My Big Book of OOTP5 Suggestions

[Le Grande Orange]

EDIT: With the recent requests for more customization for the playoffs, I thought I'd bump this thread back up to the top. My suggestions are a couple of paragraphs down. A new post at the end of this thread includes a new playoff suggestion.

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Here is my big book of suggestions for OOTP5. The main thrust of my suggestions are to add even more flexibility and customization to OOTP. One of the game's greatest strengths is its flexibility in allowing players to play the game they way they want to. Anything which adds more customization options to the game, and allows players to indulge their imaginations and personal preferences even more is, in my mind, a very good thing. The other suggestions involve adding support for rules from some of the earlier years of baseball, instead of only following today's rules. Again, this gives the player even more flexibility in how they play and enjoy the game.

Let's start with Chapter I.

DOUBLEHEADERS

I'd really like to see doubleheaders get full support in OOTP5. Currently, they do work in the game to a degree, but they are not really a supported feature. So, I'd like them to get full support. There are a number of very good reasons why I think doubleheaders really deserve be fully implemented in OOTP5:

First, it means the ability to use the actual, historical major league baseball schedules for those doing historical leagues. In my opinion, using the actual historical players in a historical league and not playing on the actual schedules doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as they ought to go hand-in-hand.

Second, doubleheaders are actually a very big part of baseball and its history, although many of today's fans might not realize this. Although doubleheaders have been virtually extinct (other than for making up postponed games) since around 1986 or so, in the 80+ years prior to that time scheduled doubleheaders were a common feature. Indeed, for very many years, Sunday and holiday doubleheaders were a tradition. And that's scheduled doubleheaders; by the time you add in twin bills created to help make up postponed games, teams would often play alot of them during a season.

Third, doubleheaders add a definite strategic and managerial challenge to the game. Having to juggle your team's pitching staff and rotation to handle a twin bill will certainly test your managing skills. And given that OOTP5 is going to include managerial (and other) AI enhancements, it makes perfect sense to include in those enhancements the ability for the AI to understand and deal with doubleheaders.

And lastly, they'd really help make OOTP stand out, since many other baseball sims don't have this feature.

The in-game schedule generator in OOTP need not create doubleheaders in the schedules it generates itself. That isn't necessary. But what would be nice would be the ability of the game to understand and work with doubleheaders should the player schedule such events themselves in the schedule editor, of if doubleheaders are present in schedules imported into the game.

SPLIT SEASONS

Two major league seasons, and many minor league ones, have used this concept so it'd be nice to have this option added to OOTP5.

I'd suggest having the option be available for selection prior to each season's start, so it can be enabled or disabled as desired. When enabled, there'd be an area in which to enter the date on which the first half of the season is considered over. This allows the player to decide exactly when the season splits, whether it's right at the halfway point, or at the All-Star Break, or at any other point in the season. This is important, as in most cases real split seasons were split at various dates in the calendar.

If two different teams win each half of the season, they'd meet in the postseason. Should the same team win both halves of the season, then they'd meet the team with the 2nd best record for the full season in the playoffs.

PLAYOFF ROUND LENGTHS

It would be great to have the ability to customize the lengths of each playoff round, rather than having it predetermined. I'd suggest having at least the following lengths available: best-of-3, best-of-5, best-of-7, and best-of-9. If possible, it would be ideal to also have best-of-11, best-of-13, and best-of-15 available for selection, as this would allow recreation of some of the longer 1880s World Series that took place.

PLAYOFF ROUND MATCHUPS

Another option which would be nice to have is the ability to select just which team plays which in the playoffs. Currently, players are left with whatever matchups the game decides upon, and these cannot be altered since the schedule editor only allows date and home field changes and not opponent changes. Having the ability to change the matchups would enable players to decide for themselves each playoff round's matchups, and thus they can choose whether to follow the present or past MLB rules or instead use their own ideas.

To avoid having to use a revised schedule editor to make such matchup changes, I would propose the following. Have a Playoff Screen which shows the matchups for the playoff rounds in the traditional branching tree style. For the 3 division winner plus wildcard scenario, here's a crude example of how it might look:

Baltimore
---------------|
               |
Seattle        |---------------|
---------------|               |
                               |
                               |
Cleveland                      |---------------|
---------------|               |               |
               |               |               |
New York       |---------------|               |
---------------|                               |
                                               |
                                               |
                                               |
Houston                                        |---------------
---------------|                               |   CHAMPION
               |                               |
Atlanta        |---------------|               |
---------------|               |               |
                               |               |
                               |               |
San Francisco                  |---------------|
---------------|               |
               |               |
Florida        |---------------|
---------------|

 Best-of-5        Best-of-7        Best-of-7

To change the matchups, the player would just drag and drop a team from one slot to another. So, if you wanted to have Baltimore play Cleveland instead of Seattle, you would just drag Cleveland up to the Seattle slot and drop it. The game would automatically make the switch, and now you'd have Baltimore playing Cleveland while Seattle would now be playing New York in the first round.

