Feeder Leagues

zonk84 · 06-17-2009, 09:47 PM

I never used feeder leagues in previous versions - but giving it a shot this time...

The manual is pretty sparse on them, though...

Do others use feeder leagues? Any advice?

The first issue I'm running across is overloading my draft pool -- I wanted to add a stitch of realism, so I probably overcreated a bit... My college feeder league only has a single league, but 6 divisions (5 major conferences + another conference of teams that didn't make the conference cut) and the high school feeder features all-star teams for each state.

The problem, of course, in a standard MLB setup, this is yielding about 81 rounds of draftable players.

I'm a bit worried about overloading the draft pool with top talent-- anything I can do to tweak this? Maybe tweaking the creation modifiers? How about limiting roster sizes? I've got the schedules throttled way back to 35 games at the college level and 25 at the HS level -- so I've adjusted rotations accordingly.

I know the easiest answer is cut the number of teams, but I kind of like the structure I've created and just wondered if anyone else has found a way for such a system to work without overgenerating draft talent.

zonk84 · 06-17-2009, 09:52 PM

And BTW - no - I won't reveal which 5 conferences I deemed 'major' to avoid a flame war

megamanmatt · 06-17-2009, 09:57 PM

Honestly I wouldn't worry about "overloading" the draft with talent. Normally when just generating players for the draft without feeders I set the game to make enough players to draft for at least twice as many rounds as I'm drafting (Example: for a 30 round draft I generate players enough players for 60 rounds) otherwise I see maybe one or two rounds of quality players followed by 28 rounds of scrubs.

zonk84 · 06-17-2009, 10:01 PM

That's actually a good point considering I was just aligning myself with the "draft pools are too thin" camp in another thread.

megamanmatt · 06-17-2009, 10:05 PM

I've had tons of players drafted in late rounds that have ended up as star players too. I also tend to play with independent leagues so it's nice to have more players for them to use as well.

jaax · 06-17-2009, 10:46 PM

Ok so I'm going to start a new, regular 2009 MLB league, when the patch comes out.

How should I set up the feeder leagues? I'm going to leave everything the way it is, like 30 round draft, etc. Whatever comes with the game. Has anyone figured out what the best setup is for the standard game? I want at least 1 high school and 1 college league.

Thanks!

jaax · 06-17-2009, 10:47 PM

By the way, has anyone used international leagues, like Japanese baseball, etc? If so, do you turn trading off between MLB and the international leagues? I want to be able to somehow acquire a player that I see is tearing it up in Japan, but obviously trading between an MLB team and a Japanese team is unrealistic. Is there any other normal way to do it?

megamanmatt · 06-17-2009, 10:52 PM

You can have it so when they become free agents players can move between leagues, like a SP from a Japanese club can be signed by a US team once he becomes a free agent, and vice versa for US players going to Japan.

rjv3 · 06-18-2009, 11:03 AM

I'm actually having sort of the opposite problem.

I started a 2009 MLB season with the idea of adding both HS(15-18) and College(18-21) feeders. I wanted to feed the majority of a 15 round draft with these players (with the fed draft pool approx. 60% HS and 40% College players) and have the comp generate the rest. So I did the math and found that 64 teams would yield me approx 384 players which would be enough for roughly 12.5 rounds. This would put the other, "unknown" computer-generated talent at approx. 7.5 rounds worth. So I made a College league (2 SL, 3 Div, 26 teams total) and a HS league (2 SL, 3 Div, 38 teams total), fixed the league start dates for 4/5/09, regenerated the schedules, set the active rosters at "no limit" and told the game to generate and fill with fictional players. I also set the MLB draft settings to 15 rounds (generate for 20) and "feed + additional." Then the confusion started...

First, I wanted to sort (I'm playing in Commish mode, btw) the players to see how many current 18-year olds and 21-year olds there were to get an early sense of the draft-eliglbe players. I found that there weren't enough 18 year-olds (maybe 40 at the time, I think 56 on Draft Day) and I couldn't even sort through the College ranks. I set-up a filter to show only players on the College level and 21 years old... nothing. Same thing with the other College-age ages. So, what's up with that?
Second, the total number of College player's that ended up draft-eligible was only around 40. So out of 64 teams, when the MLB released the draft pool, I ended up with > 100 players from my feeder league when I should have gotten over 375. The compute generated close to 500 players. *I ran this exact setup in a custom game with the "standar major league" structure and it worked fine.*

So can anyone help me with this? Did setting the MLB draft to 15 rounds, generate 20 screw me up? Would it work better if I did "15 rounds, generate 5"? It's just very strange that I could have the same amount of feeder teams produce 375+ players that were draft-eligible in a custom game but only 96 in the 2009 ML game while using the exact same settings.

