Sept Call Ups

White Sox · 01-04-2007, 03:19 AM

What advantages/disadvantages are there to calling up your biggest prospects once the rosters expand in Sept? Can their ratings really benefit or be hurt substantially from such a small amount of big league experience?

1998 Yankees · 01-04-2007, 09:09 AM

Your top prospects are probably already on the 40-man roster, so the only drawback that I know of with September call-ups is that each player called up receives a major league contract which has an effect on your payroll.

I like to *think* (imagine?) that the major league experience helps their performance and their transition to the parent club in the following season, but I am unsure whether the game actually works in this manner.

disposableheros · 01-04-2007, 12:16 PM

i do it to see whether or not a player is ready for the bigs, rather than to increase his ratings. sure its a small sample, but its better than no sample, right?

i know somewhere around here, Markus posted the fact that doing horrible at a level too high is bad for the players ratings, but i dont remember if he spelled out how long the player would have to be bad before the effects were felt, ie. 30 AB, 75 AB, 110 AB, etc.

Exodor · 01-04-2007, 01:23 PM

Do September call-ups require the use of a minor-league option when you send them back down?

White Sox · 01-04-2007, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exodor

Do September call-ups require the use of a minor-league option when you send them back down?

I believe so.

tysok · 01-04-2007, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by disposableheros

i do it to see whether or not a player is ready for the bigs, rather than to increase his ratings. sure its a small sample, but its better than no sample, right?

i know somewhere around here, Markus posted the fact that doing horrible at a level too high is bad for the players ratings, but i dont remember if he spelled out how long the player would have to be bad before the effects were felt, ie. 30 AB, 75 AB, 110 AB, etc.

He wasn't specific... but it was a good amount of time... Something like half a season or more if I remember right.

Curtis · 01-04-2007, 03:55 PM

It was a month, but that might have been a throw-away statement. 1998 Yankees dug that reference out within the past month, so he'll probably be along shortly to dig it out again.

1998 Yankees · 01-04-2007, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curtis

It was a month, but that might have been a throw-away statement. 1998 Yankees dug that reference out within the past month, so he'll probably be along shortly to dig it out again.

This is the thread that you are talking about, but Markus was not very specific in what he said IMO. I think that I agree with you, his "30 games" was a "throw-away statement" as you put it. He meant this in general terms, I think, rather than as a firm limit.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=131396

disposableheros · 01-04-2007, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exodor

Do September call-ups require the use of a minor-league option when you send them back down?

if they were already on the 40-man, it was already used.

Twelvefield · 01-08-2007, 05:23 AM

Most minor league prospects need some kind of "warm up" time to get themselves up to the major league level, especially pitchers and catchers. Bringing them into the September call-up can give them a little of that warm-up time.

But, there's downsides. One is that the call-ups get major-league contracts, which can screw up your finances, or at least put a wrench in your future plans, if you tend to "cycle" your call-ups to fit your finances. Another is that your team "chemistry" can get screwed up.

"Chemistry" seems to be something that Markus has toyed with as both an explicit team variable and as something that runs under the hood of the game, unseen. Whether or not you believe in OOTPB team chemistry, there does seem to be something about having extra players to deal with that puts the brakes on a pennant run, at least most times for me. If your team isn't in the running for anything save the league basement, then this isn't such a big concern. On the other hand, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

1998 Yankees · 01-08-2007, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twelvefield

"Chemistry" seems to be something that Markus has toyed with as both an explicit team variable and as something that runs under the hood of the game, unseen. Whether or not you believe in OOTPB team chemistry, there does seem to be something about having extra players to deal with that puts the brakes on a pennant run, at least most times for me. If your team isn't in the running for anything save the league basement, then this isn't such a big concern. On the other hand, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I don't believe that there is any "chemistry" in OOTPB, but I agree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule. If my players are playing well enough to be on a pennant run, then I am reluctant to disrupt the "data processing patterns" (chemistry?) of my team just to give some minor leaguers some playing time. If we are out of the running, why not? How well the team is doing determines who gets called up in September and how much playing time that they get, for sure.

