historical transactions with historical minors: you can

[thehef]

First of all: Long Post Alert...

OK, maybe this is already known to some, but it's new to me and is pretty cool, IMO:

There is a way to play with MLB historical transactions AND have historical minors. You can only do this, however, if you start your game prior to 1919. And it's not perfect. Testing continues, but I have found that:

• MLB players move according to the historical txns file.
• It appears that many players import in their pro debut year, and you get - as far as I can tell - many (though not nearly all) of the minor-leaguers from history. (Still trying to figure this out, as some don't appear in the pro-debut year, but in their debut with a MiLB team that is in OOTP; in other words, with their first team that is part of a league that has at least one affiliate. In addition, I have recently found that fewer minor-leaguers import when you are playing this way, as opposed to playing with historical minors and NO historical txns - see NOTE 2 at the bottom).
• Each year, first-year players either import to their correct MLB organization, correct minor-league team, or - in some cases where I'm not quite clear yet - as a free agent.
• There are no AI trades (this might be optional; see NOTE 3 below). So, for example, you won't get AI trading Ted Williams to the Yankees, and independent teams don't trade with one another.
• The AI doesn't do much movement of players, other than 1) moving them up or down within an MLB organization (to/from either an affiliate or the reserve roster), or 2) moving them to/from the active & reserve rosters of non-affiliated minor-league teams. (I've also seen minor-league affiliates signing free agents after an MLB team calls up 15 of their players on Sept 1st, essentially decimating their roster; for this reason I've started tinkering with reducing the MLB expanded roster size, moving the roster expansion date back to late-Sept, and also doing away with expanded rosters completely.
• Affiliated minors get players from the MLB organization.
• Non-affiliated teams get first-year players imported to them, and the size of those first-year rosters can vary widely from team to team. Some will have a handful of players, at most; others will have 15-20 players... I'm allowing ghost players... (In one test, in the spring of '26 I started dabbling with getting the PCL and Texas Lg rosters - for the independent teams - semi-accurate; it takes some time, but it's kinda fun...).
• When an independent minor-league team becomes an affiliate of an MLB organization, all of its players become free agents, which makes sense.
• When an affiliated minor-league becomes de-affiliated with an MLB organization, the players remain in the MLB team's organization (either to the MLB team's reserve roster or to other affiliates, if available), and the minor-league team then has no players except for the first-year players who will import to it for the coming season.
• When an MLB team has just one affiliated team, those affiliates seem to have massive active rosters during the season (the 1920's PCL's LA Angels or the Texas League's Houston Texans, as examples, with 35-45 players). I don't think there's much that can be done about this other than a) manually releasing those who weren't really on the team that year, and/or b) waiting until the parent club has more affiliates.
• A player on an independent minor-league team will remain on that team until either a) the historical txn file moves him to an MLB organization (this would only apply to players who played in the majors and were thus included in the txns file), b) the independent team becomes affiliated, in which case the player will become a free agent, c) he retires, or d) you manually move them somewhere else. (There may be instances when the AI releases players due to too many players; not sure).
• By the time many levels of minors exist, a high-level independent team that, for example, lost its players due to disassociating as an affiliate may go several years with few-to-no players. As far as I can tell, this is because very few first-year players debut in the high-minors, and an unaffiliated team has no other way to get players (unless of course you manually assign them).

NOTE 1: It appears as though players who may have had significant minor-league careers but who imported into OOTP prior to historical minors (prior to 1919) are only rated on their MLB career. As an example, in real life Clarence Kraft debuted in 1910 in D-ball. He toiled within minors of the first few letters of the alphabet for a few years before getting a small cup of coffee (3 at-bats) with the Boston Braves in 1914. After that he bounced around for a few years in the minors, always putting up decent numbers. He closed his career with a seven-year stretch - 1918-1924 - with Ft Worth in the Texas League, with his final four years being his best - well over .300 BA each year, with 31-32-32-55 homers... In my test league, which started with the 1918 season, he imported as a free agent, and - apparently - he was rated only on his brief & insignificant MLB career, because despite my repeated attempts to assign him to a team & unretire him, his ratings were quite poor and would basically retire at the end of every season. However, when I started another test league in 1919 (historical minors, but no historical txns, which are not possible if you start after 1918), he was actually a reserve on Detroit's MLB roster. So for the next several seasons I "locked" him on Ft Worth and he proceeded to have seasons that essentially paralleled what he did in real life.

