crappy non developing AI!

[kingpinking]

ok i love the game it is sweet. but here is my current problem. i am in my 13th season of play now and was going through all teams minors to sift out there cup of coffees and delete them.i saw something that really bothered me after about the third team just about every team has players at AAA with huge contracts one team had almost there entire AAA filled with major league players.i can understand having a few players at triple a for depth but there is absolutely no chance for devolopment of the young guys stuck at AA.i am not overfilling my teams either i go with 6 rounds in my ammy.please give the AI some intelligence in developing players.

[inverarity]

I've found that keeping the AI's roster small is the key - I do the house cleaning you describe on a yearly basis, then goes as far as to delete any players that clearly won't get a chance in the majors and won't be considered for the hall.

Also, you may be drafting too many players - the rule of thumb I live by in my league(s) is 45 players per team. So for a 20 team league, I should have a total number of players somewhere around 900, including free agents. I choose the number of draft rounds by seeing how many players retire (always one year off, as you have to set the # of rounds prior to ending the season; the retirees list doesn't come out 'til the following season) plus the number of deletes (usually 5-15). I end up with most of my drafts being 3-5 rounds.

Using this method, the league has developed a lot of talent, with a good deal of late-round sleepers making it to the pros

Hope that helps

[kingpinking]

yeah it helps a little i cant delete these players though without giving the team a penalty for releasing these players with huge multi year contracts.i guess i could re edit each teams finances after i delete though it would be more work.

[zsommers]

perhaps it's better to think about the problem you describe from another vantage point.

the title of your post was 'crappy non developing AI', but are you POSITIVE the AI is stunting your young palyers' growth? perhaps those major league players that are in AAA are there because the AI has seen fit to promote good young talent to the major league roster, and in the process get rid of the 'dead weight' currently taking up spots on the major league roster.

just my two cents anyways.

[Henry]

kingpinking,

Try this... make a backup copy of your league folder, then turn finances off, and release all the "stifs". Edit each "stif" to be 50 years old, then re-enable finances. If I'm thinking straight, you won't get hit with the contracts, the financial engine should re-adjust itself, the the "stifs" will retire at the end of the year...

Hummm... let ME know if this works

[Scott Vibert]

[quote]Originally posted by Henry:
<strong>kingpinking,

Try this... make a backup copy of your league folder, then turn finances off, and release all the "stifs". Edit each "stif" to be 50 years old, then re-enable finances. If I'm thinking straight, you won't get hit with the contracts, the financial engine should re-adjust itself, the the "stifs" will retire at the end of the year...

Hummm... let ME know if this works </strong><hr></blockquote>

This will work.

[Henry]

AWESOME

You made my day Scott !!

[Ghost]

Just a quick thought, does your league have a salary cap? My fictional league has a cap and most teams cannot afford to put major league quality players with salaries in AAA. I usually take a look at the teams payrolls after the intial draft and then set the cap at about 10-20 million below the max payroll, teams just dont have the available cap room to pay players not on the major league roster.

[J P Falcon]

I mentioned in two other posts that there are too many players in the minors, especially in A ball..I would like to see the ability to limit the roster size in the minors... I also wonder if it would be feasible in a future version to specify how many players at each position you can have in each minor league club. This would especially be benifcial for the management of AI teams. When I see 7 catchers, 14 middle relievers, 9 starters, 6 first basemen, 6 right fielders, and 5 shortstops, all on the same A ball club, then I have to believe that overall AI minor league player development is hindered.

[Killebrew]

[quote]Originally posted by Ghost:
<strong>Just a quick thought, does your league have a salary cap? My fictional league has a cap and most teams cannot afford to put major league quality players with salaries in AAA. I usually take a look at the teams payrolls after the intial draft and then set the cap at about 10-20 million below the max payroll, teams just dont have the available cap room to pay players not on the major league roster.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Actually for solo play I have not seen the cap help out too much in this area. The AI will often have a few less overpaid vet scrubs in AAA because those players are now starters - the teams can no longer afford to resign their good players .

[Ghost]

After my last post I thought I would take a look at my 16 team league to see if I was mistaken. Granted the league has only finnished 7 seasons, but here is what I found.

Here is the number of players in AAA that have a salary by team:

1,2,2,2,2,2,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,6,7,9

this averages almost exactly 4 players per team, if you throw out the one extreme (9) the average is slightly over 3 per team.

I noticed 2 things, 1)overall most of the players that have a salary and in AAA, have low salaries, 2) most are over 30 with a good number over 35, looks like they were signed while their skills were good and maybe lost their place in the majors to younger players after their skills declined (this has happened to me, was forced to sign an aging player to a 4 year contract, and then had no use for them after 2 years.

My own team had only 2 players in AAA that had salaries. One was a pitcher with a salary of about 2 mil., and that brings up a point. Pitching is crucial and it seems every season I end up singing 1-2 FA pitchers, and therefor end up with 2-4 pitchers in AAA that have salaries. Due to injuries or poor performance, all these pitchers end up in the majors at some time during the season, so if computer controlled teams have alot of salaried pitchers in AAA it isnt out of line.