Twelvefield · 01-08-2007, 03:03 PM

I am on the fence regarding chemistry. I think that Markus used it in in older versions of OOTPB. If it exists here, it's not an over-riding factor, but you never know what will unbalance your team. It's hard enough to achieve that balance, it seems foolish to screw around with that by experimenting, unless of course your goal is to perform experiments rather than win games, which is certainly a valid way to play with OOTPB.

That being said, the players I would most likely bring up are pitchers (especially relievers) and catchers. You can never have too much decent pitching, and an extra relief catcher can help a lot if your team becomes prone to injury. The rest of the players, I would bring up based on an estimate of their value to the team versus the cost to give them major league contracts plus the aggravation factor of rejiggering the line-ups to accomodate them. Otherwise, if you bring them up and don't use them consistently, you just are paying them to watch your pennant race from the dug-out.

disposableheros · 01-08-2007, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by disposableheros

i do it to see whether or not a player is ready for the bigs, rather than to increase his ratings. sure its a small sample, but its better than no sample, right?

to further expand on what i mean....

i typically call up guys, when:

1) ive got a comfortable lead in the division and want to protect my superstars from the inevitable 5 week injury on september 26. these callups get the starting role for the whole month.

2) im in a tight race, have players in their walk year that im on the fence about, and have what i think may be their replacement in AAA. these callups typically start 2 times a week and act as the first backup.

3) im way out of it, have bigtime prospects that are on the verge of making a splash, and want to see if i should go ahead and spend some dough in FA to fill in my missing pieces. these callups get the starting role for the whole month.

Khrog · 01-09-2007, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

I don't believe that there is any "chemistry" in OOTPB, but I agree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule. If my players are playing well enough to be on a pennant run, then I am reluctant to disrupt the "data processing patterns" (chemistry?) of my team just to give some minor leaguers some playing time.

I don't know if there necessarily is or isn't anything called chemistry, but I suspect that there is some processing that does affect overall team performance. Why else would players have Leadership and Work Ethic ratings?

I do know that sometimes getting that Championship is super elusive for me. I recently created a league based on Midknight's Fictional Universe in a Box. I simmed with no human managers for 20 years and then selected a team that had never won the World Series. 5 years later they still haven't won the series despite making the playoffs 4 of the 5 years.(2nd season was injury riddled) Starting Pitching is the problem and I started addressing it immediately, but despite having the best rotation in the AL my team still couldn't get over the hump.

I bring this up because in the 4th year the team won 118 games and then got unceremoniously bounced out of the playoffs in the first round. I think it was in part because I tinkered with the roster before the playoffs to give everyone a couple well deserved breathers. The team still finished winning quite a bit, but the team as a whole hit .214 in the playoffs after averaging .299 as a unit during the season.

So, yes, I do think that you can addle a team thats chugging along seemingly unstoppable and ruin playoff hopes.

Curtis · 01-10-2007, 01:39 AM

You may be right about that, or it may be an artifact of small sample size, which is what I choose to believe mine was.

Some teams are built/designed to do well over the long haul, and others are built to do well in a short series. And sometimes limited series (even best of nine) are too short for probability to assert itself.

I played six seasons in a human-and-computer Strat-o-Matic league, which believe me has NO chemistry programmed in. We had 8-11 human players and 28-30 total teams, organized as in real world baseball from 1996-2001. I was the Dodgers, but in name only (I wanted Dodger Stadium because it was the best pitchers' park in 1996-8.)

My team finished first in the National League in the regular season all six years, including 118 wins in 1996 (my best team — the only year I finished better than the AL leader) and 119 in 2001 (my second best team, but the only year I finished behind two AL clubs). I had the lowest ERA every year, the lowest reliever ERA by a full point every year, the best fielding percentage by a wide margin (only 50-60 errors per season), the lowest BABIP by twenty points or more, the fewest stolen bases attempted against me AND the highest caught stealing percentage. My offense was only a little above average, usually finishing fifth or sixth out of 28 or 30 in runs scored, but leading in bases stolen and stolen base percentage nearly every year. So, how'd I do in the playoffs?

Every year my OBP and SP would drop fifty points each, my ERA would rise by one or more, my relievers' ERA would rise by two or more, I couldn't buy a stolen base (though no one stole off me, either), and my fielding went to hell. I lost two NLCS exclusively due to bad fielding. The one that hurt the most was when Steve Finley, who had gone errorless all season, cost me the sixth game of one series by commiting three-base errors on consecutive plays, then cost me the seventh game with ANOTHER three-base error.

