Help me setup the "perfect" league

[Fronzizzle]

Hello all,

I've been reading through a ton of posts and have decided to start over & create a new sim league (offline, by myself) using a bunch of settings I found on this site. Below is a full rundown of my basic setup, with my reasoning in some cases. Anyplace there are "???" means I don't know what I want to do. Feel free to comment/offer advice!

I play as GM/Manager and handle all promotions/demotions in the minor leagues, so I want to clean them up a little & make them easier to manage. So, I'm going to create a new Rookie League with one team for each MLB team and get rid of all existing rookie leagues, GCL, DSL, etc.

I'm going to institute service time and roster limits per the info here, which multiple people have posted: https://www.milb.com/about/faqs-business#19

Complete Scouting
Accuracy: High
Overall/Potential: Stars
Complete Coaching
Owner Goals: Leaning towards Off since I get frustrated by the "sign player X to an extension even though you are over budget & he wants $20M."

Injury frequency: Low or Very Low (I know, not realistic but injuries frustrate me and since it's my game...)
Use Personality Ratings, Player Morale and Team Chemistry

Batter Aging: .700 (???)
Batter Dev.: 1.100 (???)
Pitcher Aging: .750 (???)
Pitcher Dev.: 1.100 (???)
Talent Change Randomness: 75

Trade Diff.: Average
Trade Pref: Neutral
Player Eval Settings: 40/30/20/10 (???)

Player Development Baseline: $1.5M ???? (I've read that this does nothing, but also you don't want it to zero)

Scouting Budget Baseline: ???? (Currently set to $8M, but not sure if it's worth it or not)

I think that covers it.

[DCG12]

The only thing I would point out is that each setting can? will? affect other parts of the game.

For example if you turn injuries to low combined with aging set to .750 you have more players playing more games and for more years. Meanwhile you set development to 1.1 which means players are coming through the minors a little faster but where will they play in a league that doesn't get hurt and has 45 year olds still performing well?

[Fronzizzle]

Interesting. Good point. I never really thought of the aging/development in those terms.

[jimmysthebestcop]

The aging and dev don't really change that much unless you really crank it up/down.

I've been playing with aging . 75 and dev 1.25 since 18.

You will not have dozens of older guys or dozens of young guys coming up. Maybe a handful just like real life.

Probably want to double check trade settings.

[thesmokeshow]

Depends what you’re looking for. But I don’t run any save without trading on Very Hard. And also ‘favor prospects’. Otherwise trading is way too easy for a sim strategy baseball game. In which the transactions and team building are the focus of the entire game.

Even on Very Hard, it’s probably not as hard as it should be. But it’s pretty solid overall. You do have to work to get bigger trades done. And that’s how it should be.

Overpaid players and marginal players are still wroth basically nothing. But the good, young controllable players are hard to acquire. Just like in real life.

[jpeters1734]

to be completely honest, the default settings are as close to "perfect" as you're going to get. As any other beta tester will confirm, these default settings get debated pretty heavily in some cases. Unless you have a very specific idea of a league that you want to create, I'd just go with default and tinker here and there as your league evolves.

[itsmb8]

.75 for aging, 1.25 for development, Modern Day for injuries.

EDIT: And at least 150 for TCR.

There's a reason why baseball is so tough on small market teams. Young prospects take so long to develop that its rare for a low budget team to hit on a ton of draftees and build a stacked homegrown team before their salaries exceed the teams budget. Giant market teams with huge budgets are usually good because they can afford to overpay for proven vets. Thats the result of TCR being 150 or above. Setting the aging and development gets you players like Kurt Suzuki and Howie Kendrick that perform into their late 30s and players like Juan Soto or Gavin Lux that are stars by the time their 22 (but the amount of those players will be true to life as well). Lastly, you need injuries to be high or else players dont have development or peak years ruined by injuries. With injuries at the Modern Day setting, then you avoid getting to many under-22 stars or 35+ contributors in the league while also making sure the season is as unexpected as it usually is.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

.75 for aging, 1.25 for development, Modern Day for injuries.

EDIT: And at least 150 for TCR.

There's a reason why baseball is so tough on small market teams. Young prospects take so long to develop that its rare for a low budget team to hit on a ton of draftees and build a stacked homegrown team before their salaries exceed the teams budget. Giant market teams with huge budgets are usually good because they can afford to overpay for proven vets. Thats the result of TCR being 150 or above. Setting the aging and development gets you players like Kurt Suzuki and Howie Kendrick that perform into their late 30s and players like Juan Soto or Gavin Lux that are stars by the time their 22 (but the amount of those players will be true to life as well). Lastly, you need injuries to be high or else players dont have development or peak years ruined by injuries. With injuries at the Modern Day setting, then you avoid getting to many under-22 stars or 35+ contributors in the league while also making sure the season is as unexpected as it usually is.

In my experience TCR being too high will result in the nerfing of long careers. Career totals will be lower across the board. You will hardly ever have a 3000 hit player. In most of my leagues, which are all default, there’s plenty, I would argue too many, stud 22-23 year olds and plenty of players productive in their late 30s