89 XBH, 420 TB, and 24 SB (with 8 CS, so a decent 75% rate). He put up 10.8 WAR, and an 8.7 WPA. He led MLB in AVG, SLG, OPS, wOBA, WAR, WPA, Hits, HR, RBI, Runs, XBH, and TB. He has 55.8 WAR in his seven seasons so far and he's only 26, so he's just entering his prime. Mamma Mia!

HoF average is 59. League average is much lower. Get this man a plaque. We can't honour him IRL it would appear, so we'll just have to put him in in OOTP life.

EDIT: What the JAWS average score is indicating is that the average 2B in your HoF has a JAWS of 59. Right now, I don't have any 2B in my Hall, so I can't offer a point of reference. IRL though, the average JAWS score at 2B is 56.9, while the average career WAR at 2B is 69.3. Your version of Whitaker beats both averages, so he definitely should go in. Even guys who don't beat the average should go in because it's the "average". There should be some players above it, and some below it.

I only use a 2 year waiting period, so he will start getting votes after the 1980 season. I have one 2B in the Hall, Eddie Collins.

1979, the year of the strange batting title race. 5 games left in the season. Willie Horton leading the league with a .332, followed by Bobby Grich .330, Wade Boggs .327 and Cecil Fielder .326. 3 of these things just don't belong here:o

Last post (for now). I have two HoF-looking 2B in Roberto Alomar and Tillie Shafer.

Alomar has a WAR of 72.6 and a JAWS of 57.7, with a .289 BA, .353 OBP, .423 SLG, a 119 OPS+ and a 120 wRC+, 2749 Hits, 1362 Runs, 1294 RBI, 481 2B, 120 3B, 185 HR, 554 SB, 6 Gold Gloves, 11 All-Star Games, 6 Silver Sluggers, 2 MVPs, 3 Rings, and a World Series MVP (in his age 19 season for crying out loud!). He should have quit playing after 1918 or so (it is now 1924), but I will not hold that against him. He will go in.

Shafer is not as decorated, but is just as good (just not defensively, definitely a slightly below average at 2B). He has a WAR of 71.0, and a JAWS of 54.7, with a .282 BA, .372 OBP, .399 SLG, a 119 OPS+, a 121 wRC+, 3022 Hits, 1656 Runs, 1245 RBI, 490 2B, 65 3B, 210 HR, 586 SB, Rookie of the Year, 9 All-Star games, 7 Silver Sluggers, and 1 Ring. IRL, Tillie Shafer played four seasons and had under 1000 PA, so he is a product of the player development system. I wish both these guys would retire already so I can put them in. At this point, they are just embarassing themselves.

The point is that your guy Whitaker is slightly superior in both WAR and JAWS, so yeah...he belongs. ;)

EDIT: Oops. I said last post. Sorry about that chief. :p

Whoa! What is Grich's OBP? .430 or so? Must be in and around his age 32 season when he went off and hit .304 in 1981.

No, he's actually just starting out. At work so not 100% sure, but I'm guessing he is 23 or 24 years old.

Do you vote for your Hall of Fame or do you simply let the AI do the choosing? I'm an AI guy. I voted one time and I really wish I never did. All 3 of the individuals I voted for made it in. I had no idea the human vote is weighted. Puig go in on my vote and I tend to think he needs and asterisk by his name. Ugh!

I vote for my HoF because otherwise guys would get in that I don't agree with. I also allow the AI to vote, but yeah it is weighted quite heavily towards my vote.

Guys who are weak in WAR and JAWS would be getting in too much for my taste due to their other good to great counting stats. I can't put up with that because somewhere like defense or baserunning, they're coming up short. But that's my peccadillo. :o For example, Griffey Sr. with his 3256 hits or Dave Kingman with his 511 HR. If I left it purely up to the AI, I'm sure they'd get in, but I don't want them there because they don't measure up as all around players. Some guys don't have the counting stats that come from a long career, but had an amazing peak that shows up in their WAR/JAWS numbers.

In other news Roberto Alomar finally retired, along with Gary Sheffield, so they'll be going in in 1930, if I make it that far. Of interest to you as a Tigers fan, Norm Cash will be getting my vote this year, but he'll be going in as a Pirate should the rest of the voters deem him worthy. Victor Martinez will also be going in eventually (retired two years ago) as a catcher (and Yankee), and Miguel Cabrera is just starting his career as a 3B, though he was kinda meh in his age 19 season.

So they appear as rookies later on. Also kinda cool, when i set OOTP to use Gambo's historical logos it did not load the 2014 logos but logos from all years. 1905 White Sox, 1927 Phillies, 1977 Mariners so i am using the stadium from that year and the uniforms from that year. Using 2014 modifiers and financials and will just keep them at that. Set Stamina to normal and stealing to normal.
Only bad thing is the league has a severe lack of OF. Several teams have no starting CF listed and i had to trade 4 players to get Vince Di Maggio since i also did not draft a CF. My team is 3-6 so far.