Although I did make it past the first round every year, I went out in the NLCS both of the first two seasons, lost the WS to the Royals in the third and fourth years (making them threepeat champions), finally beat the Royals in year five, then lost to Anaheim in year six. My NLCS losses were both in seven games, but I only managed one total victory in my three WS losses. My sole WS championship, in seven games, was produced by my worst club. Basically Nomar won it single-handedly. He drove in more than half of my runs in each of the seven games and had the game-winning hit in all four victories.

I'm attributing my playoff career largely to bad luck, but part of it was team design. I had four to six pitchers every season finish in the top ten for the Cy Young award, but never had anyone crack the top three. The Royals had the top two (Martinez and Johnson) every year, though only occasionally a third guy lower down the list. When you've got Martinez and Johnson, you're made in the shade for a short series. Most of the other playoff teams would have one ace who was better than any of my guys. My team was built for the long haul — three right-handers and three left-handers who were almost interchangable (one or two would rotate through the minors each year, but I made sure to keep them all playoff eligible).

Same with my batting order. I platooned four to six positions a year, and both lineups had similar speed, power and fielding. I never had any boomers. Anaheim in 2001 had Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez. They killed me in the series, but I actually beat them by a dozen homers over the regular season, setting a record. I had eight players with 20-35 dingers that year, but no one I could count on for a homer in the clutch.

Talk to the 1906 Cubs, the 1954 Indians and the 2001 Mariners about small statistical samples. Maybe OotP does have a chemistry rating, but I don't know how you could ever prove it, short of Markus piping up to confirm.

01-04-2007, 03:19 AM	#1
White Sox All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 583	Sept Call Ups What advantages/disadvantages are there to calling up your biggest prospects once the rosters expand in Sept? Can their ratings really benefit or be hurt substantially from such a small amount of big league experience? __________________ "Pitching, Defense, and the Three-Run Homer."

01-04-2007, 12:16 PM	#3
disposableheros Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 4,332	i do it to see whether or not a player is ready for the bigs, rather than to increase his ratings. sure its a small sample, but its better than no sample, right? i know somewhere around here, Markus posted the fact that doing horrible at a level too high is bad for the players ratings, but i dont remember if he spelled out how long the player would have to be bad before the effects were felt, ie. 30 AB, 75 AB, 110 AB, etc. __________________ 2 Wild Cards, 11 Division Champs, 4 League Champs, 3 World Champs, and 3 Best GM awards Baseball Maelstrom - New York Mets - 180-149 .547 Corporate League Baseball - Coke Buzz - 889-649 .578 Western Hemisphere Baseball League - Santiago Saints - 672-793 .459 Record - 2428-2271 .517

01-08-2007, 03:03 PM	#12
Twelvefield All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 1,188	I am on the fence regarding chemistry. I think that Markus used it in in older versions of OOTPB. If it exists here, it's not an over-riding factor, but you never know what will unbalance your team. It's hard enough to achieve that balance, it seems foolish to screw around with that by experimenting, unless of course your goal is to perform experiments rather than win games, which is certainly a valid way to play with OOTPB. That being said, the players I would most likely bring up are pitchers (especially relievers) and catchers. You can never have too much decent pitching, and an extra relief catcher can help a lot if your team becomes prone to injury. The rest of the players, I would bring up based on an estimate of their value to the team versus the cost to give them major league contracts plus the aggravation factor of rejiggering the line-ups to accomodate them. Otherwise, if you bring them up and don't use them consistently, you just are paying them to watch your pennant race from the dug-out. Last edited by Twelvefield; 01-08-2007 at 03:04 PM.

01-04-2007, 09:09 AM	#2
1998 Yankees Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yankee Stadium, back in 1998. Posts: 8,645	Your top prospects are probably already on the 40-man roster, so the only drawback that I know of with September call-ups is that each player called up receives a major league contract which has an effect on your payroll. I like to think (imagine?) that the major league experience helps their performance and their transition to the parent club in the following season, but I am unsure whether the game actually works in this manner.

01-04-2007, 01:23 PM	#4
Exodor Major Leagues Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 481	Do September call-ups require the use of a minor-league option when you send them back down?