One other point, someone made a comment about younger players being in the majors while salaried players are in AAA. The one team that had 9 salaried players in AAA had about 12 players on their major league roster with salaries of $100,000, looks like they decided to rebuild had didnt want to take the $ penalty for dropping the 5 salried players in AAA that are over 34 years old.

[Scott Vibert]

Is this that far off; Looking at one teams AAA roster:

I count 5 players over 30 (not counting 3 over 30 on the AAA DL)
I count 6 more players 28 or 29 (not counting 1 on the AAA DL)
I count only 2 players younger than 24.
I count 12 players with Major League experience (not counting 4 on the AAA DL)

So that's over 11 players on the roster who are older than prospect level.

So in OOTP terms that means there would actually be 16 players out of 29 total that would have Major League Contracts. (55%)

AAA has become more of a Major League taxi squad now-a-days rather than a place to develop prospects.

A quick glance at the rosters for some other teams indicates that my findings are pretty typical, so this seems to be the rule now, rather than the exception.

[joshuaaaaaa]

Heck, I've got a player in A-ball making $1.5MM. Of course, that's because I signed him to a 2 year deal when he was 37 and still productive (about a 5 in average, good at getting doubles and walsk). By May of the year he turned 38, he was down to a '2' in average, so I put him in the minors and the red arrows led him down to AAA (where he's tearing it up).

This does bring up another issue, that of sending major league players down to the minors without clearing waivers. I know this has been brought up before, so I won't rehash it. However, its very high on the list of enhancements I'd like to see to the game.

[J P Falcon]

I am not concerned about the contracts in the minor leagues. Just take a look a Drew Henson for the Yankees!

[Scott Vibert]

[quote]Originally posted by joshuaaaaaa:
<strong>This does bring up another issue, that of sending major league players down to the minors without clearing waivers. I know this has been brought up before, so I won't rehash it. However, its very high on the list of enhancements I'd like to see to the game.</strong><hr></blockquote>

My list as well.. only not necessarily as waivers... Since "veteran" players don't have to go through waivers... if you try to demote them, they can actually just refuse the assignment and become a free agent. The game needs to have some code that certain players (those with over 10 years experience etc.) will automatically refuse assignment to the minors, giving the owner the option to either keep the player on the major league roster (and eat the roster spot) or end up releasing the player and eating the salary as this is what would happen in real life. My idea was players with over 10 years experience would automatically refuse the assignment, meaning the CPU would then likely release the player, forcing the player to languish the rest of the season as a free agent before retiring. Players between 5-10 years would sometimes accept the assignment, depending on their ratings and if they think they could get a better contract as a free agent.

Some thing like this:

[code]
if (player_exp > 10){
refuse assignment
}
else if(player_exp >= 5) && (player_skill >= good){
refuse assignment
}
else{
accept assignment
}
</pre><hr></blockquote>

Something along those lines

[joshuaaaaaa]

[quote]Originally posted by ScottVib:
<strong>My list as well.. only not necessarily as waivers... Since "veteran" players don't have to go through waivers... if you try to demote them, they can actually just refuse the assignment and become a free agent. The game needs to have some code that certain players (those with over 10 years experience etc.) will automatically refuse assignment to the minors, giving the owner the option to either keep the player on the major league roster (and eat the roster spot) or end up releasing the player and eating the salary as this is what would happen in real life. My idea was players with over 10 years experience would automatically refuse the assignment, meaning the CPU would then likely release the player, forcing the player to languish the rest of the season as a free agent before retiring. Players between 5-10 years would sometimes accept the assignment, depending on their ratings and if they think they could get a better contract as a free agent.

</strong><hr></blockquote>

Actually, I like that idea a lot. I think it would help in another area, and that's cash management. I've seen several people comment on the AI often having lots of cash and not spending it on free agents. If the AI had the option of releasing a player and eating the contract, it would use up some of this excess cash.

The flip side is this might be open to a lot of abuse by human players. Players could be acquired at below-market prices by offering longer term contracts, and then released with a year or two left in the contract. Sure, it would take cash, however the total cost of the contract would probably be similar to the team.

Now that I think about it, isn't that abuse currently available?

Edit: Fixed a formatting problem.

[ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: joshuaaaaaa ]</p>

[kingpinking]

scott i like your idea of having players over 10 years experience given an option on being sent down hope something can be improved upon probably next years edition i guess?

[kingpinking]

my league cash is seriously hurting with all these teams having excess players teams have players a AAA with 4years on there contracts making 4 million per and not only is this bad financing it also causes that players ratings to drop playing against lower talented players as a whole

[Henry]

king,
Were you going to try my suggestion ?

[kingpinking]

yeah i think i will give er a try thanks for the post