Septuagenarian's Historic Problem

bucky badger · 02-26-2011, 01:27 AM

I'm playing Baltimore in 1901. In 1901 I had 25, 24, 26, and 21 players at ML, AAA, AA, and A. In 1908, I now have 21, 16, 10, and 7.

I'm playing with full minor league rosters selected during the initial game setup and with ghost players to avoid the "ABC team has an illegal number of players on their roster" problem. I have scouting turned off. What am I doing wrong?

I played an earlier version of OOTP -maybe 6 or 7 years ago. My impression was the developers were trying to be all things to all people, meaning, of course, the release of a flawed product. I feel the same way about the 2011 product. Maybe most of the bugs are gone but there are so many things that happen that really take away from the fun. To me the most irritating is the salary bargaining where the player asks for X number of dollars and you give it to him. He often refuses your offer and requests the very same thing you just offered and back and forth until you have to bargain with him as a free agent.

One thing that would really be useful is a better save game feature. I know if toy quit the game, it gets saved. All you can do with that saved game is continue it. It would be nice to be able to name that save with a unique name and then come back several times to that saved game to try different things. It might make the learning curve not quite as steep.

Anyone older than me playing OOTP. I'm 75 and remember listening to the Cub games on the radio during the 1945 World Series.

Scoman · 02-26-2011, 01:37 AM

If your using the default database I do not think there are enough players to support full minors, especially in the early 1900's. You might want to try spritzes newest high school database , it brings players in at a earlier age. And has more players available for each year.

They should be on about OOTP 36 when I turn 75,that should be a hellava game.

Chicagofan76 · 02-26-2011, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bucky badger

Anyone older than me playing OOTP. I'm 75 and remember listening to the Cub games on the radio during the 1945 World Series.

Sorry

Cryomaniac · 02-26-2011, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scoman

They should be on about OOTP 36 when I turn 75,that should be a hellava game.

There should be an OOTP 52 when I'm 75, so that should be even better

Spritze · 02-26-2011, 11:43 AM

In 1901 roster sizes were 15 to 18 depending on the level and the date.

Curtis · 02-26-2011, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spritze

In 1901 roster sizes were 15 to 18 depending on the level and the date.

That responded intelligently to the initial poster's issue. We frown on that around here.

Bahgoon · 02-28-2011, 12:15 PM

If you play purely historical, you won't have enough players to support a minor league until 1910 or so. Then, you can probably support AAA and AA ball. It probably isn't until after 1925 or so that you can go deeper than that. You can dynamically change your league structure as you go along. That is, play with a reserve roster until 1910 and then add minor leagues in the preseason. Then add more leagues as you decide you have sufficient players to support it.

Note - I've always had to do the 'Let the AI set up all leagues, rosters and lineups' (whatever that button's official name is

) to get my players from the reserve roster onto the minor league teams when I do the changeover. The AI controlled teams do it automatically, so no worries with them.

If you play historical plus fictional, teams can still starve of players if the number of years served before a minor leaguer can go free agent is short. The AI never seems real interested in re-signing minor league free agents. Years of service before becoming a free agent is a pick you can set at league creation and can be changed during the preseason while in commissioner mode.

Normally what I do (assuming the use of fictional players) is make sure my lowest minor league has a large roster size compared to the others (say, 25 man rosters for AAA through SSA and the rookie league has a roster of 40). Then every year after spring training, when the Major League roster size goes back to 25, I go to commissioner mode and go to every team and fill their rookie league team with fictional players.

The other option I haven't really played with is high school and college feeder leagues, so can't tell you much about that.

Syd Thrift · 02-28-2011, 02:35 PM

Yeah, IRL they didn't have farm teams so to speak in 1901 or 1908. To some degree it was Branch Rickey in the late teens and 20s who started buying up lots of minor league clubs who really began that process (with commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis opposing him much of the way, I should add), so what you're doing is actually ahistorical. If that's how you want to play, that's fine - it is your game, after all and you ought to be able to play it however you want to play it - but if you're looking for realism I'd use either no minors at all and a reserve roster (which is similar to what teams did) or, if the feel of the era is more important than watching Ty Cobb play for you, going completely fictional with several levels of independent minor leagues.