01-04-2007, 03:55 PM	#7
Curtis Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Watertown, New York Posts: 4,567	It was a month, but that might have been a throw-away statement. 1998 Yankees dug that reference out within the past month, so he'll probably be along shortly to dig it out again.

01-08-2007, 05:23 AM	#10
Twelvefield All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 1,188	Most minor league prospects need some kind of "warm up" time to get themselves up to the major league level, especially pitchers and catchers. Bringing them into the September call-up can give them a little of that warm-up time. But, there's downsides. One is that the call-ups get major-league contracts, which can screw up your finances, or at least put a wrench in your future plans, if you tend to "cycle" your call-ups to fit your finances. Another is that your team "chemistry" can get screwed up. "Chemistry" seems to be something that Markus has toyed with as both an explicit team variable and as something that runs under the hood of the game, unseen. Whether or not you believe in OOTPB team chemistry, there does seem to be something about having extra players to deal with that puts the brakes on a pennant run, at least most times for me. If your team isn't in the running for anything save the league basement, then this isn't such a big concern. On the other hand, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

01-10-2007, 01:39 AM	#15
Curtis Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Watertown, New York Posts: 4,567	You may be right about that, or it may be an artifact of small sample size, which is what I choose to believe mine was. Some teams are built/designed to do well over the long haul, and others are built to do well in a short series. And sometimes limited series (even best of nine) are too short for probability to assert itself. I played six seasons in a human-and-computer Strat-o-Matic league, which believe me has NO chemistry programmed in. We had 8-11 human players and 28-30 total teams, organized as in real world baseball from 1996-2001. I was the Dodgers, but in name only (I wanted Dodger Stadium because it was the best pitchers' park in 1996-8.) My team finished first in the National League in the regular season all six years, including 118 wins in 1996 (my best team — the only year I finished better than the AL leader) and 119 in 2001 (my second best team, but the only year I finished behind two AL clubs). I had the lowest ERA every year, the lowest reliever ERA by a full point every year, the best fielding percentage by a wide margin (only 50-60 errors per season), the lowest BABIP by twenty points or more, the fewest stolen bases attempted against me AND the highest caught stealing percentage. My offense was only a little above average, usually finishing fifth or sixth out of 28 or 30 in runs scored, but leading in bases stolen and stolen base percentage nearly every year. So, how'd I do in the playoffs? Every year my OBP and SP would drop fifty points each, my ERA would rise by one or more, my relievers' ERA would rise by two or more, I couldn't buy a stolen base (though no one stole off me, either), and my fielding went to hell. I lost two NLCS exclusively due to bad fielding. The one that hurt the most was when Steve Finley, who had gone errorless all season, cost me the sixth game of one series by commiting three-base errors on consecutive plays, then cost me the seventh game with ANOTHER three-base error. Although I did make it past the first round every year, I went out in the NLCS both of the first two seasons, lost the WS to the Royals in the third and fourth years (making them threepeat champions), finally beat the Royals in year five, then lost to Anaheim in year six. My NLCS losses were both in seven games, but I only managed one total victory in my three WS losses. My sole WS championship, in seven games, was produced by my worst club. Basically Nomar won it single-handedly. He drove in more than half of my runs in each of the seven games and had the game-winning hit in all four victories. I'm attributing my playoff career largely to bad luck, but part of it was team design. I had four to six pitchers every season finish in the top ten for the Cy Young award, but never had anyone crack the top three. The Royals had the top two (Martinez and Johnson) every year, though only occasionally a third guy lower down the list. When you've got Martinez and Johnson, you're made in the shade for a short series. Most of the other playoff teams would have one ace who was better than any of my guys. My team was built for the long haul — three right-handers and three left-handers who were almost interchangable (one or two would rotate through the minors each year, but I made sure to keep them all playoff eligible). Same with my batting order. I platooned four to six positions a year, and both lineups had similar speed, power and fielding. I never had any boomers. Anaheim in 2001 had Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez. They killed me in the series, but I actually beat them by a dozen homers over the regular season, setting a record. I had eight players with 20-35 dingers that year, but no one I could count on for a homer in the clutch. Talk to the 1906 Cubs, the 1954 Indians and the 2001 Mariners about small statistical samples. Maybe OotP does have a chemistry rating, but I don't know how you could ever prove it, short of Markus piping up to confirm.