AAA Rosters - Where are the players?

[westendcards]

I thought this set was going to have 2008 rosters for all levels of the minor leagues? Where are all the players on the AAA rosters? Most AAA rosters have only a handful (5-6) of players. The reason I purchased the new version was for full rosters for all minor league levels. Please let me know if I am missing something here.

[Erich Ingram]

Originally Posted by westendcards

I thought this set was going to have 2008 rosters for all levels of the minor leagues? Where are all the players on the AAA rosters? Most AAA rosters have only a handful (5-6) of players. The reason I purchased the new version was for full rosters for all minor league levels. Please let me know if I am missing something here.

They are all in the game, but it seems the AI feels they are not rated well enough to be in AAA and moves them around to lower levels, or some get moved to the majors. Have no fear every player that was on an Opening Day roster is in the game.

[tkirch]

I had the exact same question. I went in and saw a lot of AAA rosters real small

[fantom1979]

Originally Posted by Erich Ingram

They are all in the game, but it seems the AI feels they are not rated well enough to be in AAA and moves them around to lower levels, or some get moved to the majors. Have no fear every player that was on an Opening Day roster is in the game.

Whoa, who is this guy??

[Bishop]

Originally Posted by fantom1979

Whoa, who is this guy??

LOL that was my first thought. Then "oh".

[westendcards]

The first thing I did when I started the game was set it so the AI could not make any transactions and also put myself in commissioner mode and took control of every team - I though that would help this? Is there any way to have the rosters in tact? Does this mean I have to go back through every team and move players to make sure the rosters are actual and correct as of opening day like we were told would be with the game? Thanks

[fantom1979]

The first roster set I ever used in OOTP4 was a Rolen set. I dont use real rosters anymore, but if Erich was on the roster creation team, that is a very good news.

[jwisenberg]

Just an FYI, not all players on opening day rosters are included in this set

I have finished checking the National League East & Central and so far here are the missing:

Barbaro Canizares (Richmond Braves)
Charlie Morton (Richmond Braves)
Casey Smith (Lehigh Valley IronPigs)
Jeff Mandel (Hagerstown Suns)
Ruben Medina (Sarasota Reds)
Justin Turner (Sarasota Reds) although I believe he is misnamed as Justin Walker
Polin Trinidad (Salem Avalanche)
Robert Leonhardt (Lexington Legends)
Ben Howard (Nashville Sounds)
Fernando Salas (Springfield Cardinals)

also Curtis Partch is listed as Curtis Patch
Angel Cabrera listed as Angel Cebrera
Angel Gonzalez listed as ?ngel Gonzalez

Just FYI's for future updates

[pseudofool]

I imagine AAA is running with ghosts players, which is fine, because there's not enough players to fill every league anyway.

[westendcards]

No that is not ok - I do not use ghost players and I delete the A level teams. I backfill double A teams with single A players if needed - Problem is now all of the AAA players are on the AA team or released and all of the AA players are released to the free agent pool so for me it is like starting over again. There has to be a way to start the game with the rosters in the same order as they were when they were set up?

[metsguy234]

Another minor thing, Mets minor league C Francisco Pena's name is spelled Franciso Pena in the game.

[Erich Ingram]

Originally Posted by jwisenberg

Just an FYI, not all players on opening day rosters are included in this set

I have finished checking the National League East & Central and so far here are the missing:

Barbaro Canizares (Richmond Braves)
Charlie Morton (Richmond Braves)
Casey Smith (Lehigh Valley IronPigs)
Jeff Mandel (Hagerstown Suns)
Ruben Medina (Sarasota Reds)
Justin Turner (Sarasota Reds) although I believe he is misnamed as Justin Walker
Polin Trinidad (Salem Avalanche)
Robert Leonhardt (Lexington Legends)
Ben Howard (Nashville Sounds)
Fernando Salas (Springfield Cardinals)

also Curtis Partch is listed as Curtis Patch
Angel Cabrera listed as Angel Cebrera
Angel Gonzalez listed as ?ngel Gonzalez

Just FYI's for future updates

Well I sit corrected.

Leonhardt, Trinidad and Salas did not make the opening day rosters as listed in Baseball America. Do you have a different place you are locating that information?

[MorseMoose]

What is this...#5?

[Erich Ingram]

Originally Posted by MorseMoose

What is this...#5?

???

