Ficitional League Question

[Unoriginal Name]

I've been toying with the notion of starting a fictional league. I am just a little apprehensive of having to try to learn who all the players are in the league that you don't have to do in a historical league because of name recognition.

I would like to know what are some of the ways that those who play fictional leagues learn the players of their leagues?

[Who Killed Kenny?]

The best way to get to know the players is by managing or GMing a team. Another thing I do is study the leaderboards. I probably spend more time looking at stats for my fake people than I do playing the game! From version 5 to 2007 I have 120 seasons of stats and players. And now I have managers too!!

[chippered]

Originally Posted by Unoriginal Name

I've been toying with the notion of starting a fictional league. I am just a little apprehensive of having to try to learn who all the players are in the league that you don't have to do in a historical league because of name recognition.

I would like to know what are some of the ways that those who play fictional leagues learn the players of their leagues?

Start with an eight or ten team league. There will be less players, so it will be easier to remember them. Also, at the end of each month check the league news and the rosters of the other teams in the league. If you mostly sim, try playing out a couple of games a month against different teams. That will help you learn some of the other players in the league.

After you get used to the players and scope of your league, you can do an expansion and add to your league, if you want. This is what I do, and its pretty darned fun.

[Mrexbaseball]

Originally Posted by chippered

Start with an eight or ten team league. There will be less players, so it will be easier to remember them. Also, at the end of each month check the league news and the rosters of the other teams in the league. If you mostly sim, try playing out a couple of games a month against different teams. That will help you learn some of the other players in the league.

After you get used to the players and scope of your league, you can do an expansion and add to your league, if you want. This is what I do, and its pretty darned fun.

Can you tell us a little more about your league? I like hearing about fictional leagues so I can get some ideas of what I want to do...

[Sven Draconian]

I've just started a 10 team league. Im simming 10 years of history beofre I take over, but already after 4 years I have a good idea of the league stars, and by just browsing over the champions roster I get a good feel for the players in the league. With only 10 teams, and the fact its had 3 different champs in 5 years, I've taken a solid look at 3 teams, plus news reports and leaderboards for the others.

By the time I expand and take over a team after the 10 years, I'll have atleast looked at most of the league at some point, and have (percentage wise) the same recognition of players in this league as I do with the actual MLB.

[RchW]

This is probably repetitive but play out some games, sim others. Don't worry about getting fired. My favorite fictional league was one where I managed four different teams over 20 seasons. I find that after about 5 seasons you know who the key players are. You'll also find that certain organizations are alway good (or bad). I actually don't look at too many players from the other league (AL or NL), unless I need to trade.

The shortlist feature is like your own personal scouting list. I put in players who interest me, even guys I trade away.

[chippered]

Originally Posted by Mrexbaseball

Can you tell us a little more about your league? I like hearing about fictional leagues so I can get some ideas of what I want to do...

Its kinda boring I guess. The league started in 2000, after the Great War (lame I know, but whatever). The league started from scratch, the way the early major leagues began, but with more credability and a more thought out format. 12 cities in the north, central, and eastern US were tabbed as the starting point of the league, as the west and south were heavily damaged from the war.

Foriegner percentage is set at eight percent, as most foreigners now stay away from the US because of their past global policies. This will change in time, along with further expansion, but this is how it is for now.

All teams are patterned after former major league teams. I found each city on yahoo maps and picked suburbs around the city to be minor league towns. This was actually pretty fun, as I found some amusing names. It also helps to give me some familiarity to the minor league teams.

I use full minors and both high school and college feeder leagues.

The final twist is something I do with all of my leagues. Using the Lahman data base, I import ten or so so players into the league every couple of years and I follow their progress. This is the best part of the league, for me, and is another way to get involved in the other teams.

Thats about it, off the top of my head. I'll post more if I can think of anything. Interested in others ideas.

[Mrexbaseball]

Originally Posted by chippered

Its kinda boring I guess. The league started in 2000, after the Great War (lame I know, but whatever). The league started from scratch, the way the early major leagues began, but with more credability and a more thought out format. 12 cities in the north, central, and eastern US were tabbed as the starting point of the league, as the west and south were heavily damaged from the war.

Foriegner percentage is set at eight percent, as most foreigners now stay away from the US because of their past global policies. This will change in time, along with further expansion, but this is how it is for now.

All teams are patterned after former major league teams. I found each city on yahoo maps and picked suburbs around the city to be minor league towns. This was actually pretty fun, as I found some amusing names. It also helps to give me some familiarity to the minor league teams.

I use full minors and both high school and college feeder leagues.

