A Brit failing at the basics!

[crewey]

Hi all

I've been a baseball fan for a couple of years now and as I like playing the Football Manager series I thought I would give this a go.

I've read posts about keeping it simple which is what I'm trying to do. I'm playing a 16 team fictional league with 1 minor league and a rookie league.

All I want to do is take a 1B who is on my 25 man roster and swap him out with a 1B thats in my 40 man roster but not on my active roster.

I also have a player on my disabled list who is now healthy and I can't seem to find out how to remove him, which means I can't sim any days because the game keeps telling me to remove him from the DL.

Any help would be appreciated as I've been looking at the screen and manuel for hours with no success.

I apologise in advance for being such a NOOB

[Bluenoser]

The 1B problem. What exactly are you trying to do? Are you trying to put the young 1B on the 25 man roster? If you want to bring the other 1B up from the minors then you have to make room on your 25 man roster. Send someone down. Once you have less than 25 players there you can bring the other 1B up. Go to your team transactions page, drag and drop the guys you want to move.

Note - depending on service time, the player may have to clear waivers, or he may have enough time to refuse a minors assignment.


Player on Dl - right click, a menu will open. You can then move back to his team.

[crewey]

Thanks for your help Bluenoser

I was being stupid and like you said needed to send my 1B on my 25 man roster down to make room.

Same thing for my guy on my DL, just need to open up space on the 25 man roster

Obviously my lack of knowledge when it comes to moving players between the majors and minors etc was my downfall!

thanks again

[jmknpk2]

Hey Crewey, we all go through a learning curve like that! I remember shutting the game down in frustration because I could not do something overly simple. If you ever reach that point, please just post here.

I'm glad you're trying the game. I am an American who picked up Football Manager because of my love for OOTP. I really enjoy that game and especially enjoy learning about the "football" world which is not mainstream in the USA.

[EarlyDoors]

Hi

I too have the handicap of being both British and of only having a vaque concept of the rules but I have both read 'MoneyBall' and seen the film so how difficult can it be - right?

Ok, let's start in the Pioneer League as the Casper Ghosts. I figure I can do less damage down there even though it's damned annoying as the GM keeps shipping my players in / out.

I'm going to Auto-Play to begin with and I'm not really up to speed with all the Pitching stuff so let's just sort out the Lineouts and Depth Charts first.
So Billy Beane what do I need? Runs. What's that you say? Hitters are undervalued. Ok so it's OBP witha bit of slugging thrown in. OPS.
Ok, I've not yet got any stats to go on - so let's think about Batting Ratings.
Well I'm going to prioritise like this.

1. EYE - Plate discipline. I want at least 1 walk in every 10 at Bats. If the pitch is off leave it.
2. CONTACT - Once you see the ball HIT it.
3. GAP POWER - and then hit those GAPS.
4. HR POWER - Out of the park
5. AVOID K's - Bit of an afterthought even though the whole point is to avoid strikeout's i'm hoping EYE will deal with that (may need to kick this up the list).

OK, so I've looked at my rabble of 27 and there are only 8 players of non-embarrassing ability. Forget about the rest. Unfortunately those 8 players only cover 4 different positions so....
Do I lineup all 8 playing some out of position?
For now, let's see how I go listing 4 in lineup and put the rest into Depth Chart. I'm assuming my coaches will pack out my lineup with the rubbish.

OK. It's opening Day - Let's Play Ball.

BUMMER....

9 games in and I'm 2-7, this isn't going too well


(to be cont.)

[Mortimer]

Originally Posted by EarlyDoors

Well I'm going to prioritise like this.

1. EYE - Plate discipline. I want at least 1 walk in every 10 at Bats. If the pitch is off leave it.
2. CONTACT - Once you see the ball HIT it.
3. GAP POWER - and then hit those GAPS.
4. HR POWER - Out of the park
5. AVOID K's - Bit of an afterthought even though the whole point is to avoid strikeout's i'm hoping EYE will deal with that (may need to kick this up the list).

There are a couple things here
Firstly I read moneyball and although there are things in there to consider it is not a holy book on baseball but one of many ideas. The walk for instance is better than an out but not as important as hitting. With a guy on first a walk will move him to second a guy on second or third, a walk does not move him. But a hit will often score a guy on second or third and an extra base hit will score a guy on first. Remember the whole idea was about runs even the book talked about on base and slugging.

This brings us to the next point stats. Remember in the book when the scouts would say a player was good and Beane would turn to Paul and he would look up on the pc and see he is not as good as they thought? Scouting in ootp is about the same as in real life it is not always right, unless you turn it off, then you can see actual ratings. And I am assuming you do not have feeder leagues so the AI has not had time to scout your rookie players as well as some others in the organaztion, plus players are scouted a few times a year stats are updated game by game.

