Minors help

[MizzouRah]

Ok, I'm used to 6.51 where there are ghost players in the minors.

So, I want the AI to control my minors as far as lineups and pitching rotation goes, have those settings set... I don't allow them to move players around or get rid of players - so basically what are my responsibilities for the minors?

Do I just make sure they have a full roster of 25 players and that each position is covered? Meaning, what needs to be done to make it simple, yet sort of have control (what is new for 2006)?

Thanks!

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Ok, I'm used to 6.51 where there are ghost players in the minors.

So, I want the AI to control my minors as far as lineups and pitching rotation goes, have those settings set... I don't allow them to move players around or get rid of players - so basically what are my responsibilities for the minors?

Do I just make sure they have a full roster of 25 players and that each position is covered? Meaning, what needs to be done to make it simple, yet sort of have control (what is new for 2006)?

Thanks!

Sounds like you got it down the way you want it. You have Minor League Team Management on your manager home page set to Minor League Managers, to manage day-to-day stuff like lineups and such, AND you have gone (as commissioner) to each of your minor league team Options & Ballpark page to click the box that will Prevent any AI roster changes? If so, you've got the best of both worlds, I think. My take in that situation is that, yes, you've got to provide the players by managing the rosters and promoting/demoting as necessary but the AI will do everything else.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Sounds like you got it down the way you want it. You have Minor League Team Management on your manager home page set to Minor League Managers, to manage day-to-day stuff like lineups and such, AND you have gone (as commissioner) to each of your minor league team Options & Ballpark page to click the box that will Prevent any AI roster changes? If so, you've got the best of both worlds, I think. My take in that situation is that, yes, you've got to provide the players by managing the rosters and promoting/demoting as necessary but the AI will do everything else.

Thanks for the answer!

If I allow them to make roster changes, what will that do?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Thanks for the answer!

If I allow them to make roster changes, what will that do?

I *think* it means players will move up and down from rookie to AAA, but not onto your ML 40-man roster which would require GM authority.

[bp_]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

I *think* it means players will move up and down from rookie to AAA, but not onto your ML 40-man roster which would require GM authority.

If you allow the computer to manage the minors that means they will do lineups AND move players between levels. I hate that it does the latter half as I want to decide when a player moves up.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by bp_

If you allow the computer to manage the minors that means they will do lineups AND move players between levels. I hate that it does the latter half as I want to decide when a player moves up.

That's why I like MizzouRah's approach. I don't want to have to deal with lineups and rotations, but I do want to control who's moving up or down and when. It's strange that OOTP makes this a non-obvious choice, meaning you have to know about the commissioner/prevent AI roster changes procedure to set this up and still let minor league managers run things day-to-day.

BTW, I clicked on your "hate" a couple of times until I realized that you were emphasizing the word, not illustrating it with a link somewhere. Kind of a let down, you know?

[endgame]

Originally Posted by bp_

If you allow the computer to manage the minors that means they will do lineups AND move players between levels. I hate that it does the latter half as I want to decide when a player moves up.

Isn't there still an additional slot on the Manager Home Page for demotions and promotions aside from Minor League Management that you can set to your preferences? Or does that one relate only to the active roster?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by endgame

Isn't there still an additional slot on the Manager Home Page for demotions and promotions aside from Minor League Management that you can set to your preferences? Or does that one relate only to the active roster?

I am pretty sure that all the other choices for Team Control Settings on the Manager Home Page, including roster moves, refer to the parent club. For example, the guide differentiates between Roster Moves ("Defines who is responsible for making roster moves (promotions, demotions, and so forth) for your team.") and Minor League Team Management ("Defines who is responsible for managing the day-to-day affairs of minor league teams in your organization, including all settings, strategy, and roster moves for minor leagues. You can choose from your manager identity or the minor league managers . . .") Letting the minor league managers govern allows them to move players up and down the minor leagues, but not to your parent club unless you have Roster Moves set to Computer AI. That's the way I see it.

[bp_]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

That's the way I see it.

And you see it correctly.

