Negro Leagues (NeL) Mod for 26

[pholmer]

Any word on the progress of the NeL Mod for 26? I have had so much fun playing with 25 NeL Mod and I'm anxious to continue in 26. Garlon and LansdowneSt, (and whoever else), thanks for your hard work on this project.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by pholmer

Any word on the progress of the NeL Mod for 26? I have had so much fun playing with 25 NeL Mod and I'm anxious to continue in 26. Garlon and LansdowneSt, (and whoever else), thanks for your hard work on this project.

Still working on the fielding for the new additions but Garlon walked me through some steps yesterday that should result in a faster pace on the fielding. It's still going to take some time though. It will be a significant update and there will be lots of testing of it - and not just by those of us working on it. We'll put it out here to get feedback too.

[pholmer]

Thanks for the update.

[pholmer]

LansdowneSt - I was in the middle of a historical game in 26 that had progressed to the 1920s when I noticed that very few black players were coming to MLB in the draft. During the off-season, I switched the NeL odb file for the game's original odb file. The draft that year was flooded with black players, including Charleston, Bell, Donaldson, Torriente, Dismukes, etc. That was several game-seasons ago and everything seems to be working well.

Also, when you are ready to test the 26 NeL Mod, I would be glad to be a beta tester (or whatever you need) to help test it.

By the way, did you get the cvs file I sent you with all the players from the OOTP Negro Leagues game, circa 2009? I'll attach it to this post in case you didn't get it. I was just making a list for myself as a quick reference for Negro Leagues players whose names I was not familiar with and I thought it might be useful to you as well.

[LansdowneSt]

Thanks for the downloads. I'll let you know when it the new version is all put together and ready to go. Still working on fielding over this long weekend...

[Beatles Eternally]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Thanks for the downloads. I'll let you know when it the new version is all put together and ready to go. Still working on fielding over this long weekend...

Hey there LansdowneSt, Just checking in to see if this is close to seeing the light of day in OOTP26. Thanks for all you and Garlon do for this great community!!!

[LansdowneSt]

Hi Beatles. Good to hear from you.

I'll know more next week. The batters are nearly done. The fielding is nearly done. The Master db needs work but that's easy enough for me since I correct info in the core OOTP db for accuracy and the conversion of IDs, debut and retirement years is only an hour's worth of work with the process I use. ... So that leaves the pitching. I've spent the past month reverse engineering and following Eric Chalek's steps for calculating the HR, BB, and K rates (WP and HBP too but those matter less). Eric puts a ton of work into the WAA and other value stats (and my use of those stats perfectly derive core traditional stats like R, ER, ERA, etc for the things I need for OOTP). But OOTP relies heavily on HR/BB and K rates and Eric stopped publishing those.

As the day comes to a close and I can turn from day job to hobby time, I think I am close to a model that will replicate (close enough) his process so I can derive those traditional stats through my own model. The iterations I ran last night were the first pushed through it all the way and the results were pretty darn good. Eric and I differ some on individual years but I reckon part of that is how we allocate the Winter Leagues, different guardrail settings, and the fact I think he blends the HR, BB and K's calculated in his year n with those in his year n+1 and year n-1. So his previously published HR, BB and K stat lines might be inherently already three-year recalc'ed and I elected not to do that. My only blending is when IP for a given year is less than 45 IP.

So far as test runs, I've only pushed Joe Williams, Slim Jones, Rats Henderson and Dick Redding through. After I compare some more results to Eric's last published versions of the traditional stats, I think I'll be confident I can replicate it for all the new players (a lot!) that he never published traditional stats for. I'll also press on and redo the original 212 to eliminate the pre-baked in blending.

When will it be done enough to release for folks to test in a public beta (as it were)? ... Tough to say. But I will know more next week once I test the pitching model some more.

[pholmer]

I've been using the Veeck 1943 mod you posted and I am enjoying it very much. I was intrigued by Veeck's scheme; it sounds like something I might do. I'm managing the Yankees, of course, and was able to entice Veeck to trading some of his Negro leagues stars/reserves to me. Then I beat him in the World Series. Thanks.