Dr. Wu · 06-18-2009, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjv3

First, I wanted to sort (I'm playing in Commish mode, btw) the players to see how many current 18-year olds and 21-year olds there were to get an early sense of the draft-eliglbe players. I found that there weren't enough 18 year-olds (maybe 40 at the time, I think 56 on Draft Day) and I couldn't even sort through the College ranks. I set-up a filter to show only players on the College level and 21 years old... nothing. Same thing with the other College-age ages. So, what's up with that?
Second, the total number of College player's that ended up draft-eligible was only around 40. So out of 64 teams, when the MLB released the draft pool, I ended up with > 100 players from my feeder league when I should have gotten over 375. The compute generated close to 500 players. *I ran this exact setup in a custom game with the "standar major league" structure and it worked fine.*

So can anyone help me with this? Did setting the MLB draft to 15 rounds, generate 20 screw me up? Would it work better if I did "15 rounds, generate 5"? It's just very strange that I could have the same amount of feeder teams produce 375+ players that were draft-eligible in a custom game but only 96 in the 2009 ML game while using the exact same settings.

Is this the first season the feeder leagues have been working? I don't use them myself, but I think it takes a few seasons for them to get up and running properly.

rjv3 · 06-18-2009, 12:48 PM

Dr. Wu, yes this would have been right after the initial setup and sim to "first year player pool revealed."

The weird thing tho is that I have a lot more draft-eligible guys than what it is showing. For example I have 7 guys from one team who should be listed but only 3 of them show up.

Plus the whole "sorting" function is weird. Of the 92 HS+College draft eligible guys I have right now (I just started a new game to test this again), 56 of them are College age but when I go to "Sort, League Level = College" it only shows 10 guys.

rjv3 · 06-18-2009, 01:43 PM

OK I simmed the first year and as I am about to start the second year the game stops on opening day and gives me the following message:

Elyria HS has an illegal number of players on the active roster! (0)

Well, there are so many problems with this because I have no team called Elyria HS; or team nickname; or college team; or college team nickname; or... you get the idea. So, now I am completely stuck as well as completely clueless. Anyone have any ideas? Is this a bug?

neojonas · 06-18-2009, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zonk84

The problem, of course, in a standard MLB setup, this is yielding about 81 rounds of draftable players.

Funny you should say 81. There's a bug that sometimes pops up when you create a feeder league or change it's structure your major league draft options can change. Number of draft rounds becomes blank and the "generate players for x rounds" becomes 81. Check to make sure that didn't happen to you.

neojonas · 06-18-2009, 02:39 PM

Check out this thread for more info on feeders and how to set them up for the major league setup.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...e-feeders.html

rjv3 · 06-18-2009, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neojonas

Check out this thread for more info on feeders and how to set them up for the major league setup.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...e-feeders.html

This is a good thread and offers some great information, but it doesn't look like anyone is having the same problem as me. Once again, has anyone seen a similar message as this:

Elyria HS has an illegal number of players on the active roster! (0)

Even if the team in question doesn't exist in your universe?

megamanmatt · 06-18-2009, 09:28 PM

Have you tried just hitting the "fill all teams with fictional players" button in league options. I know you've said you don't have a HS team with the name but it is a name for a HS obviously so I'd say give it a try. It shouldn't hurt your other teams because it won't replace players that are already there.

rjv3 · 06-18-2009, 10:07 PM

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try this asap.

rjv3 · 06-19-2009, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megamanmatt

Have you tried just hitting the "fill all teams with fictional players" button in league options. I know you've said you don't have a HS team with the name but it is a name for a HS obviously so I'd say give it a try. It shouldn't hurt your other teams because it won't replace players that are already there.

Unfortunately this doesn't work either. Anyone else have any suggestions?

spleen1015 · 06-19-2009, 09:47 AM

I would start a thread in the tech support forum.

06-17-2009, 09:47 PM	#1
zonk84 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 263	Feeder Leagues I never used feeder leagues in previous versions - but giving it a shot this time... The manual is pretty sparse on them, though... Do others use feeder leagues? Any advice? The first issue I'm running across is overloading my draft pool -- I wanted to add a stitch of realism, so I probably overcreated a bit... My college feeder league only has a single league, but 6 divisions (5 major conferences + another conference of teams that didn't make the conference cut) and the high school feeder features all-star teams for each state. The problem, of course, in a standard MLB setup, this is yielding about 81 rounds of draftable players. I'm a bit worried about overloading the draft pool with top talent-- anything I can do to tweak this? Maybe tweaking the creation modifiers? How about limiting roster sizes? I've got the schedules throttled way back to 35 games at the college level and 25 at the HS level -- so I've adjusted rotations accordingly. I know the easiest answer is cut the number of teams, but I kind of like the structure I've created and just wondered if anyone else has found a way for such a system to work without overgenerating draft talent.

06-17-2009, 09:52 PM	#2
zonk84 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 263	And BTW - no - I won't reveal which 5 conferences I deemed 'major' to avoid a flame war

06-17-2009, 09:57 PM	#3
megamanmatt Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lakeville, Minnesota Posts: 2,416	Honestly I wouldn't worry about "overloading" the draft with talent. Normally when just generating players for the draft without feeders I set the game to make enough players to draft for at least twice as many rounds as I'm drafting (Example: for a 30 round draft I generate players enough players for 60 rounds) otherwise I see maybe one or two rounds of quality players followed by 28 rounds of scrubs.

