I'm sharing a quickstart for my 10-team Hall of Fame league. This is a long-term project that I put off sharing for a long time while I added things like personalities and managers. I could've gone on further perfecting it, but I liked everything enough to finally start playing and get it out there for others to enjoy. Here's how I laid it out:
-10 Teams with 25 players each, taken from the 250 current Hall of Fame honorees inducted primarily as players. No 2018 inductees yet, as I don't want to deal with expansion for at least a few months.
-Players were divided with attention to spreading out eras, teammates, and talent. The result is imperfect but getting it where it this adaquate was challenge enough. I like how it turned out.
-Stats have generally been normalized to fit each player's era, so no pitchers getting perfect movement ratings just for playing in 1910. I re-calculated things like fielding ratings; pitcher stuff, movement, and control; stolen bases, etc. One thing I didn't change much yet was power-hitting for dead-ball and 19th-century hitters. Suggestions accepted on how best to fix this up for the next go-round.
-The historical stat year for the game is 1945, an unscientific choice for a season with fairly neutral stats. I may change this from year-to-year as I play it out for myself. 1906 one year, 2001 the next. I like the possibilities.
-I have based projected stats closer to a player's peak performance than his average season. It's somewhat subjective, but grounded mainly in the raw numbers. In some cases, pitcher ratings were shaded up more, often to nudge stats into ratings more appropriate with where guys might rank historically (Hitters seemed to do this more organically). There's room to improve pitchers more than I have, in general.
-Personalities are included. This pushed the whole project back about two years as I pored through whatever old SABR bios and baseball books I could get through without going crazy (this is also why gameplay begins in 2015). I knew I was getting carried away, but in the end I just needed the realism. I don't pretend to have everything right here, and would love input from any and all OOTP'ers with expertise on certain players.
-Managers, bench coaches, hitting coaches, and pitching coaches are culled from Hall of Fame managers and players, with appropriate ratings. Most HOF managers fit into a manager or bench coach role, though a couple wouldn't fit and had to be coaches. Other coaches are made up from the players on each roster who managed (based on who happened to be on the team, not necessarily the best managers among HOF players).
-Owners, GM's, Scouts I planned to add, but ran out of time and interest. I'll probably get them in on the next update.
-I've done nothing with injuries, mainly because I have them turned off.
-After toying with the idea of resurrecting the ghosts of dead ballparks, I went with neutralized playing fields in the name of fair stats.
-Team names are the same as I dreamed up as a kid playing Lance Haffner: Based off of 10 towns and villages surrounding Cooperstown, with nicknames from the first ten teams of the National League. I like the old-time flavor it gives things.
Please give things a try and let me know what you think. I am open to any and all comments. I'd love to continue to refine things and make this awesome for everyone!
https://ln.sync.com/dl/5e6987cd0/8qr...98dwk-k7p9aci4