Inaugural Drafting A Decent Team

[Confucius Rex]

I like playing fictional leagues and having a big inaugural draft to kick it off. The problem is I apparently cannot draft a competent team to save my life. I always manage to pick up a decent set of players when compared against the other teams or so it looks. Then spring training comes along and I do rather well against the other teams. Even when I start my back-up players to get a feel for who's decent they do a pretty good job and can even win. But the preseason predictions are always dismal. They always say that I will lose two-thirds of my games no matter what. I always think, "Nah, it's wrong. I got this wicked Chinese left fielder with one star who inexplicably keeps slamming homers and this Arab-American pitcher who can shut out anybody." But then opening day hits me like a ton of bricks. My starting pitchers are facing the same lineups from spring training, but now they're racking up double digit ERAs. My batters can't hit a thing.

This same thing happened when I played OOTP 10. What exactly am I not picking up here? What art am I failing to master in these drafts?

[1998 Yankees]

A few thoughts:

First, how many drafts are you talking about? The concept of "small sample size" prevents one from drawing valid conclusions if it applies.

Second, in an inaugural draft you have very little to go on except scouting reports. The competence of your scouting personnel have much to do with your own competence in picking players.

Third, say your scouts stink. Well, they led you astray, then. But say they are pretty good in fact. Well, then their one-star evaluation of your "wicked Chinese left fielder" was correct, wasn't it, when he stopped hitting homers when they counted? Perhaps the batch he hit in ST was also a "small sample."

It's a long season, and preseason evaluations and spring training results have little to do with actual outcomes sometimes. I just went through the same process with my own fictional league; I thought I had picked a decent set of guys in my inaugural draft but I went on to lose 100 games.

Within 5 years, though, relying on scouting AND valid stats, I was able to put together a championship. THAT was a lot more gratifying than if I had won it right out of the box, the first year.

[Confucius Rex]

So I'm just impatient? I was thinking that too.
Also, no this isn't just once it's happened. This has happened maybe 10 or more times. I'll revise my expectations when my team does well during spring training then, and then tough it out during the season. I just hope the owner doesn't fire me.

[AstaSyneri]

I am having the same problem in my fictional league. I "cheated" by setting my Scout's value quite high and still get wildly differing results between OSA and my Scout's ratings - and the actual stats the player's produce.

I imagine later one I'll have more stats to draw upon, but right now it really is trial and error and I coast along at .500 or slightly below.

The season is quite young, though (22 games played).

What I was wondering, is this:

With all that data being so screwy, how can I get more help from my AAA team (I only have AAA and AA set up in my league)? Won't players from my 25-player ML roster be mad if they get exchanged for a promising AAA guy just to collect some data on him?

Or might this actually do them some good (I have a promising 20 year old catcher who is doing okay on ML-level, but the Scout says he has huge upside and I am wondering whether he will develop better at ML or AAA level)?

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by AstaSyneri

With all that data being so screwy, how can I get more help from my AAA team (I only have AAA and AA set up in my league)? Won't players from my 25-player ML roster be mad if they get exchanged for a promising AAA guy just to collect some data on him?

Or might this actually do them some good (I have a promising 20 year old catcher who is doing okay on ML-level, but the Scout says he has huge upside and I am wondering whether he will develop better at ML or AAA level)?

A lot of this depends on your starters expectations. Check them out - if they are young players themselves who expect to be on the bench or have just made it to the majors, it's not usually too big a deal to send them back down to the minors. But a veteran who expects to be a starter and may actually be able to refuse to be demoted, it's a whole other deal.

Also, if you just want to gather data, you can always change scouting for your league (temporarily or whatever) to 100% correct. This option will mean you always see the player for what they are, but still have the ability to have your scout pull in international talent.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Confucius Rex

I like playing fictional leagues and having a big inaugural draft to kick it off. The problem is I apparently cannot draft a competent team to save my life. I always manage to pick up a decent set of players when compared against the other teams or so it looks. Then spring training comes along and I do rather well against the other teams. Even when I start my back-up players to get a feel for who's decent they do a pretty good job and can even win. But the preseason predictions are always dismal. They always say that I will lose two-thirds of my games no matter what. I always think, "Nah, it's wrong. I got this wicked Chinese left fielder with one star who inexplicably keeps slamming homers and this Arab-American pitcher who can shut out anybody." But then opening day hits me like a ton of bricks. My starting pitchers are facing the same lineups from spring training, but now they're racking up double digit ERAs. My batters can't hit a thing.

This same thing happened when I played OOTP 10. What exactly am I not picking up here? What art am I failing to master in these drafts?

Don't feel bad, I seeminly can't draft a winning team the 1st yr either and my minor league system ranks last out of 8 teams.
My newest fictional league I added my top 5 favorite players of all time
(0 HOFers) got them all in the 1st 10 rounds and have myself as a clone of Walter Johnson and my team can not score runs. I did win MVP, POTY & ROTY. My 2 OF who are RL MLers finished 2nd & 3rd for MVP & ROTY. I have used 8 SP(4 man rotation) thru 32 games so far my 2nd season.

[AstaSyneri]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

A lot of this depends on your starters expectations. Check them out - if they are young players themselves who expect to be on the bench or have just made it to the majors, it's not usually too big a deal to send them back down to the minors. But a veteran who expects to be a starter and may actually be able to refuse to be demoted, it's a whole other deal.

Good suggestions - I never bothered to check those out so far. In theory all players are rookies in this new league (the hypothetical European League of Champions, no non-Europeans allowed ;-)), but the 37-year-olds still have expectations. I had been circumventing this by trading those geezers away for young talents.

Also, if you just want to gather data, you can always change scouting for your league (temporarily or whatever) to 100% correct. This option will mean you always see the player for what they are, but still have the ability to have your scout pull in international talent.

That's certainly a tempting idea, but I believe it would take away greatly from the game. Figuring out how to deal with imperfect information is the fun of OOTP13 (for me), otherwise it would just become a spreadsheet exercise, wouldn't it?

It's good knowing that I can do this, though (now the devil on my should is saying "Do it. Just once. It won't hurt you. You'll play better after that." And so on...