NOTE 2: It seems that as you progress through history, you get fewer career minor-leaguers than you would if you were playing with only historical minors (and not playing with historical txns). As an example, in a comparison of the 1941 OOTP season - one played by starting in 1918, with historical txns, and progressing to 1941, and the other as a minor-league historical started in 1941 (no-transactions, of course) - there are about 4,000 total players in the game that started in 1918 and progressed to 1941, but in the game started in 1941, there were over 6,000 players. It seems as though the "missing" players are those who had pretty brief minor-league careers.

NOTE 3: As noted above, I have only been able to make this work by starting a historical league prior to 1919. It appears possible to also enable AI trades. I have this off for my testing because I wouldn't want the AI making trades in a game of this type, so I don't know if enabling trades will work, and - if so - how it might affect things.

At any rate, so far this is turning out to be a really cool way to play, IMO. However, since it requires some manual roster-shaping for unaffiliated minors (unless you are fine with ghost players - sometimes a lot of them - on some teams; see above), that gets to be quite a beast when 15+ minor leagues exist... But it does open up some options.

So, to sum up, playing a game this way you get:

a) historical MLB transactions (therefore historical MLB rosters)
b) historical MiLB structure (teams & leagues, to the degree that OOTP includes actual teams/leagues that were affiliated w MLB)
c) access to a bunch of minor-leaguers that you wouldn't ordinarily get

I see this as not only good news, but a ringing endorsement for OOTP 18 to have more teams & leagues and full (majors and minors) historical transactions, as this is (nearly) proof that it will work; IOW, the code is already - mostly - there. (Hopefully, the devs will not see this as an unintended loophole that they will close. That would not be cool!)

Finally, I'll note that mitchkenn has also done some testing on this and he may have more to add.

[mitchkenn]

all the above, except i tried it with financials enabled.... it simply doesn't work. (And it shouldn't have, but i wanted to see anyway ...) The players can refuse arbitration in the off season - and go to free agency, where they linger in limbo until the year they would have either been traded to another team or retire. Hornsby stayed in FA for 6 year after he refused arbitration with Stl., until the 1926 when he was "traded" to Giants. Ruth never got out of FA purgatory. Same with Ty Cobb (both were rated 5 stars all the time in FA.) Eddie Collins was there from 1919 until 1926, when he signed with the Phi A's. (IRL that's when he went to the A's.)

i also tried it with a rookie draft .... that worked on the surface - teams picked players and they went to reserve rosters or minor league teams, but when the years the player belonged to a ML club, he was "granted" FA. This happened specifically with Lou Gehrig. Went to Cubs out of draft (he couldn't have gone to Hartford of Eastern League in the game, as the Eastern League wasn't in the game in 1921. In 1923, he starts the preseason on the Cubs roster, only to be on the Yankees by opening day. What i believe is happening is the draft just gets players into the game as Minor Leaguers, and then when they historically join the majors, it puts them on the correct teams. So, basically, the draft doesn't work - and it really shouldn't with historical transaction turned on. All my test did is sort of verify that.

thehef did most of the testing. i tinkered with financials and amateur draft from 1917-1927. What did work was the players going to and from reserve rosters or minor league teams as teams historically received and lost minor league affiliates, at least the ones during the years i sim/tested. i didn't have any teams losing players when they lost affiliates - they went to reserve rosters... but my sim era was only 10 years.

so playing as thehef did, it seems to work well. Tinkering with financials and the am. draft throws it off kilter, as least in my tests. So just a heads up.

[Spritze]

I note that the game retires a ton of players rather than have them fill up minor league rosters, often without having them play any games at all.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Spritze

I note that the game retires a ton of players rather than have them fill up minor league rosters, often without having them play any games at all.

I did see plenty of this. Especially in the early days of OOTP minors (1920's & early 30's), where there are not many minor-league teams. Although it seems more of a lack of mechanism to get the players onto minor league teams. Unless you manually place players on teams (or find some other way to get them on teams?) - they retire. Apparently out of extreme boredom.

In my test, in the offseason of 1926 I decided to try to manually stock the rosters of the mostly-independent PCL. I found a lot of those players who were IRL on PCL teams were, in OOTP, already retired. So I unretired them.

[Spritze]

the game does not seem to be enamored with developing players. even with development on it would rather retire a player at 22 or even earlier as opposed to letting them develop and seeing what was what after the passage of time.

this may be related to having ghosting on as the Unknown family of players takes charge and plays all their loopy cousins rather than IRL players.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Spritze

the game does not seem to be enamored with developing players. even with development on it would rather retire a player at 22 or even earlier as opposed to letting them develop and seeing what was what after the passage of time.

this may be related to having ghosting on as the Unknown family of players takes charge and plays all their loopy cousins rather than IRL players.

