Why am I losing?

[Drbugboffin]

It's Spring Training of my 2nd year as GM/Coach. My team finished last year not even close to .500. I thought I did a decent job of shaking things up with drafts and FAs. This year's team has better overall batting and pitching ratings. Yet I'm doing WORSE than last year, that is, about 2-12 so far. WHAT! is wrong with this picture? Who wants to play OOTP22 if the only question is -- how is your team going to LOSE this one? Any ideas???

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Drbugboffin

It's Spring Training of my 2nd year as GM/Coach. My team finished last year not even close to .500. I thought I did a decent job of shaking things up with drafts and FAs. This year's team has better overall batting and pitching ratings. Yet I'm doing WORSE than last year, that is, about 2-12 so far. WHAT! is wrong with this picture? Who wants to play OOTP22 if the only question is -- how is your team going to LOSE this one? Any ideas???

If I'm understanding you correctly, your team is 2-12 in Spring Training exhibition games, yes?
Just like in real life the win-loss record in Spring Training games is pretty meaningless, so the first thing I would tell you is not to worry about it yet. Even if it was the regular season it would be small sample size, though admittedly a disturbing start to the season.

It would be almost impossible to answer the larger question as to what you might need to do differently to have your team win more. Maybe nothing- as you might be surprised by how good your team is once the games count and you have given it a little time to see just how good they are. Or maybe a lot of things, as this is a complex game of interactions and inter-relationships and there might be changes you could make over time to improve your club. Again, not enough information to give you an honest or useful answer to your question.

I will say, and this might not make you feel any better and I apologize if it doesn't, that it is a far more common experience for anyone who plays OOTP for very long that they find it too easy to win. Many OOTP gamers even come up with house rules to give themselves more of a challenge. But that doesn't mean that the learning curve isn't steep and it doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong. You might just need to keep trying and be patient and keep learning.

But in my experience, and in the experience of many others as they report it here anyway, it is certainly very possible (and sometimes, for some people, a bit too easy) to build a winning team in OOTP, though also in my experience I do think that with each recent iteration of the game it has become at least a bit more challenging due to improvements in the AI, etc. Which, ultimately, I think is a good thing.

Hang in there, watch OOTP videos on YouTube/Twitch/whatever, study what others do, and in time I have no doubt you will be fielding a competitive, if not dominant, team.

[Drbugboffin]

Thanks much, Birdwatcher, for your reply. Strangely it does make me feel better, insofar as I see there's hope for the regular season.
I'm discouraged when the pregame lineup comparisons show most of my players as better than the other teams, yet I keep losing. Per the comment though, it seems my guys may be just dogging it until the regular season starts. I can only hope.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Drbugboffin

Thanks much, Birdwatcher, for your reply. Strangely it does make me feel better, insofar as I see there's hope for the regular season.
I'm discouraged when the pregame lineup comparisons show most of my players as better than the other teams, yet I keep losing. Per the comment though, it seems my guys may be just dogging it until the regular season starts. I can only hope.

Also Spring Training is primarily to take the rust off so players aren't playing at their full potential (though, just like in real life, some players will over-perform in ST also, and often those same players aren't necessarily going to carry that performance over into the regular season).
And unless you are doing all the in-game managing in ST and not playing a full roster including players who will not have significant roles once the season starts at the big league level, you are getting a lot of innings from lesser players. Of course, the same is true of your opponents. But ultimately it just isn't the sort of thing you want to pay too close attention to as being predictive of what things will be like when the regular season starts.

One thought I did have, regarding your original question, was about your team defense. You mentioned that you have upgraded batters and pitchers in terms of ratings overall at least, but you didn't mention defense. And this can be a very important aspect in OOTP, some might even argue a bit more important than in real life (always a debatable issue, not settled truth). If you don't have a good defense that can particularly lead to under-performance by your pitching staff and even if your team has more offense they might still end up on the losing end more often than not. That's just one area of possible cause of under-achievement for your team, if indeed it does end up underachieving.

You also mentioned feeling like you did well in the draft but it should be remembered that this won't pay dividends for your big league club for at least a few seasons if not more. And that even a good draft is unlikely to produce more than one or two legitimate big league players for your team and even then a truly impact player only comes along once every several drafts at best. If you are playing players who you just drafted the past season at the big league level they almost surely aren't ready to perform at that level yet (and you might be damaging their development to the extent that you will never get much value out of them.)

[Bobfather]

To see what the AI thinks of your team, take a look at preseason predictions. Also how do you play? Do you play out games or sim. Fo you gm manage or both?

[The Game]

For a second i thought this thread was about the White Sox.

[hfield007]

Originally Posted by Drbugboffin

It's Spring Training of my 2nd year as GM/Coach. My team finished last year not even close to .500. I thought I did a decent job of shaking things up with drafts and FAs. This year's team has better overall batting and pitching ratings. Yet I'm doing WORSE than last year, that is, about 2-12 so far. WHAT! is wrong with this picture? Who wants to play OOTP22 if the only question is -- how is your team going to LOSE this one? Any ideas???

this happens to real teams every single season in real life. who would want to play in the MLB if you just have to wonder how you will lose this year lol.

In all seriousness though, it could be a million things youre not considering in a sim this deep.

if you want something easy, tweak settings to make trades easier, turn your scouting to 100% accurate, and turn off injuries.

otherwise be prepped for bad seasons. your scouts will be dead wrong on players sometimes (think bubba starling), injuries will ruin seasons and maybe careers of top players (think grady sizemore), youll make bad free agency moves with players who end up really dropping off (think marcus semien right now), and maybe consider you arent making moves as smart as you think. the AI is also trying to win rather than lay down. And also 14 games really isnt a big sample size. the angels started like 27-20 this year, they just snapped a 14 game losing streak. no promises in baseball. be realistic in your expectations.