Player development in the 19th century

[dknemeyer]

How do I set up a Historical League - that is not intended to be a simulation replicating the real yearly stats of players, but a league where the player enters it with a certain setup then evolves within the OOTP engine - that has no minor leagues?

Things I've read on the forums indicate that putting players on a Major League team in this game at 18 is a disaster, and they only develop properly if they move thru various Minor League levels like modern real-life players. But that's not how things were in the 19th century. I want players to not be kneecapped if they are put right on the Major League team since there were not Minor League affiliates 150 years ago.

I see a setting called "disable development for draft eligible players". Is just ticking that adequate to create what I am looking for? Or, any other advice about this? Thanks in advance.

[andyhdz]

Not sure what I'm missing here but aren't you just referring to having a reserve roster setup? Players develop just fine using this system.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by dknemeyer

How do I set up a Historical League - that is not intended to be a simulation replicating the real yearly stats of players, but a league where the player enters it with a certain setup then evolves within the OOTP engine - that has no minor leagues?

Things I've read on the forums indicate that putting players on a Major League team in this game at 18 is a disaster, and they only develop properly if they move thru various Minor League levels like modern real-life players. But that's not how things were in the 19th century. I want players to not be kneecapped if they are put right on the Major League team since there were not Minor League affiliates 150 years ago.

I see a setting called "disable development for draft eligible players". Is just ticking that adequate to create what I am looking for? Or, any other advice about this? Thanks in advance.

I don't know about the middle paragraph, but it seems to me that the key for you would be to have both recalc and disable player development off, and talent change randomness set to at least 100, maybe higher.

The other thing I'll add is that when you say "develop properly," well, that's a relative term since you want players developing "within the OOTP engine" rather than, apparently, how they did in real life.

[The Otter]

Things I've read on the forums indicate that putting players on a Major League team in this game at 18 is a disaster, and they only develop properly if they move thru various Minor League levels like modern real-life players.

When you're running a long-term historical league, players enter the draft in what would be their first major league season. So you really see two things:



a) Players who enter the league with major league-caliber ratings. Obviously, some players were major league-ready at 18-19... more so in the early years than in the last century or so. You're fine with these guys -- age doesn't matter particularly. If they're good enough to play regularly, so just play them and they'll develop as they would normally.


b) Players who made their major-league debuts a few years too early, but eventually got good. (Related: pitchers who later switched to batting, or -- more rarely -- vice versa.) You'll want to leave those guys on the reserve roster -- if there's no minor leagues, they'll develop there.

I see a setting called "disable development for draft eligible players". Is just ticking that adequate to create what I am looking for?

This is the exact opposite of what you want. That's meant for single-season replay -- players won't develop at all if this is checked.



Really, the default settings should do what you want -- this is the main kind of game I play, running from 1871 to the modern era, and the only change I (sometimes) make is to switch "base pitcher stamina on" from "3-year period" to "entire career". (Whether or not you switch, the game will make somewhat arbitrary decisions about who is a potential starter and who is a reliever -- slightly different arbitrary decisions for each, though.)

[Cobby]

In my experience, players do develop on the reserve roster, but they do not gain experience at a position. (this at least was the case in OOTP20, I haven't started in with OOTP21 yet)


So, you need to get promising players experience at their positions during spring training each year. Doing this works just fine if you're diligent about it.