Keeping up with a league

JML · 03-20-2004, 10:08 PM

Reposting to a more active forum....

I recently received some good-natured ribbing (I'm fairly certain it was good-natured

) for my league participation in one of my online leagues. It made me think about the fact that I tend to pay a lot of attention to my own team, but my knowledge of league-wide activities is usually lacking. This goes for solo leagues as well as online. Anyway, I posted in the league forum about this, and I figured I would open it up to discussion amongst the community...

What do you do to keep in touch with what is going on in your leagues, aside from the intimate knowledge you have concerning your own team? Can you contribute any tips or suggestions regarding good ways to sift through the mountain of info provided in a league file and synthesize it into a coherent understanding of what the league is all about? Are there some good pages to view, some pages that don't offer much info, despite being large and unwieldy?

My commish made a great comment: each team's financial history report will give you a year-by-year account of the teams record, without having to scroll through the league history or team history page. Very handy.

What is your MO when it comes to surveying a league file and formulating a general knowledge of what is happening in your league?

graham5 · 03-21-2004, 07:14 AM

I find the OOTP gazette helpful - you can keep up with the player rankings and prospect rankings from there really easily - top farm systems etc.

I couldn't say I have a great knowledge of how teams outside my own division performed in previous seasons (except for the WS champs and runners up of course).

treedom · 03-21-2004, 01:43 PM

I think a good place to look through is the league leaders section. With OOTP5 you can quickly pull up a player card, so it makes it easy to study the players that catch your eye. I usually look at the leaders in all the big categories, and then pull up the player's statistical history and see how they've fared in the past. I mean, if you wanna familiarize yourself with the league, you gotta start with the good players, no?

Another thing I do is, I always go through the news events and pull up the players involved...ie. players of the week/month, guys who just had a great game, or guys who've been injured.

Sometimes, when the mood strikes me, I'll go to a team's roster screen and rank all their players by AVG, HR, OPS, ERA...just to see who the big boys on the teams are. Again, if someone catches my eye, I'll pull up the player and take a look at his history.

Another thing I do that I find fun, is go to the Almanac screen, where you can get a list of all the players in the league, and rank them by possition, just to see who the best catchers, shortstops, etc are.

After regularly doing those things for a season or two, I find that I'm pretty familiar with at least the good players in the league, and some of the more noteable average ones too.

Ghorticus · 03-21-2004, 04:38 PM

Just play a lot of exhibition games against all the other teams (as long as your commish doesn't consider that to be cheating.

sporr · 03-22-2004, 10:37 AM

Here was my post on that topic on our boards:

This is a great question and I'm sure everyone has their own method of keeping in touch with the league. Of course, I probably have an easier time keeping up with the league than most since I check through to find something interesting to write about each sim.

Basically, after looking over your own team, my suggestion would be to read up on the league news log, the breaking news stories are also an excellent resource for who the news-makers in the league are. You can check the league injury file for the major injuries to other teams and maybe look at the individual player pages for players who are going to be out for a while. This gives you an idea of how much impact the other team will be feeling.

You can check out the league transactions to keep pace with player movement between teams and extension signings. Pay special attention to players that are getting big paydays since that usually means that they are one of the better players in the league.

I also read the Minor League Rankings, Top 100 Prospect report (which will tell you which ones are in the majors), and the Top Performances Report.

To get even more detail without taking a lot of time, you can view the financial history HTML page for each team and that will give you year-by-year team records at a glance so that you can see who the major movers are.

I do all of this after every sim in all of my leagues and find that it doesn't really take a lot of time. After a while, you'll start to get to know some familiar players.

Finally, be sure to read what other teams are writing about themselves on the message board. Scott (LA) does a great job of keeping you up-to-date on players that you should be watching on the Dodgers, and others do an excellent job of team writing as well.

Hopefully, this gives you someplace to start.