Gotcha. Thanks. Sorry to hear about the CF. I don't usually see position shortages, but I might not be looking closely enough.

EDIT: Then again, I use the default database and sprinkle in random players from the Spritze database.

Wondering what the 2 of you think? Do you think Random Debut drops enough quality starting pitching on a yearly basis? I'm finishing up year 34 of my league and I have 5 pitchers in my Hall. Kershaw, Curt Simmons, Curt Schilling, Phil Niekro and Paul Dillenger. Kershaw won exactly 300 games. Kershaw and Schilling reached the 3000 K milestone. Niekro is the only other pitcher with more than 250 wins. Michael Wacha may be in real soon. But, after Wacha, I'm thinking it might be years before another pitcher gets elected.

The Game may have a different answer because he uses Spritze for his MLBers, so he may see a different dispersal of SP. I currently have 4 SP in my Hall after 23 seasons worth of possible Hall voting: Ewell Blackwell, Don Drysdale, Zach Greinke, and Tim Hudson. In the next five years (looking at the upcoming eligible players), I hope to put in Michael Wacha, Lon Warneke, and Jim Bunning, so I should have 7 SP after 28 seasons.

My highest win total amongst the seven so far is Wacha at 258. Bunning has 239, Hudson 234, and Warneke 210. I'm learning that 300 wins is really hard when you're using 1984 as a stats and strategy settings base. Saberhagen has my most wins all-time at 278, but he is a shell of his former self and I don't see him making 285, much less 300. Blackwell had a really short career and was done at 33 with just 143 wins, but he had a monster peak, so I just couldn't leave him out. 57.4 WAR in his first 10 seasons is outstanding. Greinke only had 171 wins, and Drysdale had 173, but they were tremendous in short careers. Greinke's only lasted 13 years, but he was a nine time All-Star. The moral of the story is, it ain't all about the wins, at least not for me.

Incidentally Kershaw came out guns blazing in mine (3 straight Cy Young Awards [1901-1903], and an MVP [1901])and then crashed and burned, and didn't even win 100.

My position players in the Hall are Dick Allen (3B), Ken Caminiti (3B), Brian Dozier (surprisingly at SS), Paul Goldschmidt (1B), and Thurman Munson (C).

Your Kershaw sounds like my David Price. Price was dominant to start out, but once he reached the end of his real playing/recalc years OOTP took him to a very bad place. I think he retired somewhere around 34 or 36. His final years were spent as a bottom of the bullpen guy.

Cool that Wacha was strong in yours too. Bob Friend won 200+ in my game and made me a big fan, but I don't think he's going to get voted in. His years of eligibility are slim and he just isn't getting the votes.

Whats the most wins a pitcher has put up in a season in your league? John Montefusco won 28 in mine. Had one more stellar season and then faded fast. Ed Karger is next with either 27 or 26.

One pitcher I forgot that I think will make the Hall in mine is Jim Kaat. He just retired....reason I forgot about him, is it took him forever to retire.

This to The Game.....I really hope you don't mind us hijacking your thread to discuss random debut in general. It's my favorite way to play OOTP, but there just aren't that many out there that enjoy it. Love having a place to discuss it..

The most wins a pitcher put up in my league in a season was 24 by Herb Score. He won the Cy Young and the MVP for the Athletics in 1904, with a 24-8 record, 2.27 ERA (led the league), 289.1 IP (led the league), only allowed 9 HR (lowest HR/9), walked 136 (most in the league), and struck out 369 (also an all-time record, along with his 11.5 K/9 rate that year), with a 10.9 WAR, and a 7.0 WPA. What a season. Unfortunately, the A's were upset by the Browns in the ALCS 4-2 that year (yes, I take the top two teams from each subleague for the playoffs, sue me).

Lefty Gomez had a better season in 1916 when he went 22-8, with a 1.75 ERA, and 327 K with just 81 BB, and a 0.97 WHIP. He had an 11.3 WAR, and 8.2 WPA that year, and needless to say won the Cy Young and the MVP in the AL for the Tigers. Unfortunately, the Tigers only went 82-80 and missed the playoffs that year.

Agree 100%. Thanks The Game. You rule. :D :thumbup1:

I hate it when they hang on forever. Roberto Alomar put up a stellar :rolleyes: -1.3 WAR combined in the seven seasons after his age 34 season. Dude, just retire already. You're already going to the HoF. Don't hang around and embarrass yourself. Know when it's time to get out.

Post a SS of your team. Just curious to see what it looks like. Explain the makeup of your team if you want.
Same for you DW.

Player retirement is something I really hope Markus improves in the future. I don't like using minor league with recalc and I really think this plays a factor in players sticking around forever. I also like the reserve clause better than free agency, but I use a modified free agency setup so players will retire. 15 years before a player is eligible for free agency in my league.