Draft Order and Ties - How are They Broken?
 

For the last few days I've been reverse engineering draft order and free agent compensation (I'm still using the Type A/B rules), trying to understand exactly how OOTP determines who gets what pick. Some of it follows MLB - some of it does not. I've figured out quite a bit.

But the one thing I have not been able to figure out is how it handles ties with regards to draft order. I know in real life it's supposed to be the previous season's record, but that's not what I'm seeing in my game. Hoping the community can look and see if I'm missing something.

For the inaugural season, there's no previous season, so at least in my league it used alphabetical order. The manual says it's determined randomly.

Year 2 gets interesting. I'll list the tied teams and their draft pick in year 2, followed by their draft pick in year 1. You'll see there's no rhyme or reason.

Tie 1: NYG (#6, #13), CLE (#7, #12), CIN (#8, #7). The tie seems to be broken based on the *reverse* draft order from last year.

Tie 2: BSN (#9, #5), STL (#10, #8). So much for that theory - now it seems to be using the *forward* draft order from last year.

Tie 3: NYY (#11, #15), SLA (#12, #1), CHA (#13, #11). OK, now we're just all over the place.

I thought maybe it was using the "team ID" for breaking ties, but that doesn't work either.

NYG (13), CLE (3), CIN (12)
BSN (10), STL (16)
NYY (5), SLA (7), CHA (2)

Nope - again, all over the place.

And before you ask, I'm basing the order off the last round so there's no draft pick compensation or failed signing compensation throwing off the works. This is straight based on standings.

So does anyone have any ideas? Are ties just broken with a coin flip? I know I can set the order manually to the previous season standings if I want, and I may start doing that going forward if I can't figure out how OOTP is breaking the ties. But if anyone knows what's going on under the hood, I'd love to know.

And if it's not previous season's record, I'd like to recommend that OOTP 15 make that change please!

Thanks for listening!