I wondered if you had Willie Wells Jr. among the NeL players you are including in your 26 NeL mod. I am attaching (I hope) a photo and info on his career. They apparently both played for the Memphis Red Sox in 1948 and then both retired.

[pholmer]

On the matter we discussed before, I think I would like to place a sticky in the historical mods area for like-named players. I have four more sets to add to the nine I have already posted separately. I am willing to do the work, but I don't know how. If you can direct me some videos on how to this, that would be great. However, thinking about it, it might be quicker for both of us if you were willing to help me out. I don't know what it takes to create a sticky or move a post to another thread, but I'm willing to do it if can help me learn how. I have a Masters in Computer Education, so I'm not a complete amateur, but in the last 3-4 decades things have changed a lot and I haven't kept up. Let me know. No urgency.

(Edit 9-10-25) I now have 8 sets to add. (Below is not part of this edit.)

Btw, here's the Willie Wells Jr. photo I made for my OOTP 26 folder. I got it from Seamheads and enhanced and sharpened it a little. OOTP doesn't list him, but Baseball-Reference credits him with 5 years of service, 1944-48. Seamheads does, too. I would think that in those year the Chicago American Giants and the Memphis Red Sox would have been among the teams reclassified as "major leagues", but maybe I'm wrong.

Nope, I was right. Both those teams were in the Negro American League which is now recognized as "major" from 1933 to 1948. So why isn't Willie Jr. in OOTP's database?

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

I'm really looking forward to this work coming online. Is this project still being worked on?

In the meantime, if I'm playing OOTP 26, are there any major database improvements for Negro league baseball out of the box for OOTP26?

I have yet to start a new OOTP 26 save having imported my OOTP 25 save.

I would love to be able to optimise my new historical save with negrol leagues as early as possible, as my perfect scenario is to start history as early as possible with integration.

Any advice/ updates on the NeL 26 Mod would be appreciated.

[LansdowneSt]

I've been working on the pitchers all evening -so it's still going as we speak! I'm adding all of the ones that have been done by Eric Chalek so it takes the count from 200 or so (many that split the NeL and AL/NL). It was a big bite - I think there are 600+ (so best to plan an expansion as they come in so there is room!). I am also updating everyone as the original was based on largely his 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the MLEs and this will be closer to his final version. I don't expect the mod to until Xmas - but it will be a significant upgrade from the original one.

As for OOTP26, they took the InteGREATed mod and treated the MLEs in a manner that, if an MLE stat line exists, it will read that when creating that years ratings. Presently, the pitchers are running hot imo. Much more so than expected as more and more people have given feedback. So, be aware of that. It's worth giving it a try though as you wait.

No better QA/QC than the community so when the mod is done, it will be release here so it gets a spin by everyone interested before OOTPD considers the revisions for OOTP27 (which hopefully they will, I can't speak for them).

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

I've been working on the pitchers all evening -so it's still going as we speak! I'm adding all of the ones that have been done by Eric Chalek so it takes the count from 200 or so (many that split the NeL and AL/NL). It was a big bite - I think there are 600+ (so best to plan an expansion as they come in so there is room!). I am also updating everyone as the original was based on largely his 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the MLEs and this will be closer to his final version. I don't expect the mod to until Xmas - but it will be a significant upgrade from the original one.

As for OOTP26, they took the InteGREATed mod and treated the MLEs in a manner that, if an MLE stat line exists, it will read that when creating that years ratings. Presently, the pitchers are running hot imo. Much more so than expected as more and more people have given feedback. So, be aware of that. It's worth giving it a try though as you wait.

No better QA/QC than the community so when the mod is done, it will be release here so it gets a spin by everyone interested before OOTPD considers the revisions for OOTP27 (which hopefully they will, I can't speak for them).

I am so super grateful for your work on this, and I eagerly and patiently look forward to its completion in the future. Take your time and good luck to you!