[RedSoxFaithful]

On the subject of inaccurate rosters, about how many players were completely half-assed? I've been with the game for a while, but I've always been one of the ones who waited for an MLB roster set. Needless to say, I preordered this time around once the news hit that it would be shipping with one. I like to consider myself a hardcore-ish prospect guy, so it disappoints me even when minor league journeymen (Joe Thurston? Brian Esposito?) have zeroes and ones filled in for their stats. I just want to know how many people I should expect to have to edit ratings in for. I know the game has only been out for ~7 hours now, but it's a shock and a disappointment that more effort was not put into a part of the game that everyone knew was going to be a focal point.

And because I know I'm going to be jumped on for complaining: I'm of the opinion that, having paid money for advertised "real rosters", I should get "real rosters", not "20% real". I get that it's a big project, and that no other baseball game has really ever attempted it, but if you're going to advertise something, deliver. I'm not attacking anyone here, but as a long-time consumer, my initial impressions with the roster set are not good.

(I cannot complain about other parts of the game- it is lightyears faster than 8, and the new features are awesome. The roster set alone has let me down.)

[CubbyFan23]

I don't know much about how rosters went this year, I was not involved because of work limitations but I know they put in a TON of hours and a lot of work on them. I think it's great that we have an opening day set with every player (or practically, maybe missing a few) in all of baseball.

I'm sure eventually there will be other rosters from other makers (perhaps myself included) but for an Opening Day set to be released with the game, I think we should all be very happy and grateful that they put that much baseline work in to get all of those tedious things done.

[westendcards]

I can never complain about the work that goes into these roster sets, my complaint is that when you start the game the players who should be assocaiated with each roster are moved around, leading to AAA teams having 3 players on them. There has to be a workaround so you can start the season with the full rosters the way they were meant to be? And by the way, from what I have seen so far this is the best roster set to date. If we can only get the players to start at the proper level like they were set up to do...

[RedSoxFaithful]

That's sort of kind of what I was saying, though. The guys who ARE supposed to be at that level have literally no ratings. I'm not really nitpicking here. Maybe I'm complaining about the amount of work here, maybe not, I don't know. It's just... Look, I remember shaking my head at the screen when people complained in the past about roster sets, but this is different. Those were people doing it for free, and this is part of the product that I paid for. It takes a lot of work. I get it. Would it have taken that much more work to, you know, finish?

And, while I respect Cubby immensely for his roster work, I disagree with the "Well, other people will release roster mods" stance. Again, I paid for the game, why shouldn't the roster that it ships with be the best and most accurate one? I don't understand that point at all.

Again- It's not like I'm complaining about Tyler Robertson's rating (although: wtf? ). I'm bringing up a legitimate gripe with a hole in the roster set. Why go through the trouble of including the players at all if you weren't going to give them ratings?

Anyways, I think that's the biggest reason that the AAA rosters are all so empty. Most of the players that would fill them were made (or untouched) to completely and utterly suck.

[CubbyFan23]

I do see what you're saying, upon first glance I noticed Jay Bruce and Max Scherzer both are horrible. Some of the guys just aren't done at all (Craig Hansen has no ratings, pitches, or pitch speed), etc.

That being said, from personal experience I can tell you that me just working on a roster set off of already created players was a chore. Creating this from the ground up had to be a beast for Erich and crew. If I could give any advice I would say that be VERY happy we have a functional MLB set to play with on release, and I have a lot of faith that these guys will keep getting updates out there.

That's all I can really say though, I don't want to speak for them.

[Bears5122]

Originally Posted by CubbyFan23

I do see what you're saying, upon first glance I noticed Jay Bruce and Max Scherzer both are horrible. Some of the guys just aren't done at all (Craig Hansen has no ratings, pitches, or pitch speed), etc.

That being said, from personal experience I can tell you that me just working on a roster set off of already created players was a chore. Creating this from the ground up had to be a beast for Erich and crew. If I could give any advice I would say that be VERY happy we have a functional MLB set to play with on release, and I have a lot of faith that these guys will keep getting updates out there.

That's all I can really say though, I don't want to speak for them.

I don't know much about the ratings and haven't delved too deep into it. But I did sim two seasons.

Jay Bruce (5 stars)
2008 132 games .307 avg, 15 HR, 71 RBI
2009 146 games .362 avg, 32 HR, 112 RBI

Max Scherzer (1/2 star)
Still hanging out in AA (where he is good). He did make the AA all-star team and is the 79th rated ML prospect as of the start of the 2009 season.

Craig Hansen (don't know him)
Turns out to be a decent middle reliever for the Astros with average to above average ratings.

I'm not a big prospect buff, but most of the top ones I know about are doing good. Longoria, Maybin, Chamberlein. When I look at the Cubs who I'm more familiar with, their top prospects are rated fairly well and contribute by 2009 (even 2008).