Best Historical Sims w/ Leeway

[Trav876]

What are everyone's opinions on what would be the best way to have historical sims/transactions, but have the chance to manage and make your teams better (or worse) than they would have been in real life? E.g. developing minor leaguers, changing guys' positions to make your team better, etc.? Are there preferred settings to get a good "blend" and give leeway to the players/league?


E.g.

I've tried some settings and have been the '93 Rockies (their expansion year) but have finished last every time...perhaps they have such little talent that it's hard to not get them to finish last. Or perhaps there are other ideas out there to see how things can develop a bit more randomly?

[Reed]

It usually takes at least 2 or 3 years or more to turn around a team with little talent. I guess you could make trades easy and give yourself a huge sum of money if you play with financial and hire the best. coaches, free agents etc.. The AI manager is just so so in my opinion so if you play in manager mode you might win a few.more games.

[Trav876]

Originally Posted by Reed

It usually takes at least 2 or 3 years or more to turn around a team with little talent. I guess you could make trades easy and give yourself a huge sum of money if you play with financial and hire the best. coaches, free agents etc.. The AI manager is just so so in my opinion so if you play in manager mode you might win a few.more games.

Thanks for the reply. I'm talking about historical transactions (so I wouldn't be able to trade, etc.), and just try to develop the guys, or see if the sim churns out certain guys to be better/worse than they normally would be.


Are there certain pros/cons for this using the recalcuating every X years, or some of those other more advanced settings?


Also- different question but somewhat related, if you enable trading after the season starts under league settings, but still have "historical transactions checked," what happens there? Does the historical part override any trades attempted?

[Trav876]

I just thought of this- if anyone has any input on pros/cons or whether it will work?

What if I entered in like 1988 (5 years before Rockies expansion year), and let the game sim until '93 ... so therefore the AI should develop players semi-randomly if I have turn off "recalc based on" entirely, correct?. Then the Rockies will get their players in the expansion draft who may have developed differently than in real life, correct?

Would there still be an advantage of recalc based on ... or weighting the ratings/stats differently for AI evaluation (e.g. maybe stats way more important than ratings)? I guess I'm wondering if doing the hypothetical example above (entering in say, 1988 and letting it pan out) will be "too" totally random if I don't have any recalc, or if I don't mess with the ratings/stats weight at all.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Trav876

Also- different question but somewhat related, if you enable trading after the season starts under league settings, but still have "historical transactions checked," what happens there? Does the historical part override any trades attempted?

No. But if, say, you were trade for Gary Sheffield on June 1st, 1993, you'll only have him for a few weeks because on June 24th the historical transactions file will send him to Florida. (Historical transactions don't care if a player is on the historically-correct team prior to a trade or other move; it merely puts him on the destination team that he's supposed be on, as of the date he's supposed to be sent there.)

Originally Posted by Trav876

I just thought of this- if anyone has any input on pros/cons or whether it will work?

What if I entered in like 1988 (5 years before Rockies expansion year), and let the game sim until '93 ... so therefore the AI should develop players semi-randomly if I have turn off "recalc based on" entirely, correct?

Yes, semi-randomly, affected by the setting you use for player development.

Originally Posted by Trav876

Then the Rockies will get their players in the expansion draft who may have developed differently than in real life, correct?

Yep

Originally Posted by Trav876

Would there still be an advantage of recalc based on ... or weighting the ratings/stats differently for AI evaluation (e.g. maybe stats way more important than ratings)?

Not sure but I hope you get an answer to this, as I am curious...

Originally Posted by Trav876

I guess I'm wondering if doing the hypothetical example above (entering in say, 1988 and letting it pan out) will be "too" totally random if I don't have any recalc, or if I don't mess with the ratings/stats weight at all.

I'd just add that expansion teams generally start out with players who are not all that good: fringe major-leaguers & guys that belong in the minors, washed-up major-leaguers, and a few established major leaguers who are average-at-best. So, with that as your starting point, also keep in mind that random development is just as likely to make an individual player worse as it is better.

Good luck

[Trav876]

Originally Posted by thehef

No. But if, say, you were trade for Gary Sheffield on June 1st, 1993, you'll only have him for a few weeks because on June 24th the historical transactions file will send him to Florida. (Historical transactions don't care if a player is on the historically-correct team prior to a trade or other move; it merely puts him on the destination team that he's supposed be on, as of the date he's supposed to be sent there.)

Yes, semi-randomly, affected by the setting you use for player development.

Yep

Not sure but I hope you get an answer to this, as I am curious...

I'd just add that expansion teams generally start out with players who are not all that good: fringe major-leaguers & guys that belong in the minors, washed-up major-leaguers, and a few established major leaguers who are average-at-best. So, with that as your starting point, also keep in mind that random development is just as likely to make an individual player worse as it is better.

Good luck

Awesome thanks for the replies.


When you say "Yes, semi-randomly, affected by the setting you use for player development."


If I were to have the talent randomness rating extremely low, would that be basically the same as checking "disable player development" then? Or are those distinct from each other?

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Trav876

When you say "Yes, semi-randomly, affected by the setting you use for player development."

If I were to have the talent randomness rating extremely low, would that be basically the same as checking "disable player development" then? Or are those distinct from each other?

Player development, if set at 1, is the lowest setting before turning off player development.

So if you're plan were to not use recalc and have a very low player development setting, players would basically have a career path that would not change much from their ability at initial import. So guys that struggled in their first year before becoming stars would be very unlikely to turn into stars in your sim. For example, Clayton Kershaw would most-likely be an average pitcher, but a guy like Mark Fydrich might have a long career as an ace (although much of it would be with the Red Sox, since you'd have historical transactions in effect, and that would move him to Boston in Feb 1982.) ... At least that's the way I understand it.