06-17-2009, 10:01 PM	#4
zonk84 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 263	That's actually a good point considering I was just aligning myself with the "draft pools are too thin" camp in another thread.

06-17-2009, 10:05 PM	#5
megamanmatt Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lakeville, Minnesota Posts: 2,416	I've had tons of players drafted in late rounds that have ended up as star players too. I also tend to play with independent leagues so it's nice to have more players for them to use as well.

06-17-2009, 10:46 PM	#6
jaax Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Philadelphia Posts: 31	Ok so I'm going to start a new, regular 2009 MLB league, when the patch comes out. How should I set up the feeder leagues? I'm going to leave everything the way it is, like 30 round draft, etc. Whatever comes with the game. Has anyone figured out what the best setup is for the standard game? I want at least 1 high school and 1 college league. Thanks!

06-17-2009, 10:47 PM	#7
jaax Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Philadelphia Posts: 31	By the way, has anyone used international leagues, like Japanese baseball, etc? If so, do you turn trading off between MLB and the international leagues? I want to be able to somehow acquire a player that I see is tearing it up in Japan, but obviously trading between an MLB team and a Japanese team is unrealistic. Is there any other normal way to do it?

06-17-2009, 10:52 PM	#8
megamanmatt Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lakeville, Minnesota Posts: 2,416	You can have it so when they become free agents players can move between leagues, like a SP from a Japanese club can be signed by a US team once he becomes a free agent, and vice versa for US players going to Japan.

06-18-2009, 11:03 AM	#9
rjv3 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 45	I'm actually having sort of the opposite problem. I started a 2009 MLB season with the idea of adding both HS(15-18) and College(18-21) feeders. I wanted to feed the majority of a 15 round draft with these players (with the fed draft pool approx. 60% HS and 40% College players) and have the comp generate the rest. So I did the math and found that 64 teams would yield me approx 384 players which would be enough for roughly 12.5 rounds. This would put the other, "unknown" computer-generated talent at approx. 7.5 rounds worth. So I made a College league (2 SL, 3 Div, 26 teams total) and a HS league (2 SL, 3 Div, 38 teams total), fixed the league start dates for 4/5/09, regenerated the schedules, set the active rosters at "no limit" and told the game to generate and fill with fictional players. I also set the MLB draft settings to 15 rounds (generate for 20) and "feed + additional." Then the confusion started... First, I wanted to sort (I'm playing in Commish mode, btw) the players to see how many current 18-year olds and 21-year olds there were to get an early sense of the draft-eliglbe players. I found that there weren't enough 18 year-olds (maybe 40 at the time, I think 56 on Draft Day) and I couldn't even sort through the College ranks. I set-up a filter to show only players on the College level and 21 years old... nothing. Same thing with the other College-age ages. So, what's up with that? Second, the total number of College player's that ended up draft-eligible was only around 40. So out of 64 teams, when the MLB released the draft pool, I ended up with > 100 players from my feeder league when I should have gotten over 375. The compute generated close to 500 players. *I ran this exact setup in a custom game with the "standar major league" structure and it worked fine.* So can anyone help me with this? Did setting the MLB draft to 15 rounds, generate 20 screw me up? Would it work better if I did "15 rounds, generate 5"? It's just very strange that I could have the same amount of feeder teams produce 375+ players that were draft-eligible in a custom game but only 96 in the 2009 ML game while using the exact same settings.

06-18-2009, 12:48 PM	#11
rjv3 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 45	Dr. Wu, yes this would have been right after the initial setup and sim to "first year player pool revealed." The weird thing tho is that I have a lot more draft-eligible guys than what it is showing. For example I have 7 guys from one team who should be listed but only 3 of them show up. Plus the whole "sorting" function is weird. Of the 92 HS+College draft eligible guys I have right now (I just started a new game to test this again), 56 of them are College age but when I go to "Sort, League Level = College" it only shows 10 guys.

06-18-2009, 01:43 PM	#12
rjv3 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 45	OK I simmed the first year and as I am about to start the second year the game stops on opening day and gives me the following message: Elyria HS has an illegal number of players on the active roster! (0) Well, there are so many problems with this because I have no team called Elyria HS; or team nickname; or college team; or college team nickname; or... you get the idea. So, now I am completely stuck as well as completely clueless. Anyone have any ideas? Is this a bug?

06-18-2009, 02:39 PM	#14
neojonas All Star Starter Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,078	Check out this thread for more info on feeders and how to set them up for the major league setup. http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...e-feeders.html

06-18-2009, 09:28 PM	#16
megamanmatt Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lakeville, Minnesota Posts: 2,416	Have you tried just hitting the "fill all teams with fictional players" button in league options. I know you've said you don't have a HS team with the name but it is a name for a HS obviously so I'd say give it a try. It shouldn't hurt your other teams because it won't replace players that are already there.

06-18-2009, 10:07 PM	#17
rjv3 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 45	Thanks for the suggestion, I will try this asap.

06-19-2009, 09:47 AM	#19
spleen1015 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 6,008	I would start a thread in the tech support forum.