I wonder if there was a way to get these players actually on teams - such as a free agent draft that you suggested elsewhere - if these players would then get PT and develop... That said, with development off (or low), it seems that any player with decent-enough real-life stats should do fine, if placed on a team somehow... I dunno, as with many things related to OOTP minors, there are some unknowns, in addition to the Unknowns...

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by thehef

I wonder if there was a way to get these players actually on teams - such as a free agent draft that you suggested elsewhere - if these players would then get PT and develop... That said, with development off (or low), it seems that any player with decent-enough real-life stats should do fine, if placed on a team somehow... I dunno, as with many things related to OOTP minors, there are some unknowns, in addition to the Unknowns...

Yes, esp. to the parts i put in bold. There is really no reason these players should be forced into retirement, esp. if we have no limits on size of the minors. Maybe age could be factored, but a free agent draft for the minors would be a great way to not only keep the FA pool manageable, plus get a few more players to develop, possibly.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by thehef

I did see plenty of this. Especially in the early days of OOTP minors (1920's & early 30's), where there are not many minor-league teams. Although it seems more of a lack of mechanism to get the players onto minor league teams. Unless you manually place players on teams (or find some other way to get them on teams?) - they retire. Apparently out of extreme boredom.

In my test, in the offseason of 1926 I decided to try to manually stock the rosters of the mostly-independent PCL. I found a lot of those players who were IRL on PCL teams were, in OOTP, already retired. So I unretired them.

When I try to un-retire players, I find they have no defensive ratings or abilities. Have you seen this?

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Orcin

When I try to un-retire players, I find they have no defensive ratings or abilities. Have you seen this?

I do recall seeing this with one player. Don't remember who, and there certainly could've been more than one, but one was all I saw. Not sure how/why I found it. It might've been the example of Clarence Kraft (in Note 1 in the OP), where - in the test version he was only rated on his brief 1914 MLB appearance, and by the time I unretired him around 1921, his ratings were in the tank... I'll have to look into this...

[thehef]

Another thing I tested on this... As this post described - http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...nate-them.html - you can't really edit the csv & text files (to add minor leagues & teams, for example) without breaking League Totals on the Stats & AI page. However... what you can do it use modified files for a few seasons (actually, as long as you want*) and then revert to using the delivered csv files, and the connection to the League Totals will restore.

*"as long as you want" defined as as long as you are willing to manually input League Totals for each minor league

As an example... Currently, in OOTP, the Texas League is the first and only minor league (beginning in 1919) until the PCL joins in 1921, and then the International League in 1927. Let's say you want the PCL & IL to join the Texas League in 1919. You could do the following:

• Modify the MiLBTeams.csv, MiLBLeagues.csv, and era_stats_minors.txt files so they also include the PCL (in 1919 & 1920) and IL (from 1919-1926).
• From 1919 until - in this example - the 1926 offseason (after the 1926 postseason) you would need to manually update the League Totals for each minor league (especially BABIP for the PCL and IL, which will be .000).
• At that point you would revert the two csv's and the text file to their original versions. As you then move forward, minor league history would be as OOTP intends, with a few add'l leagues coming (and going) from 1929-1931, and then things exploding (11 new minor leagues) in 1932... and the League Totals will again update as they should.

For the pre-OOTP PCL and IL that you've included, what you won't get is the majority of players for those teams. Rather, you would need to fill them with free agents (or find other means of populating their rosters). What you will get is more minor league teams to fool around with. You could even, theoretically, assign some of these teams as MLB affiliates via the MiLBTeams.csv file (although once you revert to the original files for the 1927 season, these affiliations would go away).

Note that so far I haven't completely tested the full scenario described above. I have, however, tested a mini-version of it - adding the PCL for 1919 & 1920, then reverting to the original files, and finding that the connection for the League Totals has been restored for 1921.So I don't see why it wouldn't work on a larger scale.

Reminder: NEVER fool around with modifying the files noted above without first making backup copies of the originals.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by Orcin

When I try to un-retire players, I find they have no defensive ratings or abilities. Have you seen this?

Yes. When i started a league in 1901, i un-retired a few players to fill up a couple of rosters and noticed the same thing. Since they were just filler/extras i really didn't give it much thought.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by Orcin

When I try to un-retire players, I find they have no defensive ratings or abilities. Have you seen this?

Bug you long time is this....this is a long time uncorrectable bug as there was no room to store this info in the past, present and maybe future. Turns most unretired players into first basemen so is not a good workaround. Better would be not so much retiring in the first place.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Spritze

Better would be not so much retiring in the first place.

Agree. I don't have data to back this up, but it seems to me that OOTP is retiring players at a higher-rate than it used to. And the "used to" rate was too high to begin with, IMO.