Thank you again, that has made my current game decision a lot easier. I will just continue with my current historical import from OOTP 25 until the new NLB mod is done and I will be happy to be an early adopter to test.
I don't have a great deal of baseball knowledge, so may not be of much use, but I can certainly test and raise any bugs I come across when its time


Cheers

[djc]

I have noticed pitchers MLEs to be a bit exaggerated in Eric Chalek's spreadsheets. https://horsehidedragnet.wordpress.com/negro-leagues/. When I run a replay they seem to dominate the leaderboards.

I noticed OOTP26 is now 14.99 is it worth it or should I stick with OOTP25?

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by djc

I have noticed pitchers MLEs to be a bit exaggerated in Eric Chalek's spreadsheets. https://horsehidedragnet.wordpress.com/negro-leagues/. When I run a replay they seem to dominate the leaderboards.

I noticed OOTP26 is now 14.99 is it worth it or should I stick with OOTP25?

They are running hot in game.

I'm redoing the traditional stats (EC stopped doing them on his final run) in my own model. It's a similar process to his. Mine FWIW is a an origin league based z-score mapped on the NL ratios for HR, BB, SO, HBP and WP then adjusted with a reliability factor to account for the sample size of innings in a given year and then adjusted for quality of play in the origin league. I use the same quality scores for the leagues as EC. I do not blend years to a three year average though as he did. The game does that if you want it. I work on the pitchers daily as they are the current bottleneck - lots of research on newspapers.com and Latin American stat sites for league totals that BBR doesn't have yet. The goal is to get it out by Xmas with not just the pitchers tweaked but all the new pitchers EC didn't do traditional stat lines for into the game (plus the batters not in the original mod).

If you like you can wait for the 26-compatable mod before getting the game but when the mod is ready for 26 (late though that is), I'd value you giving it some testing on release so that if the MLEs go into OOTP27's base game they get a longer test run as to how the game treats them.

[luckymann]

Will chime in regarding both this and djc's recent posts regarding usage.

A few mitigating factors with my responses to both, which come via my Dodgers save. In it, I am using v25 in a heavily orchestrated MLB timeline with historical minor league players coming in but my own MiLB structure, currently just AAA but about to get an A-ball comp. There's also a smattering of fictional players in this universe.

I'm not seeing any real "overheating" of NeL players. Here's the career stats of all modded pitchers thru May 1924:

Ignore the W-L, which work against these guys on the whole with them playing for expansion clubs that struggle for sustained success, and is only ever a meaningless situational stat when it comes to analysis. The other metrics look absolutely fine in my book. I will be very interested to see if this holds for the next wave, which of course includes Satch. But also Willie Foster (already in here), Ted Trent, Ray and Barney Brown, Hilton Smith et al. A bunch of top-flight arms.

I shared this with Lans a while back and am happy to do so here. It's about as scientific as I get, just my self-designed tracker for the retired modded players' performance in this timeline:

SIM is their WAR total in the game; IRL their WAR (rWAR for pitchers) as it appears in their game avatar; MLE their allocation in the final version of EC's work; IMA the average of IRL and MLE; DIFF is SIM v IMA; SP is Symmetrical Performance Difference (maybe Normalised, I can't remember now).

All this really tells us is you win some, you lose some. But it does somewhat reinforce that none of the pitchers' results are outrageously OTT on a WAR basis. Again, this all might change in the post-1920 era.

The non-modded NeL guys are another matter altogether, and this segues nicely into djc's post elsewhere regarding usage.

Certain among the non-modded pitchers are definitely coming in a bit warm. But only a bit. Square Moore, Hulan Stamps, the Bills Force and McCall to name a few - these guys were pretty decent players, many of whom would have been in the next 20 or so that Lans and Garlon would have added to the mod in an expanded version. Still, they are doing somewhat better than I'd expect had they been given the chance IRL. But who can say for sure? I'm just happy to see them in this universe and will take what I get within reason.

No such problem with hitters, few of which appear. I'm not really seeing anything silly with the non-modded pitchers' usage given the ratings some are being given. Not sure if 25% is a number with any statistical value or just arbitrary. I have no idea what the percentage is in this timeline, but I don't see it as egregious.

Hope that helps.

G