So instead of looking at ratings I would look at on base, slugging and average first, then I would make sure strike outs are not high, then go to walks if you still have not figured out who is better.

Also it was not in the book but do not overlook defence if a player gives up errors or misses plays others will get, they will often give up more runs than they produce. in ootp VORP (value over a replacement player) in batting stats 2 seems to be the best to look at runs created vs runs lost in defence...I have never figured out exactally what goes into it (somehow it looks at defense stats and offense stats to calculate it) but if you have a player with high offense that give up errors or has low ratings it will give you and idea of weather or not you should DH or pinch hit the guy when needed so his defense does not cost you games.

Originally Posted by EarlyDoors

OK, so I've looked at my rabble of 27 and there are only 8 players of non-embarrassing ability. Forget about the rest. Unfortunately those 8 players only cover 4 different positions so....
Do I lineup all 8 playing some out of position?
For now, let's see how I go listing 4 in lineup and put the rest into Depth Chart. I'm assuming my coaches will pack out my lineup with the rubbish.

As for this it relates to what I said about defense above but you can with ottp teach players new positions and they learn easier in the minor leagues and the lower the better. If the 4 players have the right ratings you should consider playing them in new positions.

If a player has a good infield arm he'll make a good 3rd basemen, good range and fair arm or better he'll make a short stop, good range will make a good 2nd basemen, anyone will do ok at first so I save that fore someone with low ratings unless they are all good. High error helps all these positions too, SS and 2nd base it is most important for though.

as for the outfield in center you want high range and error, in left I try to go high range and error but sometimes average if i have to...then in right you will want a good arm, the game does not seem to care about arm when the AI assigns a RF but generally they need the arm to go from RF to 3rd.

as far have having low or no ratings for the position that is basically experience at the position, you will tend to get more errors and lower range at first but it will raise as they play.

I hope this all make sense there is a lot here, but feel free to ask if you have other questions and I or someone will clear it up.

[EarlyDoors]

Thanks for the reply. I've deleted my game as i'm 10-40 in mid-august and heading for the chop.
So let's start a new game taking on board what you've said. Same set-up as last time, Pioneer League, Casper Ghosts.
So to begin with I've got no stats to go on so I'll let my bench coach select all my pitching, lineups and depth charts and Auto-Play every game. That should give me a fighting chance of .500.

One month in and I'm 5-24 !
Hmmm... on the plus side I've got 4 hitters getting over .400 OBP but my pitchers are going round the park.

I was expecting a better win-loss ratio.
Is this experience typical?

[Orcin]

I consider myself a pretty experienced player. My rookie league team (mostly filled with my recent draft class) is 13-43. That's because I drafted next to last, and I just don't have the best players there. That could be your problem too. You should check to see where your players were drafted. Maybe you have a bunch of street free agents too. I am just trying to tell you that your poor record as a manager may not be your fault.

[Mortimer]

yea it sound's like you just have a poor pitching staff, often the lowest level team for an organization gets filled with players that will not go far, if players are any good or have some potential they seem to get promoted to SA or even A right after being drafted.

Yet not all is lost, you have identified your weakness is pitching. First you need to make sure you are not over pitching your guys as rookies your starters may only have 50-60 pitches before they start showing wear. If you start losing late in starts pull them early, and if the game is close put one of your better relievers in, give him 1 or 2 innings but you should have plenty of pitchers that you can pitch your 3 or 4 best relievers on games you are close or winning.

Now if you are playing and you start to lose big and you have no real hope of winning, put in a poor reliever I almost give always give them 2 or even 3 innings if you have no hope might as well burn out pitchers you do not care about, hopefully tomorrow you will have better luck and your best pitchers well rested. It is not uncommon for your poor pitchers to start pitching better doing this because they are not blowing saves and losing games.

If your pitching is really horrible this may not help too much but it should give you the best chance to get better, and if you find ways to improve your horrible pitching staff, it will be a lot easier if you end up with a better staff next year. You are playing a rookie team to learn the game, and learning should be more important than winning. It can be tough to grind through losing seasons but if you look for any improvement it should get you through it.

[crewey]

can anyone tell me how I go about finding which future season is higher than my projected budget?. I can see my budget for the 2013 season, and it would appear that I have $21M available for extensions so thats not a problem.

looking at my salary obligations, this deal wouldn't put me anywhere near my 2012 or 2013 projected budget.

As always any help would be greatly appreciated.

The confused Brit






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