The final twist is something I do with all of my leagues. Using the Lahman data base, I import ten or so so players into the league every couple of years and I follow their progress. This is the best part of the league, for me, and is another way to get involved in the other teams.

Thats about it, off the top of my head. I'll post more if I can think of anything. Interested in others ideas.

Sounds pretty interesting...what year are you in now?

[chippered]

Originally Posted by Mrexbaseball

Sounds pretty interesting...what year are you in now?

Heh, 2001. I usually spend the first year or two looking around and stuff. I started it last week, but so far so good.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Unoriginal Name

I would like to know what are some of the ways that those who play fictional leagues learn the players of their leagues?

Originally Posted by Who Killed Kenny?

The best way to get to know the players is by managing or GMing a team. Another thing I do is study the leaderboards.

Try also to study the other teams, at least at the end of each season. Why did some teams move up and others move down? Who were the stars and who were the bums that caused this?

Originally Posted by chippered

Start with an eight or ten team league. There will be less players, so it will be easier to remember them. Also, at the end of each month check the league news and the rosters of the other teams in the league. If you mostly sim, try playing out a couple of games a month against different teams. That will help you learn some of the other players in the league.

After you get used to the players and scope of your league, you can do an expansion and add to your league, if you want.

All good advice; I just want to add that if you do all of these things, as seasons go by the names will become very familiar and you will find yourself following the careers of the standout players.

Originally Posted by chippered

Its kinda boring I guess. The league started in 2000, after the Great War (lame I know, but whatever). The league started from scratch, the way the early major leagues began, but with more credability and a more thought out format. 12 cities in the north, central, and eastern US were tabbed as the starting point of the league, as the west and south were heavily damaged from the war.

Foriegner percentage is set at eight percent, as most foreigners now stay away from the US because of their past global policies. This will change in time, along with further expansion, but this is how it is for now.

Not boring nor lame! Baseball meets Geopolitics - you have a good imagination.

[cbbl]

I do something very similar to chippered, and I concur its an easy way to learn your players -- and OOTP itself.

My league starts in 1947 as a four-team league based in California. There is no back-story to the league, nor do I attempt to weave reality into my world as far as other leagues go -- but I do insist, as best I can, that statistical and financial reality exist.

Anyway, in addition to the parent league (dubbed the California Baseball League), a minor league (named simply the CB Development League) also exists. Like chippered, I too looked at a map to determine locations for my minor league teams.

I generally play OOTP in Commissioner Mode, but also act as the GM of one of the teams. Starting with the inaugural draft, I spend plenty of time reviewing and selecting the first round of players. To make things easy from the game perspective, I keep financials on, but have disabled free agency, arbitration, waivers, and the secondary roster. These things will be added in time as I get to learn more about the software.

I've planned out the progression of the league for the first 25 years, which includes everything from relocation of both parent league and development league teams to expansion of both the # of teams in the parent league as well as the addition of new levels of minor leagues. Along the way, some teams will change names, and others will change their minor league affiliates. By the time the league hits its 25 year anniversay it will have gone from a 4-team league with a single development league to a 16-team league with at least 3 levels of minors.

Part of the fun was crafting the "alternate reality" of the league. For example, one of the inaugural parent league teams is the Sacramento Sluggers. Their development league affiliate is located in Carson City, NV, and are called the Cowboys. However, due to financial issues, Carson City doesn't survive past its first year and folds. A new affiliate will have to be found for year two! Sacramento itself doesn't last too long, as 6 years into the league it ups and relocates to Oakland.

I haven't yet made it past spring training, as I've been spending all of my time reviewing the results and tweaking the settings in OOTP to get the realism I'm looking for (including adjusting financial-based settings to force failure of teams like Carson City). I can't wait to actually get to season one -- but expect that I'll likely backup the league at the end of the year, and spend lots of time tinkering with OOTP to make sure year two is where I want it as well.

For me, I only deal with fictional leagues for I think the fiction is the fun -- especially when it comes to the players as you have no preconceived idea of how they should -- or will -- perform. Add the fun of being able to manipulate your reality any way you see fit and well, I don't think I'd play the game any other way!

YMMV

cbbl

[Honolulu Blue]

Originally Posted by Unoriginal Name

I would like to know what are some of the ways that those who play fictional leagues learn the players of their leagues?

No special tricks here, just a lot of focus.

As mentioned elsewhere, it helps to have a small league.

But in the beginning, you should focus on your own team. Who are the stars? Who are the scrubs? Who should be spotlighted and who needs to be replaced? You can get an idea of this by going through the ratings and stats, and making out the lineups and rotations.

