OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - The Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League (MLB 2001)

Questdog · 07-22-2019, 05:45 PM

Welcome back to the Saga of the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League, which is a Major League alongside the National League.

You can read about how this came to be in my previous dynasty here: The Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League (MLB)

Now we are 50 years on from the beginning of the World Series Era and it is 2001. The Major Leagues have expanded to 32 teams, with each League now consisting of two 8 team divisions.

This incarnation of the universe is radically different from its predecessor and will, hopefully, bring me more challenge and enjoyment.

Gone are the 7 levels of minor leagues. In their place are only 2 levels: A Ball and B Ball. A Ball is equivalent to AAA in the real modern Baseball world. Each Major League team has one A Ball affiliate and every A Ball team is an affiliate of a Major League team. B Ball is equivalent to AA in modern Baseball. There are 32 B Ball teams and they are not affiliated with any major league teams. Each January the Major Leagues have a 6 round draft to select players from the B Leagues. The B Leagues replenish their supply of players exclusively through scouting discoveries.

Gone also is free agency. Some may believe that this will make the game easier because I will never lose a player that I want to keep. We can be over budget and still re-sign all of our players and run in the red as long as we want. However, It seems to me to be a lot tougher to build a team because there are no players to sign to fill holes. If you have a hole at second base, for instance, with free agency enabled, there will almost always be a player you can get for free to plug the gap at the least, and usually someone pretty decent that can be an asset to the team. Without free agency, there are no free players; everyone must be drafted or traded for. And running in the red will severely limit your trading options. If we ever build our team up to perennial powerhouse status, we can consider enabling free agency.

Along with the abolition of free agency, I have removed waivers and any restrictions to moving players from the majors to the minors. Once a player belongs to a team, he is theirs until they release him. This is more to help the A.I. teams than me, as I got tired of seeing all the good players (especially pitchers) they routinely lost trying to navigate the option and waiver rules.

Also booted from our universe are all the scouts. We are now a stats only league with "Other Ratings" shown on a 1-10 scale with show higher ratings than 10 enabled. Overall Ratings are turned off as are batting and pitching current and potential ratings.

A.I. player evaluation settings have been restored to the defaults, as have the trading settings (Average/Neutral). However, a new House Rule is that all trades I initiate must strictly be one player for one player. The way I built the old Beavers from a 95 loss team to a 95 win team overnight was by alternately trading quality for quantity and vice versa. Making only one for one trades should eliminate any possibility of creating an instant contender (I hope). However, I cannot abide by the recommendation that I make NO trades in the first season. I cannot see the point of keeping any players around that have zero chance of ever worming their way into my heart. Players that have low work ethic, iron gloves and lead cleats cannot be tolerated....

One other change is that the Injury setting has been lowered to Normal (OOTP Classic). This is because 1) the pool of replacement players to sign to the minor leagues is very limited and 2) it became a little ridiculous the way so many pitchers were turned into automatic injury victims every time they took the mound. Drafting players from the B Leagues will greatly help us avoid injury prone players, because all the players will have at least a season or two of injury history to peruse. Drafting players in the Amateur Draft with the Injury Rating not shown was just a shot in the dark and bit us pretty hard with the one high draft pick we ever had.

Here are all the teams and their park factors. Giant Stadium is a clone of Yankee Stadium and Derks Field in Salt Lake City is a clone of New Comiskey Park in Chicago. All Factors were based on an average of what the park showed from 2001 to 2018, except for Coors Field, which is based only on 2006 to 2008, because that period was the least drastic in its history, and Multnomah County Stadium, which is a retractable roof stadium, who's factors are based on Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium, 1987-96. We had to give the Skydome back to Toronto since they are now in the League. Since I usually have teams that are good at pitching and defense and struggle to score runs, I wanted a hitter friendly park to mask that somewhat (though it will probably be a while before we have any good pitching in Portland). During the period we have modeled, it is a good hitter's park, but not the Launching Pad it was in the 1970's and early 80's.

