Historical issue and help.

[Orioles123]

So I am wanting to start an historical simulation going back to the year of 1900 but I have issues.

1. In the team selections their is more teams in ootp than in baseball reference I am confused and don't want that to effect my sim.

2. When I start the game and go through the teams the rosters are completely empty and I am using real historical lineup,transaction,injuries etc........ it forces me to start an MLB Inaugural Draft and I am not sure what to do.

3. what is the best set up for an historical simulation for the year of 1900?


It wont let me send another screenshot image so i am using import complete history up to 1900
and
Import real MiLB (1915+)
ADVANCE OPTION
ratings on ...... Remaining years of career
fielding rating on ... .3 year period
pitching stamina on 3 year period

[jeter6970]

In the screenshot of step 1 of the setup wizard it says leagues started pre-1901 will begin with an inaugural draft.

Also, in 1900, there wasn't an official American League yet, so Baseball Reference only has the National League teams.

The best way to set up a league in 1900 is to start in 1901.

[tomnov]

I started a trial run sim right with the 1871 season.
Comparing as I go to Baseball Reference.
I've found some of their data to be incomplete, but overall the game has done a decent job in handling available teams & players.
I'm only to 1886 so far, but while OOTP has done a few things to streamline gameplay (early years made 2 leagues instead of 1 league with 2 divisions, but used interleague play to the same effect -- and the 1880's sorta used the existing National League as 1 subleague, then combined aspects of the most stable teams of the Union Association and American Associations.
Both teams and players migrated alot in this era, I noticed while looking at BR stats.
You COULD go roster by roster in whichever year you are actually starting at and assign players to their historical teams if you're trying for true realism, but you may find yourself finding odd situations where the same player plays on 2 different teams/leagues simultaneously (and not be able to document when they played where, as box scores were not universally available or accurate in this era).
You will also find that the same players may have been recorded by different teams as different players in the OOTP database, due to recordkeeping inaccuracies. Something like Ballplayer Jones and Jim Jones (both with the same birth city, sometimes the same birth date, and the same physical measurements). If you're a stickler for accuracy with teams & their players, it will frustrate you because you will see that their ratings between 2 leagues in real life to be slightly different.

My big issue with playing these early years, is that even with stories enabled, there is no notification for example when teams move, but the game handles that by changing the city and team name so you have a completely new team in the league, but the roster carries over from the old team. Not exactly an elegant solution.
The game should have a great big story on the move, maybe releasing a certain number of players and making them available as free agents, as in real life the players didn't follow the teams to new cities in many cases.
Also, when I hit 1884, there were too many 'idle' players both off and on reserve rosters, so I tried instituting a minor league to let these players accrue some real stats, but at the end of the season, since these aren't "historical" teams, the minor league disappears. The first time I tried fixing this by applying a template of the league(s) and wound up with duplicates of everyone in the league from the season before being added along with the template.
I'm trying a workaround this upcoming season by opening the template in a new game, deleting all the players but leaving the teams/affiliations intact, and will import the template again this new season, hopefully that will work.

In any event, you will have to make these decisions based on what you really want to do with your league, either alot of manual hard work in the beginning or instead start in a year where better recordkeeping supports the teams starting more intact.
I wish you luck with your project, I'll let you know how mine continues to go as I approach the date you're playing.

Link to BR-Register league pages starting with 1877:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/r...oup=&year=1877
Links are on these pages to available data.
I started with 1877 as this is the first year in BR that links to multiple leagues besides the old National Association that started in 1871 (and referred to in the OOTP game as MLB).
You can advance by button FORWARD from this point, but until later in the 1880's, there is no button for the previous year.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by tomnov

You will also find that the same players may have been recorded by different teams as different players in the OOTP database, due to recordkeeping inaccuracies. Something like Ballplayer Jones and Jim Jones (both with the same birth city, sometimes the same birth date, and the same physical measurements).

As you find these cases please take a moment to post your duplicate findings in the bug report forum under historical issues so the players can be properly aligned. So far over 600 Minor and major league Ballplayer records have been properly credited due to the reports generated by OOTP posters.