Once you've got a good idea about who's on your team, then take a look at the minors. Who are the hot prospects that will be tomorrow's stars? Who will be the suspects that are just taking up space? Again, it helps to have short drafts and ghost players, to keep the amount of players you need to know to a minimum.

Then look out to the rest of the league. Take a look at those guys on the trading block and the others offered in trades. If you can use 'em, great - you know what to do. If not (as is the usual case), try to figure out why they're being offered on both ends. And take a look at the leader board; in a small league, the same guys tend to pop up in the same categories year after year. Get to know them, and you'll get to know the league.

[Kuttner]

There are a lot of good ideas in this thread. The thing I really like to get into, so that I learn a lot of the players, is the Inaugural Draft. I'll spend days researching all the players, ratings, ages, L/R throwing/batting, etc. I 'll record a lot of the data in Excel spreadsheets and sort it. For my 2007 league I ran Facegen on all players BEFORE the draft. It was strange... I found myself identifying with players before the draft even started.

I also use a serpentine draft, so that if I give myself an early pick I have to wait a LONG time before my next pick. This is a great way to get to know the players as, one by one, they all go to other teams. I certainly remember them when the season starts.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by Unoriginal Name

I would like to know what are some of the ways that those who play fictional leagues learn the players of their leagues?

[jbmagic]

One advice is to learn your team and minor league first in a fictional league.

[Sinclair]

I have one trick that helps me a lot... I pop open an Excel spreadsheet while I play and breeze around the league looking at rotations and depth charts. Any guy that catches my eye (that is any potential All-Star), I'll type out his name, team, and position on my spreadsheet. Most importantly, I'll throw in a quick note (usually a sentence or two) about strengths and weaknesses. If the player's in my organization, I'll also make something up about his personality (based on popularity, leadership, work ethic, etc...). If he's not, I'll either do that or make a snide comment.

I find that I retain names better that way. Along with periodic browsing of my Excel cheat sheet and looking up names when they pop up in the news, I find that within a couple of in-game months, I have a good feel for the Big Names in the game.

[Mrexbaseball]

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[SSG Troyer]

I sim just under a hundred years. The 100 years give my league a history, with it's own small-ball heros, golden-age studs, etc ... there are historical powerhouses, and perennial losers. Then I create a super-stud rookie (erm, now a COL feeder player) and give him my name, and follow "me" through his COL career, popping over to the majors to peek at the big boys every now and then.

When "I" graduate and enter the draft, I will take over whichever team drafts "me."

[J.HenryWaugh]

This is actually the third incarnation of my UBA. But one thing I have done with each running is, of course, control all of the locations, names, stadiums of all of the teams (I started in 1911 with two 8-team leagues, with full minors).

My two leagues (Union and Confederate) are strictly geographical, and while early 20th century travel makes it impossible that a team in Portland or Seattle would make it to Pittsburgh or Boston for a series in a day or two, I haven't allowed it to bother me.

But what helps me get to know the players is two-fold: 1. Pay attention to the news. The stars will make more headlines, and you will soon get to see which players (and teams) are building your league's history; and 2. I create my own players, usually four to six each season. These players will be young high minor-leaguers with almost assured chances of making the show, and with a better than decent chance of becoming impact players. Some of these players come from my fertile imagination; others are culled from the literary world (like Roy Hobbs and Bump Bailey from "The Natural" and several decades worth of talent from Robert Coover's classic "Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh Proprietor", which inspired this league in the first place).

I almost always play in Commish mode, although I DID run the Pioneers during their glory years, when they had the likes of Mose Stanford, Frosty Young, Christian Randall, Jonathan Noon, Gabe Burdette, Barney Bancroft, Toothbrush Terrigan, Birdwell Deaton and Brock Rutherford led Portland to ten pennants and nine Diamond King Championships in 11 years (1928-38)

[DCG12]

I second the idea of keeping it small to start. I currently am playing a 16 team set up, 2-8 team leagues (think MLB circa 1950) with no interleague. I also play a short schedule of 112 games (16 games against the other 7 teams in lg). I also keep it simple, no scouts,three levels of minors, no "world leagues" i.e. Japan or Mexico.

I adjusted the hall of fame requirements to reflect the short schedule and I play with 4 man rotations. Financials while current in dollars have been tweaked as far as salary levels for the various level of player to keep things in line with the reduced gate income.

The short schedule allows me to play out all my teams games in a very reasonable amount of time so the seasons start to pile up and you begin to learn the history.

Follow the stats page and look at league champions etc. and you will be amazed how fast you start recognizing names.

[Ignatius J]

I use a small league and write a "season preview" for each team before the season, broken down into position strengths, weaknesses, etc. It's a great way to learn about the other players in the league.