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07-22-2019, 05:45 PM	#1
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	The Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League (MLB 2001) Welcome back to the Saga of the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League, which is a Major League alongside the National League. You can read about how this came to be in my previous dynasty here: The Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League (MLB) Now we are 50 years on from the beginning of the World Series Era and it is 2001. The Major Leagues have expanded to 32 teams, with each League now consisting of two 8 team divisions. This incarnation of the universe is radically different from its predecessor and will, hopefully, bring me more challenge and enjoyment. Gone are the 7 levels of minor leagues. In their place are only 2 levels: A Ball and B Ball. A Ball is equivalent to AAA in the real modern Baseball world. Each Major League team has one A Ball affiliate and every A Ball team is an affiliate of a Major League team. B Ball is equivalent to AA in modern Baseball. There are 32 B Ball teams and they are not affiliated with any major league teams. Each January the Major Leagues have a 6 round draft to select players from the B Leagues. The B Leagues replenish their supply of players exclusively through scouting discoveries. Gone also is free agency. Some may believe that this will make the game easier because I will never lose a player that I want to keep. We can be over budget and still re-sign all of our players and run in the red as long as we want. However, It seems to me to be a lot tougher to build a team because there are no players to sign to fill holes. If you have a hole at second base, for instance, with free agency enabled, there will almost always be a player you can get for free to plug the gap at the least, and usually someone pretty decent that can be an asset to the team. Without free agency, there are no free players; everyone must be drafted or traded for. And running in the red will severely limit your trading options. If we ever build our team up to perennial powerhouse status, we can consider enabling free agency. Along with the abolition of free agency, I have removed waivers and any restrictions to moving players from the majors to the minors. Once a player belongs to a team, he is theirs until they release him. This is more to help the A.I. teams than me, as I got tired of seeing all the good players (especially pitchers) they routinely lost trying to navigate the option and waiver rules. Also booted from our universe are all the scouts. We are now a stats only league with "Other Ratings" shown on a 1-10 scale with show higher ratings than 10 enabled. Overall Ratings are turned off as are batting and pitching current and potential ratings. A.I. player evaluation settings have been restored to the defaults, as have the trading settings (Average/Neutral). However, a new House Rule is that all trades I initiate must strictly be one player for one player. The way I built the old Beavers from a 95 loss team to a 95 win team overnight was by alternately trading quality for quantity and vice versa. Making only one for one trades should eliminate any possibility of creating an instant contender (I hope). However, I cannot abide by the recommendation that I make NO trades in the first season. I cannot see the point of keeping any players around that have zero chance of ever worming their way into my heart. Players that have low work ethic, iron gloves and lead cleats cannot be tolerated.... One other change is that the Injury setting has been lowered to Normal (OOTP Classic). This is because 1) the pool of replacement players to sign to the minor leagues is very limited and 2) it became a little ridiculous the way so many pitchers were turned into automatic injury victims every time they took the mound. Drafting players from the B Leagues will greatly help us avoid injury prone players, because all the players will have at least a season or two of injury history to peruse. Drafting players in the Amateur Draft with the Injury Rating not shown was just a shot in the dark and bit us pretty hard with the one high draft pick we ever had. Here are all the teams and their park factors. Giant Stadium is a clone of Yankee Stadium and Derks Field in Salt Lake City is a clone of New Comiskey Park in Chicago. All Factors were based on an average of what the park showed from 2001 to 2018, except for Coors Field, which is based only on 2006 to 2008, because that period was the least drastic in its history, and Multnomah County Stadium, which is a retractable roof stadium, who's factors are based on Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium, 1987-96. We had to give the Skydome back to Toronto since they are now in the League. Since I usually have teams that are good at pitching and defense and struggle to score runs, I wanted a hitter friendly park to mask that somewhat (though it will probably be a while before we have any good pitching in Portland). During the period we have modeled, it is a good hitter's park, but not the Launching Pad it was in the 1970's and early 80's.