What's your rookie and short-season A setup?

[Antonin]

In the past I've only used AAA, AA and A minors, but I'm thinking of adding rookie and short-A leagues to the league I've created in OOTPX.

What setting are others using for these levels? Age limits, etc?

[Antonin]

Anybody?

[nymets3000]

No age limits or anything, I just use the default values for them and it seems to work fine. The season doesn't start until after the draft takes place in June.

[gord]

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that rookie leagues have a 25-year age limit, so I use that. If I have two rookie league teams, I have one for teenagers and one for college players.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by gord

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that rookie leagues have a 25-year age limit, so I use that.

Not according to the Baseball America Directory 2008.

Here's what it lists for the Rookie Advanced and Rookie class leagues in terms of player eligibility limitations:

• Appalachian League—No more than two years of prior minor league service.
• Pioneer League—No more than 17 players 21 and older, provided that no more than two are 23 or older. No player on active list may have three or more years of prior minor league service.
• Arizona League—No more than 12 players 20 or older, no more than four players 21 or older, and no more than four players of any age not selected in the 2007 first-year draft. A maximum of four foreign players not subject to the draft playing in the United States for the first time are exempt from the age limits.
• Gulf Coast League—No age restrictions. No player who has two more more years of prior minor league and/or major league service time can participate.

The primary way minor league participation has been limited throughout minor league history has been by service limits, not age limits.

[gord]

Excellent - that's good to know.

[Dr. Wu]

Originally Posted by nymets3000

No age limits or anything, I just use the default values for them and it seems to work fine. The season doesn't start until after the draft takes place in June.

If you hold your drafts in the offseason, it may make sense to extend the schedule so that your draftees get more playing time that season.

[milkman41]

Originally Posted by gord

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that rookie leagues have a 25-year age limit, so I use that. If I have two rookie league teams, I have one for teenagers and one for college players.

What are your settings and whatnot for the two rookie leagues? I want to do the same thing because my teenagers get eaten alive in rookie ball :\. Anybody else who has this setup please feel free to chime in

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by milkman41

What are your settings and whatnot for the two rookie leagues? I want to do the same thing because my teenagers get eaten alive in rookie ball :\. Anybody else who has this setup please feel free to chime in

I like to use the Short A level as a regular full season A league and that way the Regular A league becomes the A Advanced. I then make two rookie league teams for each team with one being theoretically the Short A......

[DrSatan]

I use AAA, AA, A, and Rookie. I leave the settings as default except I increase the season length to 120 games.

[Questdog]

A related question:

Why is the default schedule length 130 games in AAA and 120 in AA and A and 54 in Short A and 62 in Rookie ball, when ALL full season leagues have played 140 games a year for the last 50 years (save for slight alterations to fit league size) and the short season leagues play 76 or so?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Why is the default schedule length 130 games in AAA and 120 in AA and A and 54 in Short A and 62 in Rookie ball, when ALL full season leagues have played 140 games a year for the last 50 years (save for slight alterations to fit league size) and the short season leagues play 76 or so?

[pedantic]

The Class AAA leagues only began playing seasons numbering in the 140s beginning in 1965. Prior to that, seasons were 154 games or longer.

The leagues at and below AA (or the earlier equivalents) are more varied, but the length of the schedule tended to follow the classification level. The old Class C and D, for example, generally played schedules of 126 games; Class A and B tended to play 140 games, while Class AA generally played 154 games. The Texas League abandoned the 154-game schedule for the 1959 season; the Southern Association maintained it right up until its demise following the 1961 season.

The Pioneer League adopted a short season schedule in 1964. The defunct Northern League switched to a short season schedule in 1965, the Northwest League made the change for 1966, and the New York-Penn League switched in 1967.

The Appalachian League had a short schedule from the time of the league's relaunch in 1957. The defunct Nebraska State League of 1956-59 also used a short season schedule, and was the first to do so.

[/pedantic]


In terms of your actual question, I don't have an answer, other than to suggest the defaults have never been updated, or were not intended to exactly reflect the real minor leagues.

[Zweiblumen]

I have never used a short A league, mostly because I started playing ootp when it was just AAA AA A and Rookie, but now I wonder......many of my rookie players are reported in the scouting report as "ready for short season A" and I worry that the fact that my world has no short a league could hurt their development....

Any thoughts?

Oh, and do any of you use winter leagues at all?

[jasonn29tn14]

Originally Posted by Zweiblumen

I have never used a short A league, mostly because I started playing ootp when it was just AAA AA A and Rookie, but now I wonder......many of my rookie players are reported in the scouting report as "ready for short season A" and I worry that the fact that my world has no short a league could hurt their development....

Any thoughts?

Oh, and do any of you use winter leagues at all?

I would think it would be better for player developement if you had a Short Season A league. I would like to use Winter Leagues, but the game doesn't (by default) handle them the way they work IRL. Hopefully this will be looked into for OOTPXI......

[TribeFanInNC]

I generally only use Short A or Rookie (not both). I set them up for about a 50 game schedule to start sometime in late June after the entry draft. I try to set my league up so that the feeder schedule plus rookie schedule is about 100 games so that the new prospects do not get overworked.

Here's one idea I thought of but never tried. One could set up a spring Short A league to function as a kind of extended spring training for those guys that don't really make it out of rookie ball their first year. That way they don't really have to wait around until June or July to start playing again. Of course, the AI probably wouldn't use it right, so it may be a moot point.

[jasonn29tn14]

I changed my Rookie and Short A schedules to be the same as the A leagues. Then after the draft in June I'll take a look across my teams and find the guys to release. It just seems better to me than having guys idle for months - or playing at a level they aren't ready for.

[Corsairs]

I see people discussing age limits, but is there actually a way to have OOTP impose age limits on a rookie or short-season-A league that's attached to a parent major league? If there is, I'm unaware of it.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

I see people discussing age limits, but is there actually a way to have OOTP impose age limits on a rookie or short-season-A league that's attached to a parent major league? If there is, I'm unaware of it.

No, there is not....unfortunately...