The advantage of this method is that it is very intuitive, and it's easy to see how the playoff rounds are laid out. You can see at a glance how your matchup changes affect the progression towards the championship. You could even have teams play opponents from the other league if you wanted, and thus really give the playoffs a shake up. (If the player only wanted to change the home field rotation for a playoff series, they then would just use the schedule editor to do that, as is the case currently.)

You'll notice that below each round there is a series length indicator. By clicking on that, a drop down menu or something similar would appear from which the player could select the series length they wanted for that round. Putting this setting here keeps all the playoff adjustments in one place, instead of having to dig through menus or submenus to find the settings.

Another advantage of this sort of Playoff Screen is that it could easily handle expanded playoffs, which are covered next.

EXPANDED PLAYOFFS

Another excellent addition that could be made to OOTP5 would be the ability to have more teams in the playoffs. This would allow recreation of minor league style league setups, as they tend allow more teams into their postseasons. It would also allow players to have playoffs more like those in the NHL or NFL, if they are so inclined.

I think allowing up to 8 teams in each league of a file to make the playoffs would be good. I'd suggest the following methods of determining which teams qualify for the postseason:

Leagues with 1 division

1 TEAM: division winner only
2 TEAMS: top 2 teams in the division
4 TEAMS: top 4 teams in the division
8 TEAMS: top 8 teams in the division

Leagues with 2 divisions

2 TEAMS: division winners only

4 TEAMS:
- top 2 teams in each division
- 2 division winners and 2 wildcards

8 TEAMS:
- top 4 teams in each division
- top 2 teams in each division and 4 wildcards
- 2 division winners and 6 wildcards

Leagues with 3 divisions

4 TEAMS: 3 division winners and 1 wildcard

8 TEAMS:
- top 2 teams in each division and 2 wildcards
- 3 division winners and 5 wildcards

Leagues with 4 divisions

4 TEAMS: 4 division winners only

8 TEAMS:
- top 2 teams in each division
- 4 division winners and 4 wildcards

These suggestions allow for a good variety of qualification method while still being fairly simple to determine who actually makes the postseason.

In terms of determining the matchups in the expanded playoffs, by using the Playoff Screen idea mentioned previously, the player could adjust the matchups there to suit their own preferences, thus eliminating the need for a complicated matchup system being built into the game. Just use a simple ranking system using the overall W-L record to set up the initial matchups, and that's all that's needed since the player can then easily make changes if they want.

Next up, Chapter II.

[Le Grande Orange]

Here's Chapter II of my suggestion book (it all wouldn't fit into one post, so I've had to split it up into chapters).

ADDITIONAL PLAYOFF SUGGESTIONS

There are two minor changes that would be nice additions to the playoffs in OOTP5. The first would be the ability to have playoffs in files which only contain one league (which isn't possible in OOT4). The second would be the ability to have a different number of playoff rounds in each league and still have the playoffs run correctly, as this isn't possible in OOT4 either. For example, using the traditional division winners only qualifying for the postseason, say someone had a file with two leagues in it where one league contained 1 division while the other league had 2 divisions in it. When it comes to the postseason, the game would have the 2 division league play its League Championship Series while the 1 division league winner would be idle, waiting for the outcome. This would allow players to have much more flexibility in their league setups and not always be forced to have leagues with identical numbers of divisions in them.

LEAGUE STRUCTURES

One area that has undergone very few changes from OOTP3 to OOTP4 are the league structure options. It'd be nice for OOTP5 if this area could be expanded with more options.

The first change in this area that would be hugely beneficial to historical simmers would be the ability to start a file with only one league in it and then later expand it to include a second league. This would be very helpful in simming years prior to 1901, as it would allow the simmer to start with only the NL and then later add (and eventually remove) the AA, and then add the AL in 1901. Naturally, it would also give plenty of league setup flexibility to fictional leagues as well.