I'm basically doing the latter with my dynasty, which is set in the 1930s (late 1935 now in fact). Baseball-reference.com lists all the active minor leagues for each season as well as each team's affiliation. Leagues went all the way down to D-level at this point but I chose to just use the ones rated "A" or higher - that's still 6 minor leagues, one of which is entirely independent and nearly all of which have a few independent teams on them. If you're doing it this way, you may need to go into those indie teams every year and refill their rosters because they won't get a draft of their own to do so, although they do a pretty fine job of snapping up major league free agents who still have some value and who can be had for the right price.

Chicagofan76 · 02-28-2011, 03:59 PM

the way I have my historical league setup in whatever yr i am in these days is all I have in a AAA and 90% of the time i only have 5-10 players there mostly pitchers. I think i am in 1899. I havent played it in a few weeks.

I use the orig PCL teams for my AAA

David Ball · 02-28-2011, 07:54 PM

Rickey's system certainly had a revolutionary effect on the game, but every individual element of it had been tried fairly extensively before. For many years teams had experimented fairly extensively with owning farm clubs, although not on the scale Rickey did it, and everybody farmed out players either through optional assignment ior informal gentleman's agreements. Although fully owned farm clubs were not very common, major league teams often had close relationships with friendly independent minor league clubs, for example, Charlie Comiskey's White Sox with Milwaukee and San Francisco or John McGraw's with the Baltimore team run by his old player Jack Dunn. These can be thught of as independent minor league teams that had informal but real working agreements with major league clubs.

Major teams did not often sign amateur players and bring them all the way up through the minors until they were ready for prime time, but as long as you're using the standard historical database, those are not normally the first year players you're getting. What you get are players ready for their debut season in the major leagues, and if you have the draft turned off, what you get is essentially the player procurement program the real team actually had, whether that involved a farm system or players exclusively purchased from minor league teams. In the real world, going back to 1900 and even before, the major teams would not find a place for some of those players on their own rosters but they would not want to lose them, and so they would option them to a minor club or otherwise keep a string tied to them, as the expression went.

Considering all this, I believe that playing with a farm system, but with incomplete minors, is the method truest to the real situation of pre-Rickey major league clubs, and it's actual closest to the spirit of the era if you don't have a full roster of minor league players you can pick and choose from. You will have some players you can't use now but want to keep, and they are the relative handful of players who appear on the minor league rosters, having been farmed to your particular friend in Baltimore or Milwaukee or San Francisco -- although probably in reality nobody ever dealt with only one team at any minor level. Since the minor operator is still independent, though friendly, the Joe Unknowns who make up the invisible portion of those rosters are the players who are not yours, but remain the property of the minor team.

02-26-2011, 01:27 AM	#1
bucky badger Bat Boy Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 11	Septuagenarian's Historic Problem I'm playing Baltimore in 1901. In 1901 I had 25, 24, 26, and 21 players at ML, AAA, AA, and A. In 1908, I now have 21, 16, 10, and 7. I'm playing with full minor league rosters selected during the initial game setup and with ghost players to avoid the "ABC team has an illegal number of players on their roster" problem. I have scouting turned off. What am I doing wrong? I played an earlier version of OOTP -maybe 6 or 7 years ago. My impression was the developers were trying to be all things to all people, meaning, of course, the release of a flawed product. I feel the same way about the 2011 product. Maybe most of the bugs are gone but there are so many things that happen that really take away from the fun. To me the most irritating is the salary bargaining where the player asks for X number of dollars and you give it to him. He often refuses your offer and requests the very same thing you just offered and back and forth until you have to bargain with him as a free agent. One thing that would really be useful is a better save game feature. I know if toy quit the game, it gets saved. All you can do with that saved game is continue it. It would be nice to be able to name that save with a unique name and then come back several times to that saved game to try different things. It might make the learning curve not quite as steep. Anyone older than me playing OOTP. I'm 75 and remember listening to the Cub games on the radio during the 1945 World Series.