[rmewett01]

Thanks for the heads-up about the checkbox on the Options/Ballpark page. I've been wondering the exact same thing and eventually figured you couldn't have the AI do one (adjusting depth charts, lineups, etc.) without the other (moving between levels). It's unfortunate that it's so counterintuitive -- you would think that selecting "Minor League Managers" in the Manager Home Page would set it up this way for you, while leaving promotion/demotion in your hands. It doesn't make a lot of sense for it to be set up this way.

Of note, I just had the AI exchange what looks to be almost every player on the two rosters between my two A teams. Has anyone ever seen this before, or have any good idea why it would happen (other than the AI being dumb)?

...

Uhh... bad idea. Immediately after I did the Commissioner mode-checkbox thing, the AI demoted every minor leaguer in my organization to the Rookie League team and signed about a hundred minor league free agents. My minor league rosters are all currently empty... I'm checking to see if they come back after undoing it.

...

Nope... and the game actually wouldn't let me continue because my minor league rosters had an invalid number of active players (0). So... uhh... don't try that, I guess.

...

Well, that's awesome. I just eviscerated my farm system in one fell swoop. It's also pretty awesome that the game automatically saves the database when you try to load a saved game, so lo and behold the saved game that I'm loading is the same as my current game.

...

Whew! One more continue and it fixed itself. I don't know where all my minor leaguers were hiding, but after I "continue"d again, it demoted all the new signings to the Rookie League teams and put everyone else back where they had been, it would seem. So now I have really really really really really deep Rookie League squads, I guess.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by rmewett01

Of note, I just had the AI exchange what looks to be almost every player on the two rosters between my two A teams. Has anyone ever seen this before, or have any good idea why it would happen (other than the AI being dumb)?

Sounds like you had a rough night! Hope everything worked out for you in the end.

Just to answer the quoted question, there are three sublevels in minor league A: advanced, regular, and short-season. These distinctions could be programmed into the standard A leagues that come with the game. We debated that a bit on this thread:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=130002

[neojonas]

After reading through this thread a couple times, I'm still a little confused on what settings I want. I am the GM for a MLB team and I would like to control all aspects of the MLB team and all promotions/demotions through my whole farm system. I would like to let the minor league managers set up their own lineups, depth charts, etc. I'm gathering from this thread that this isn't really possible.

I tried fooling around with the "Minor League Team Management" option and the "Prevent any AI roster changes" option. I guess I'm just wonder what's the different between setting the "Minor League Team Management" to "Minor League Managers" and just unchecking "Prevent any AI rosters changes"... Wouldn't it still be the same AI just having control over your minors? Sorry for the newbie questions.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by neojonas

After reading through this thread a couple times, I'm still a little confused on what settings I want. I am the GM for a MLB team and I would like to control all aspects of the MLB team and all promotions/demotions through my whole farm system. I would like to let the minor league managers set up their own lineups, depth charts, etc. I'm gathering from this thread that this isn't really possible.

I tried fooling around with the "Minor League Team Management" option and the "Prevent any AI roster changes" option. I guess I'm just wonder what's the different between setting the "Minor League Team Management" to "Minor League Managers" and just unchecking "Prevent any AI rosters changes"... Wouldn't it still be the same AI just having control over your minors? Sorry for the newbie questions.

Don't apologize for asking newbie questions. How else are you going to learn? How else am I going to learn other than trying to answer a question for someone that I am just a few steps ahead of on a topic or two? And since this thread is dedicated to your question, better here than on the "New to the Game" forum.

This is how it works: When you are the GM of a MLB team (not a minor league team), you get the option of assigning "Minor League Team Management" to your minor league managers. If you don't do that, you will be expected to manage everything about all of your minor league team affiliates, from lineups to roster changes. The game will field a team without your intervention, as it must, but otherwise the teams will be static and your minor leaguers will probably suffer because, if they are over- or under-challenged at a certain level, or they need more or less playing time, these issues will not be addressed.

Most GM's don't want to manage day-to-day issues of all their affiliated minor league teams. So, they use this "Minor League Team Management" option to get their minor league managers to do their jobs.