Ideally, it would be fantastic to have the ability to even add a third league to a file, so that third major leagues of 1884, 1890, and 1914-1915 be recreated. However, this is not critical. I'd be more than happy just being able to add a second league to a file, which I do think is a fairly important improvement.

The only alternative I can see, should the above not be technically feasible for some reason, is a way to completely import the players, records, and stats from an existing league file into a newly created one. So, for example, a historical simmer has just finished their 1900 season. For 1901, they create a new file that has two leagues in it, and they fill the AL with the necessary new teams. Then for the NL they are able to import all the NL players and data from the file containing the 1900 NL season. Thus, they now have a two league file, but have not lost any of the information from their previous NL simming and their historical continuity is intact.

Technically, I don't know whether adding a second league to an existing file is easier to program than going with the importing method described above, but either way, a system which allows the expansion to a second league without a lot of workarounds would be a big help to historical simmers. I'm sure it would be an appreciated improvement in OOTP5.

The next league structural improvement that would be nice would be more options in terms of how to align the league(s). At the very least, I'd like to see a single division league being able to hold up to 12 teams (preferrably 14) in it instead of the current 10, and it should be possible to split leagues into 4 divisions if desired (which currently isn't possible).

Ideally, this is what I would suggest in the way of league alignment options. First, each league in a file should be able to hold up to 24 teams, which could be aligned in one of the following manners:

- 1 division of up to 24 teams
- 2 divisions of up to 12 teams
- 3 divisions of up to 8 teams
- 4 divisions of up to 6 teams

Of course, if more teams can be held comfortably in each league of a file, then the maximums could be higher. I just picked 24 simply because it splits evenly into different numbers of divisions, and with 2 leagues in a file, it would mean 48 teams in total, which seems like a good maximum. The main thing here is being able to hold many teams in a one division league, so it allows those who are interested in trying out a more European football like league stucture to do so.

One further request would be the option to subdivide a 4 division league into 2 conferences of 2 divisions each. This is merely a cosmetic visual change for the onscreen displays of the league, and would not require any additional breaking down or separation of the statistics or special scheduling changes. It's just so the displaying of 4 divisions can look a little smoother, and for those who'd like the NFL or NHL style feel it would give.

VARIABLE ROSTER SIZES

It would be great if there was the ability to set different active roster sizes for a season, instead of only being limited to the current value of 25. This would allow for a variety of possibilities, such as more accurate simming of the earlier years of baseball in historical leagues, or running "Little League" baseball type leagues, or simply just experimenting with larger rosters and their effects on teams and strategy.

I'd suggest roster sizes ranging from a low of 13-14 up to a high of 27-28 be available for selection. Ideally, it should be possible to select a different roster size for each league in a two league file, as in reality the AL and NL have had different roster limits at different times, and it would be nice to reflect that in the game.

Given that the AI is being enhanced and improved for OOTP5, adding in the ability for the AI to understand and correctly utilize various roster size limits would be a great addition.

RESERVE CLAUSE ERA FINANCIALS

Right now in OOTP, we have the option of either turning off financials, or running with everything on and having to deal with free agency and all the other factors. Undoubtedly, OOTP5 will add even more modern day financial rules to handle. All of this together means with finances on there can be alot to learn and use. Therefore, instead of only an on or off for financials, I propose a third option, a halfway point between the two choices. Basically, it would be a simplified financial system, reflective of what it was like operating a team during the years the reserve clause was in full effect.

This is how I picture these simpler finances working. First, teams only get a very small amount of operating cash from television broadcasting contracts; instead, almost all of a team's revenue comes solely from attendance and concessions. Second, you still have to pay the costs of your minor league system, your coach's and scout's contracts, medical staff, and so on. Third, you'd still have to sign and release players from contracts, and make trades as needed. But even though there is no player free agency, you'd still have to deal with a few player related wrinkles. You would sometimes encouter what occasionally happened in reality: when a star player's contract is up, or after he's had a stellar season, he may demand a big raise. And if you don't agree, then the player might decide to not report to the team and become a hold-out. As GM, you now have to decide just how important the player is to your team and whether or not you can afford to have him sit out for possibly the entire season. Will the player's absence from your lineup seriously affect your team's performace? Do you have other players who can fill the void? Will the contract dispute with a player popular with fans negatively affect your team's attendance?