02-26-2011, 01:37 AM	#2
Scoman All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: heath ohio Posts: 1,829	If your using the default database I do not think there are enough players to support full minors, especially in the early 1900's. You might want to try spritzes newest high school database , it brings players in at a earlier age. And has more players available for each year. They should be on about OOTP 36 when I turn 75,that should be a hellava game. Last edited by Scoman; 02-26-2011 at 01:43 AM.

02-26-2011, 11:43 AM	#5
Spritze OOTP Historical Czar Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Bothell Wa Posts: 7,253	In 1901 roster sizes were 15 to 18 depending on the level and the date.

02-28-2011, 12:15 PM	#7
Bahgoon Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 66	If you play purely historical, you won't have enough players to support a minor league until 1910 or so. Then, you can probably support AAA and AA ball. It probably isn't until after 1925 or so that you can go deeper than that. You can dynamically change your league structure as you go along. That is, play with a reserve roster until 1910 and then add minor leagues in the preseason. Then add more leagues as you decide you have sufficient players to support it. Note - I've always had to do the 'Let the AI set up all leagues, rosters and lineups' (whatever that button's official name is ) to get my players from the reserve roster onto the minor league teams when I do the changeover. The AI controlled teams do it automatically, so no worries with them. If you play historical plus fictional, teams can still starve of players if the number of years served before a minor leaguer can go free agent is short. The AI never seems real interested in re-signing minor league free agents. Years of service before becoming a free agent is a pick you can set at league creation and can be changed during the preseason while in commissioner mode. Normally what I do (assuming the use of fictional players) is make sure my lowest minor league has a large roster size compared to the others (say, 25 man rosters for AAA through SSA and the rookie league has a roster of 40). Then every year after spring training, when the Major League roster size goes back to 25, I go to commissioner mode and go to every team and fill their rookie league team with fictional players. The other option I haven't really played with is high school and college feeder leagues, so can't tell you much about that.

02-28-2011, 03:59 PM	#9
Chicagofan76 Banned Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Diamond, IL Posts: 6,339 Infractions: 2/2 (3)	the way I have my historical league setup in whatever yr i am in these days is all I have in a AAA and 90% of the time i only have 5-10 players there mostly pitchers. I think i am in 1899. I havent played it in a few weeks. I use the orig PCL teams for my AAA

02-28-2011, 07:54 PM	#10
David Ball Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 281	Rickey's system certainly had a revolutionary effect on the game, but every individual element of it had been tried fairly extensively before. For many years teams had experimented fairly extensively with owning farm clubs, although not on the scale Rickey did it, and everybody farmed out players either through optional assignment ior informal gentleman's agreements. Although fully owned farm clubs were not very common, major league teams often had close relationships with friendly independent minor league clubs, for example, Charlie Comiskey's White Sox with Milwaukee and San Francisco or John McGraw's with the Baltimore team run by his old player Jack Dunn. These can be thught of as independent minor league teams that had informal but real working agreements with major league clubs. Major teams did not often sign amateur players and bring them all the way up through the minors until they were ready for prime time, but as long as you're using the standard historical database, those are not normally the first year players you're getting. What you get are players ready for their debut season in the major leagues, and if you have the draft turned off, what you get is essentially the player procurement program the real team actually had, whether that involved a farm system or players exclusively purchased from minor league teams. In the real world, going back to 1900 and even before, the major teams would not find a place for some of those players on their own rosters but they would not want to lose them, and so they would option them to a minor club or otherwise keep a string tied to them, as the expression went. Considering all this, I believe that playing with a farm system, but with incomplete minors, is the method truest to the real situation of pre-Rickey major league clubs, and it's actual closest to the spirit of the era if you don't have a full roster of minor league players you can pick and choose from. You will have some players you can't use now but want to keep, and they are the relative handful of players who appear on the minor league rosters, having been farmed to your particular friend in Baltimore or Milwaukee or San Francisco -- although probably in reality nobody ever dealt with only one team at any minor level. Since the minor operator is still independent, though friendly, the Joe Unknowns who make up the invisible portion of those rosters are the players who are not yours, but remain the property of the minor team.