03-20-2004, 10:08 PM	#1
JML Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: The act or process of locating. Posts: 2,154	Keeping up with a league Reposting to a more active forum.... I recently received some good-natured ribbing (I'm fairly certain it was good-natured ) for my league participation in one of my online leagues. It made me think about the fact that I tend to pay a lot of attention to my own team, but my knowledge of league-wide activities is usually lacking. This goes for solo leagues as well as online. Anyway, I posted in the league forum about this, and I figured I would open it up to discussion amongst the community... What do you do to keep in touch with what is going on in your leagues, aside from the intimate knowledge you have concerning your own team? Can you contribute any tips or suggestions regarding good ways to sift through the mountain of info provided in a league file and synthesize it into a coherent understanding of what the league is all about? Are there some good pages to view, some pages that don't offer much info, despite being large and unwieldy? My commish made a great comment: each team's financial history report will give you a year-by-year account of the teams record, without having to scroll through the league history or team history page. Very handy. What is your MO when it comes to surveying a league file and formulating a general knowledge of what is happening in your league?

03-21-2004, 01:43 PM	#3
treedom Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2002 Location: Transylvania Posts: 2,900	I think a good place to look through is the league leaders section. With OOTP5 you can quickly pull up a player card, so it makes it easy to study the players that catch your eye. I usually look at the leaders in all the big categories, and then pull up the player's statistical history and see how they've fared in the past. I mean, if you wanna familiarize yourself with the league, you gotta start with the good players, no? Another thing I do is, I always go through the news events and pull up the players involved...ie. players of the week/month, guys who just had a great game, or guys who've been injured. Sometimes, when the mood strikes me, I'll go to a team's roster screen and rank all their players by AVG, HR, OPS, ERA...just to see who the big boys on the teams are. Again, if someone catches my eye, I'll pull up the player and take a look at his history. Another thing I do that I find fun, is go to the Almanac screen, where you can get a list of all the players in the league, and rank them by possition, just to see who the best catchers, shortstops, etc are. After regularly doing those things for a season or two, I find that I'm pretty familiar with at least the good players in the league, and some of the more noteable average ones too. __________________ A rake and a roustabout.

03-21-2004, 07:14 AM	#2
graham5 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: UK Posts: 38	I find the OOTP gazette helpful - you can keep up with the player rankings and prospect rankings from there really easily - top farm systems etc. I couldn't say I have a great knowledge of how teams outside my own division performed in previous seasons (except for the WS champs and runners up of course).

03-21-2004, 04:38 PM	#4
Ghorticus Minors (Single A) Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 88	Just play a lot of exhibition games against all the other teams (as long as your commish doesn't consider that to be cheating.

03-22-2004, 10:37 AM	#5
sporr Global Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Muscatine, IA Posts: 8,277	Here was my post on that topic on our boards: This is a great question and I'm sure everyone has their own method of keeping in touch with the league. Of course, I probably have an easier time keeping up with the league than most since I check through to find something interesting to write about each sim. Basically, after looking over your own team, my suggestion would be to read up on the league news log, the breaking news stories are also an excellent resource for who the news-makers in the league are. You can check the league injury file for the major injuries to other teams and maybe look at the individual player pages for players who are going to be out for a while. This gives you an idea of how much impact the other team will be feeling. You can check out the league transactions to keep pace with player movement between teams and extension signings. Pay special attention to players that are getting big paydays since that usually means that they are one of the better players in the league. I also read the Minor League Rankings, Top 100 Prospect report (which will tell you which ones are in the majors), and the Top Performances Report. To get even more detail without taking a lot of time, you can view the financial history HTML page for each team and that will give you year-by-year team records at a glance so that you can see who the major movers are. I do all of this after every sim in all of my leagues and find that it doesn't really take a lot of time. After a while, you'll start to get to know some familiar players. Finally, be sure to read what other teams are writing about themselves on the message board. Scott (LA) does a great job of keeping you up-to-date on players that you should be watching on the Dodgers, and others do an excellent job of team writing as well. Hopefully, this gives you someplace to start.