As you can see, even without free agency there can still be some interesting challenges to handle. Of course, the typical salary values for this simplified financial system would need to be balanced with what a team would typically make from their attendances. But the advantages of this "Reserve Clause Era" financial model is it offers a simpler system for players new to OOTP to learn, rather than having to learn the more complex modern system. It also allows players who hate today's free agent system to play the game without it, while still retaining a good number of financial related problems and situations to deal with and resolve. This financial model would almost certainly look alot like the "golden" era of baseball in terms of the amounts of the salaries and contracts, and this would undoubtedly appeal to players who prefer the baseball of that time and its financial aspects to that of today's. It would also mean a player running a historical league could now choose to run it with financials on, instead of having to turn it off to replicate the historical years they were simming.

These advantages, I think, would make this financial system a worthwhile addition to OOTP5.


Next up is Chapter III.

[Le Grande Orange]

And here's the third and final chapter of my OOTP suggestion book.

WORLD WAR DRAFT OPTION

This is not my own idea, but instead was suggested by Henry. I thought it a very good idea, so I decided to add it to my book. It would add a lot to both historical and fictional leagues, as players can experiment with the kinds of challenges that teams must've faced during the real war years.

What this option would do when enabled for a season would be to have a certain number of players be drafted into military service to fight in the war. Additionally, a certain number of players may voluntarily enlist in the military before their draft came up. As a result, these drafted and volunteering players would not be present in the league. They would be away for as long as the war continued, which in game terms, would be until this draft option was turned off. Turning off the option before the beginning of a season means the war is over, and all surviving players who had been away serving in the military would return to their original teams.

I'd suggest having several levels of draft be available, from low to medium to high. As the level goes up, a greater percentage of the league's players enter military service, and the percentage of volunteers rises as well (in other words, as the level increases, it reflects the increasing level of war effort the nation is conducting). The exact manner in which the players are selected can probably be guided by the actual draft policies and procedures used in the U.S. during World War II. There should also be a small chance than any given player serving might be either killed in action or wounded seriously enough to end their baseball careers.

This war draft system need not be overly complicated, but mainly just give the feeling of what it must have been like during the war years. This option would add alot of interesting twists to an OOTP league, and I'd love to see something like make its way in OOTP's next version.

ADDITIONAL ERA SETTINGS

I would love to see the Era settings in OOTP cover more areas. These are the areas I'd like to see included:

19th Century Baseball: It would be great to see this often overlooked era of baseball get more direct support. Matching the stats from this time in OOTP currently can be rather difficult, so having an era setting in OOTP to help this out would be a nice addition.

Roster Sizes: Have the roster size limit adjust automatically to reflect the size in use for the selected era. This is particularly important for the pre-1900 baseball years. Ideally, for historical leagues, this era setting should adjust each league's roster size individually (since at different times the AL and NL have had different limits). For fictional leagues, the limit would be same for both leagues in a two league file for the selected era.

Attendance: The average attendance for the league as a whole should be different for different eras, and this should be reflected in the era settings. In the real baseball world, average attendances for a season have gradually increased over the years and decades, and adjusting the typical attendances for each era would result in seeing more appropriate attendance values when playing earlier eras.

Salaries: It would be great if the values for salaries and contracts could be more reflective of those from earlier eras. This need not involve a complicated inflation adjustment scheme, or major changes to the financial models. Of course, if the financials are getting a large overhaul, then incorporating the ability to have salary values more like those of earlier eras would be a great addition. However, it is still possible to have salaries that look era appropriate without making major changes. In this case I'd suggest using a simple division reduction method. For example, if a typical high end modern salary is around $10 million per season, and the high end salary in the 1960s is around $100,000, then when it comes to displaying the values onscreen the game would divide the modern salary figure by 100 to arrive at the earlier era's value. Internally, the game handles all the financial data as it would normally, but when it comes to displaying that data onscreen it uses the adjustment divider to make the financial values look closer to their era counterparts.

GAMES PLAYED AS DH AND PH

Something that can be difficult to find out in OOTP is just how many games a player played as a Designated Hitter and how many games the player came in as a Pinch Hitter. It's easy to see how many games a player played as a shortstop or left fielder, as one just looks at the fielding statistics and the number of games played at that position is listed there. But unfortunately there's no way to easily find out the number of games played as a DH or PH.

I'd really like to be able to see the number of games played by a player not only at the standard fielding positions but also in other roles. So, in OOTP5 perhaps DH and PH could be tracked as "positions" and thus will show up with the number of games played at them. This would allow us to see the all the roles in which the player was being used by the team. If not that, then perhaps some sort of "Games Played by Position/Role" sorting function which would list all the fielding positions along with DH and PH (and maybe Pinch Runner too), which then shows the number of games played at position/role each by each player.