The one problem with that, apparently, is that the computer AI is capable of occasionally making some squirrel-headed moves and you get some players moving up and down levels within days for no apparent reason. When you look at these moves closely, you see that they just don't make sense or are not what you want done. For example, you don't want that 18 year-old player that you just drafted this year playing at AA already, or the top prospect in AAA has been unfairly demoted in your estimation.

I believe that this issue was pointed out to OOTP in these forums, and the response was to include that "Prevent any AI roster changes" on the team options page (accessible only by the commissioner). What this does is to allow minor league team managers to manage their teams day-to-day (lineups and such, if you delegated to them) but it prevents them from moving any players to or from this team's roster (the setting has to be checked for every one of your affiliated minor league teams). Of course, this is just for movement up and down the rookie through AAA levels; the minor league managers could not move players onto your 40-man roster without your GM approval in any case.

(Note: This is NOT the same thing as the "Set all teams to NOT allow AI roster changes" option on the Financial Functions Action Menu on the League Setup page. This shuts out the AI from making any roster changes for every team in your league. I think this is meant for historical players who want to control all aspects of their simulations.)

So, if you "would like to control all aspects of the MLB team and all promotions/demotions through my whole farm system" and only that, you want to set "Minor League Team Management" to Minor League Managers AND you want to go (as commissioner) to each of your minor league team Options & Ballpark pages to click the box that will "Prevent any AI roster changes."

[neojonas]

Perfect response! That helps me so much....thanks!

[CalgaryCannons]

After having just gone through the same scenario as rmewett01 did with the AI immediately shuffling all of my minor league players around and signing hundreds of free agents to minor league deals, I think I figured out what went wrong. By setting the Minor League Management option at the same time as the "Prevent AI roster changes" checkbox the game handled the minor league management change before it updated it's state to reflect that AI roster changes is now disabled. I killed the application's process to get out without saving the messed up rosters and tried again. This time I first set the "Prevent AI Roster Changes" setting, then pressed Continue, then switched the Minor League Management option. This time it seems to have kept my rosters intact.

So, if others out there experience the same problems, perhaps give this sequence a try.

[jbsnadb]

I've also found that re-naming the save game in Windows will allow you to "back-up" you old game when your minors take a dump.

[giornaliere]

After having just gone through the same scenario as rmewett01 did with the AI immediately shuffling all of my minor league players around and signing hundreds of free agents to minor league deals, I think I figured out what went wrong. By setting the Minor League Management option at the same time as the "Prevent AI roster changes" checkbox the game handled the minor league management change before it updated it's state to reflect that AI roster changes is now disabled. I killed the application's process to get out without saving the messed up rosters and tried again. This time I first set the "Prevent AI Roster Changes" setting, then pressed Continue, then switched the Minor League Management option. This time it seems to have kept my rosters intact.

So, if others out there experience the same problems, perhaps give this sequence a try.

I've tested it this way a few times and the minors problem still arises.

[markprior22]

This is garbage and a SERIOUS issue that needs a fix. My rookie league team has 200 players on its roster. I'm either stuck with this or if I switch my settings, all the minor league players disappear. C'mon Markus...this is a HUGE problem that needs to be addressed.

[Rangersfan]

Originally Posted by giornaliere

I've tested it this way a few times and the minors problem still arises.

I was having the same problem until i figured out what i was doing wrong.

The Prevent AI Roster Changes" setting has to be checked for every one of your affiliated minor league teams but in addition you also have to check the prevent AI roster setting on your major league team as well.


As soon as I did this it worked like a charm.

[giornaliere]

Originally Posted by Rangersfan

I was having the same problem until i figured out what i was doing wrong.

The Prevent AI Roster Changes" setting has to be checked for every one of your affiliated minor league teams but in addition you also have to check the prevent AI roster setting on your major league team as well.


As soon as I did this it worked like a charm.

I set it up just as you explained above and to test this I pulled three or four guys out of my minor league lineups and didn't replace them with anyone. I simmed out a week and those holes were still in the lineups. So AI wasn't managing the minor leagues, at least not in my case.