Can I set up a League like a soccer league?

[brado09]

Meaning, I take the top 16 Major League teams and put them in a "premier" league, and the remaining 14 in a "second" division. But all 30 teams still keep their minor league affiliates.

Also, I'd want to remove the playoffs and have the promotion/relegation setup just like professional soccer leagues do.

I tried to do a custom setup in OOTP9, and it's either not there, or I couldn't figure out how to do it. Thanks.

[Nasty5037]

Never thought of that before. That would be pretty cool but I doubt it's in the game. I'd love to see something like this in OOTP at some point.

[fhomess]

You can actually do this in OOTP9. It's easy to turn off the postseason in game setup. You can realign the leagues to your hearts content in Edit League Structure from the game setup screens. Minor league affiliates stay when realigning major league teams into different divisions. It's a bit of work, but it's possible.

[kq76]

I did basically that with a fictional league. The only thing is you need to do the promotion/relegation manually and at the beginning of the pre-season.

[Nasty5037]

Originally Posted by kq76

I did basically that with a fictional league. The only thing is you need to do the promotion/relegation manually and at the beginning of the pre-season.

Guess you're right I've done something like that before except I've moved teams with low attendance to another major league, not entirely due to W/L. It would be nice to see it done automatically makes it seem more official. I might have to try something like this when 10 comes out.

[kq76]

I agree, I'd rather it'd be programmed into the game to do it automatically as not only would it be easier that way, but the history would look proper too. As it is, it's difficult to see what league a team was in each year. The only thing is how would everyone like to have it, the top/bottom 2 teams, 1 team, what and should it be determined by playoff or regular season? You could probably program in all those choices, but for the many people who complain about anything non-MLB added to the game it'd be difficult to justify to Markus. At least it's possible to do it manually. I'd rather see byes added which aren't possible by any means that I can see.

[andymac]

The other problem is that the AI won't be aware of possible relagation. So, re-building teams may not necessarily make any moves to avoid it.

[Antonin]

This is an option I'd like very much to see. I know it can be done manually, but I 'd prefer something handled automatically by the game. I doubt it will ever happen, though.

[andymac]

Originally Posted by Antonin

I doubt it will ever happen, though.

I actually think that is a poor assumption. It seems to me a decent amount of people want this option, and Markus tends to listen to those who play the game quite a bit (sometimes too much IMO). So, I see there being a pretty good chance that this eventually makes it in...how soon is another question and the answer will probably depend a lot on how much time it would take to implement.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by andymac

I actually think that is a poor assumption. It seems to me a decent amount of people want this option, and Markus tends to listen to those who play the game quite a bit (sometimes too much IMO). So, I see there being a pretty good chance that this eventually makes it in...how soon is another question and the answer will probably depend a lot on how much time it would take to implement.

Maybe you're right. Sorry; I'm just in a pessimistic mood today.

[treedom]

This would be a nice option.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by brado09

Meaning, I take the top 16 Major League teams and put them in a "premier" league, and the remaining 14 in a "second" division. But all 30 teams still keep their minor league affiliates.

Also, I'd want to remove the playoffs and have the promotion/relegation setup just like professional soccer leagues do.

I tried to do a custom setup in OOTP9, and it's either not there, or I couldn't figure out how to do it. Thanks.

alert: this is not soccer

[TribeFanInNC]

Yeah, I'm more in the 'if you want soccer, play FM' camp also. I have no desire to see the Pirates playing in the International League.

[andymac]

Soccer is certainly not the only sport in the world that uses promotion/regulation.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Yeah, I'm more in the 'if you want soccer, play FM' camp also. I have no desire to see the Pirates playing in the International League.

Well, it's only due to geographical luck that North American sports use the closed league model while sports leagues elsewhere use the open league model. Had things been a little different, baseball might have adopted a promotion/relegation system, or conversely, sports league elsewhere might have followed the closed league system prevalent in North America.

[treedom]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Yeah, I'm more in the 'if you want soccer, play FM' camp also. I have no desire to see the Pirates playing in the International League.

I don't want to play soccer. I want to play baseball with promotion/regulation.

[Zeppelin462]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

alert: this is not soccer

No need for the snarky comment.

Just because soccer uses it and baseball does not does not mean a baseball game cannot. I see nothing wrong with wanting to try a different league structure, especially considering that this is an open-ended game meant to be played around with.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by Zeppelin462

No need for the snarky comment.

Just because soccer uses it and baseball does not does not mean a baseball game cannot. I see nothing wrong with wanting to try a different league structure, especially considering that this is an open-ended game meant to be played around with.

I think the snarkiness comes from the fact that this comes up every year. There is a sentiment that creating things like this takes away from fixing AI problems and adding things more useful things like proper arbitration, AI updates, and in-game widgets that do make it a better baseball game.

No, there is nothing inherently wrong with a promotion/relegation setup if that is what you want. Though I don't think the casual baseball fan cares about sending the Pirates to the NY-Penn League.

[DrArbiter]

Originally Posted by treedom

I don't want to play soccer. I want to play baseball with promotion/regulation.

A majority of professional baseball leagues in the world use promotion and relegation; the Dutch and Italian leagues -- neither of which are total slouches, as the WBC showed -- practice it. As does the Bundesliga in Markus' own home. So, there's a very cogent argument for including a promotion and relegation system in principle; as you note, it's not "playing soccer."

[Sdpm100]

Originally Posted by DrArbiter

A majority of professional baseball leagues in the world use promotion and relegation; the Dutch and Italian leagues -- neither of which are total slouches, as the WBC showed -- practice it. As does the Bundesliga in Markus' own home. So, there's a very cogent argument for including a promotion and relegation system in principle; as you note, it's not "playing soccer."

I'm not quite sure how a few low level European leagues make it the majority. I don't know of any leagues in the traditional baseball world that use promotion/relegation. Could be missing something though. And if a pan-European league was ever set up, it would almost certainly be enfranchised.
Not to say if there's an easy solution/nothing else to add of importance then get it in by all means. But as TribeFan mentions this is one of many that have been mentioned every iteration but they still don't get in.
There's a more glaring need for the Japanese/Korean tied game rule to be added (and this would eliminate those 19 inning Spring Training games) but again that is still not in there.