I miss having this complete usage picture of a player, and would like to see it get addressed in OOTP5.

ATTENDANCE FACTORS

I'd like to see more factors influencing the attendance at games in OOTP. In addition to market size, fan loyalty, promotional days, and ticket prices, factors which should influence the attendance at games are: the day the game takes place, the time the game takes place, whether the game is a single game or doubleheader, the opponent, the performance of the home team, and the weather.

Of these additional factors, which day the games takes place on and when the game starts are important, particularly in the earlier years of baseball. The reason night games became popular with teams was precisely because many more fans could make it to the game as opposed to a weekday game, and it would be great to see this reflected in OOTP's game attendances, particularly when playing the earlier years in baseball.

In the days before night baseball, an attendance of 6,000 was considered quite good for a weekday game, since most fans had to work and could not make the game. This is why teams depended so much on weekend and holiday games, as these would draw far more fans to the ballpark. Doubleheaders were used to draw additonal fans, above and beyond what a single game would typically draw. Twilight games were largely a wartime innovation, as the game would start at 5:30 p.m. or so, and gave enough just time for fans to make the game after finishing work and thus would draw better than the usual daytime game. Weeknight games, often drawing 3 or 4 times the number of fans of a typical day game, naturally became inreasingly popular with teams.

In ranking which day and time typically draws the most fans to the ballpark, from highest to lowest it would look something like this:

1st - Saturday, Sunday, and holiday doubleheader
2nd - Saturday, Sunday, and holiday single game
3rd - Monday to Friday twilight-night doubleheader
4th - Monday to Friday night game
5th - Monday to Friday twilight game
6th - Monday to Friday day doubleheader
7th - Monday to Friday day game

It may seem hard to understand how a doubleheader was valuable to a team, given that it usually meant giving fans two games for the price of one. But it worked like this: teams only had so many weekend and holiday dates available to play on, and these choice dates had to be equally distributed amongst all the teams. As a result, teams had far more weekday home dates than weekend dates. Let's say a normal Sunday game draws around 30,000 fans and a weekday game around 5,000 fans. A Sunday and Monday game would then result in a total of 35,000 paying customers for the two games. But if a Sunday doubleheader draws around 40,000 fans, that means a total of 40,000 paying customers for two games. That's 5,000 more paying customers for the team than if it had scheduled a Sunday and Monday game. And that's why doubleheaders were popular with teams.

So, it'd be great if OOTP5 could also use the above aforementioned items in determining a game's attendance in addition to the factors it already uses, especially in the earlier baseball eras.

DUAL ALL-STAR GAMES

A small request, but given that four MLB seasons actually had this, it would be a nice little addition to have the ability to schedule two All-Star Games in a season if desired. It allows a bit more fidelity in recreating some of baseball's past seasons, plus the option of having two All-Star breaks means a little more flexibility in how a player sets up their season and schedule.


Well, that's about all I can think of to put into this book right now. If I think of anything new, I'll add it as a new chapter.

[fantom1979]

holy crap, i will come back here later and read some of this. very nice

[CaLíKrAzY]

Nice ideas first off.

I like the flexability with the postseason it gives you unlimited possibilities to what you can do.

Doubleheaders would make ootp even more unique and if it can be implemented go with it.

-Johnny

[EJ]

Some very fine ideas! I'm very much in favor of:

1) doubleheader support
2) drag and drop playoffs
3) variable roster options (including being able to choose the date for "40-man" or increased size rosters)

Nice job, and I hope we get to see more and more added support for the historical side as the game evolves.

[jahwarrior6395]

i like the customizable play-offs and the era-correct salaries. i hate playing an old school league and having to cough up $10 million to sign a good player. i hate $10 million salaries altogether. i would definitely like to be able to set a maximum salary. markus, PLEASE add this.

[Mark_N_Ga]

A big YES to the playoff editor idea. We have talked about modifying the playoff format in an online league I'm in but the only way to do it currently is to play all games manually. However, you lose all history. This would be a huge plus for OOTP5.

[Tib]

Double headers, yes.
Expanded playoffs, yes.
Attendance factors, yes.

[Chappy]

If half of your ideas make it into OOTP5, I will be pleased.

I have always been in favor of more allignment, structure, and playoff options. You speak from a historical perspective, but as someone who mainly deals with modern fictional leagues, these are essential elements.

[Henry]

A while back, one of the solutions for playoffs was to allow us to simply schedule whatever games/series we wanted at the end of the season. I still think this is the best approach to this issue.

