Quote:
Originally posted by Tiger Fan
It is important that we have a full working minor league system in OOTP7. The ability to create your own minor league alignments, play or sim out your minor league affiliates games and even start your OOTP career as a minor or independant league manager or GM is just as important to the OOTP experience as having lower division football clubs in FM/CM.
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De-coupling the minors and majors in OOTP is something I've been suggesting for awhile now - it'd be great if they could have their own level of customization.
This has mostly been for historical reasons so far. For many years, there were more AAA level minor league teams than there were major league teams, and they were playing different full-length schedules.
For example, in 1933, the Pacific Coast League played a 187 game schedule which started on Apr. 4 and ended on Oct. 1; the International League played a 168 game schedule which started on Apr. 12 and ended on Sept. 10; and the American Association played a 154 game schedule which started on Apr. 11 and ended on Sept. 10. (The majors for that year played a 154 game schedule which opened on Apr. 12 and ended on Oct. 1.)
Being able to recreate this sort of historical alignment, even if it were only for the highest level of the minors, would be excellent. For fictional leagues, of course, it would greatly expand upon the depth of that fictional world, making seem even more life-like.
One could create a situation where the minors are deep, such as when for many years there were only 16 major league teams but 24 AAA level minor league teams. Conversely, one could create a situation where the minors are thin, with fewer teams than there are in the majors, putting a premium on good scouting to pick up the best players.
I'd love to see the option for independent minor league clubs as well, instead of them always being a farm team of a major league team. That would open up a whole new area of team management, such as trying to buy that hot minor league prospect while several other major league teams are also eyeing him. It also of course makes historical leagues more accurate as well, since in the earlier years major league clubs did not have their own farm teams and instead relied on the independent minor leagues to supply them.
So yeah, I heartily second TF's suggestion! (Well, as long as it's customizable like the rest of OOTP is.)
By the way, since I've already done the major league schedules, I'm well on my way to gathering and compiling all the AAA level minor league schedules. After that, I'll probably try to do the AA level. That is a lot of schedules to find and type up, but the historical schedule pefectionist in me demands that the real schedules be available for use...