Henry

[sporr]

Henry,

It is possible to schedule playoff games in addition to those scheduled by the game. Any game scheduled after the end of the regular season is considered a playoff game for attendance revenue purposes. This still doesn't solve the problem of eliminating the pre-set playoff matchups though.

[Henry]

Originally posted by sporr
Henry,

It is possible to schedule playoff games in addition to those scheduled by the game. Any game scheduled after the end of the regular season is considered a playoff game for attendance revenue purposes. This still doesn't solve the problem of eliminating the pre-set playoff matchups though.

Yes, but the problem is twofold. (1) you can't delete the scheduled playoff games, and (2) in a single league without playoff games, the game advances to the end of season mode immediately after the last game.

It needs to go into "playoff mode" without any scheduled games and let you set up whatever playoff picture you want

Henry

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally posted by Henry
A while back, one of the solutions for playoffs was to allow us to simply schedule whatever games/series we wanted at the end of the season. I still think this is the best approach to this issue.

Henry

Yes, but the problem there is that the schedule editor can be a bit cumbersome to use for such purposes. It's not as easy to see the entire layout of your playoffs when there 8 teams in the postseason, and for players new to OOTP, changing the playoffs that way might be a bit intimidating or confusing.

That's why I proposed the "Playoff Screen" idea. It has a simple, intuitive layout, and with drag-and-drop opponent changes and drop down menu round length selections, it's easy for anyone to use. It's also easily expandable so that larger postseasons can be run without difficulty.

To me at least, it seemed a smoother and more user friendly way of customizing playoffs than relying only on the use of the schedule editor...

[Le Grande Orange]

Here is one more suggestion to add to the playoff ideas.

Because there are several years when there were two leagues but no post-season (1882, 1883, 1891, 1901, 1902, and 1904) there should be a toggle switch which would allow the playoffs to be turned off for a given season if desired.

If someone wishes to mimic the historical lack of a post-season for these years, their only recourse at present is to edit out the post-season results from the various OOTP files. However, with OOTP5 now including post-season statistics for the players, this would become even more complicated.

So, to make this recreation of the historical past a bit easier, it would be nice to be able to simply switch off the playoffs for any given season. They then could be turned back on at the appropriate time.

A small thing, but helpful (and hopefully not difficult to include).

[earlg]

I really like the idea of the reserve clause you talk about. IMy interest in baseball is not what it was because of all the player movement now. I would be more likely to tell you the starting lineup in any given year from the mid 60's thru the mid 80's when player movement just went crazy with players jumping from one team to the next.I know that fans of the teams getting the new players each year probably boost attendance but there is just no loyalty hardly at all in baseball anymore.

[Vida Blue]

These are all top-notch ideas and very nicely laid out. I would just be happy to customize the playoffs but this list is excellent!

[Mrexbaseball]

Markus, I suggest you hire this guy.

[MrHaroldG]

LeGrandOrange, I like your idea of the playoff format - I have a 2-league "set-up" with 4 divisions in each league. I would like the idea of having 2 or even 4 wild-cards in the playoffs alongside the division champions. Granted, this would push the World Series way back into mid-November, but wasn't the 2001 World Series pushed back that far because of 9/11?

[Gastric ReFlux]

These are some wonderful suggestions. How likely it is that they can be put in, I don't know.

I for one have been racking my brain to figure out a way to do this.

Currently, I have a fictional league that began play in 1901. The loose basis of its genesis is that after years of non-professional baseballl, a group went forward with an idea to make professional baseball an attraction and potential career for young men. The league got started in 1901, Federal and National Leagues with 8 teams apiece, 2 divisions in each. These teams were all located east of the Mississippi.

Now here's what I would like to have happen. In 1905, a Pacific Coast League is formed by owners who see the success of pro ball in the East, perhaps a couple of the who were unable to get in on the first formed leagues. These teams bring pro ball to the West Coast and soon the fans of the nation are talking about how they would like to see a championship that includes all the professional leagues of the United States.

Which is why I would like to have an easy way to do this, although for now I would settle for suggestions how I can hack my way into doing it: the leagues agree to a merge around 1910, the 8 PCL teams are divided between the FL and NL, each 4 teams entering into a new Western Division which gives the PCL teams a way to have a team make the playoffs and compete.

So you see what I would like to do right now is have another league folder where the PCL players get their start. Then when the time comes, I wish it would be easy to import those teams and players into the original league.

Right now, I can't figure how in hell to do it.