Player Development Settings

[Matt Amick]

PCM modify the players talent levels, which makes it so I can control how good the talent level in the league is. However, I have a problem with controlling how many of those players develop.

I am trying to get a league ready to start with me and my buddies. I have been messing around with PCM's so there isn't a bunch of Bryce Harper's and Steven Strasburg talent level players in the league. However, I came across this problem:

I can't figure out how to control the AMOUNT of good players. Like I said I can mess around with the PCMs so there isn't a bunch of superstars, but I want to be able to control how many very good players there are too.

The data I use is this: Amount of players with 60+ contact and 60+ power (20-80 scouting scale, perfect scouting [just for testing purposes]). Right now, there are around 10-15 of this player in the MLB. A catcher or two like Buster Posey, around five 1B (Pujols, Miggy, Votto, Fielder, A-Gon, etc), only one 2B (Cano), a few 3B (Longoria, Wright, maybe Zimmerman), one SS (Tulo), and outfielders like Braun, McCutchen, Trout, Heyward, Hamilton, Harper soon, and a couple more I'm forgetting.

The point of this is just to let you know these are the elite hitters in the MLB. Now when I sim about 5 years into the future, this amount of 60+CON/60+POW hitters doubles and even triples. I know PCM's control talent, so I could turn them way down, but the problem is that the game will no longer create superstars, and drafts/prospects talent will be much lower than it should be. In real life, there are tons of very talented prospects that could be 60+/60+ players, but only a select few actually live up to that hype.



So essentially, my question is: Is there a way to alter player development to control the league talent level?

What I want is for there to remain a lot of very talented prospects and draftees but for not ALL of them to live up to their potential. There are still "busts" but there are just too many guys becoming above average players, and it really ruins the league for me. I think a big problem is that in real life there are a lot of guys who come out of nowhere to become good players, but in this game there are too many who come out of nowhere to become ELITE players. I still want there to be guys like Kyle Seager for my M's who was a 3rd round pick a couple years ago and has turned into a solid player. But I don't want a bunch of those guys becoming STARS. Of those elite players I listed, almost all of them were either first round picks, or big time international signings. There has got to be a way to even this out!



A couple other things to think about:

1. There are quite a few random guys that just shoot up to be stud players, I wonder if there is a perfect number for the Talent Randomness setting to help even things out.
2. Another setting to mess with could be the aging and development speed. Im not sure what the perfect match for that is.
3. I am using feeder leagues in my sims, I think this shouldn't effect anything.


Thank you very much for anyone who can help me with this!!

[Matt Amick]

Another good question for this would be what to do about age settings. For example 5 years ago this is the league leaders in OPS:

For each player I note if they were even close to the top 20 in 2012 (5 years later).

1 Alex Rodriguez NYY - Close
2 David Ortiz BOS - Yes
3 Carlos Pena TB - No
4 Magglio Ordonez DET - No
5 Jim Thome CWS - No
6 Jorge Posada NYY - No
7 Vladimir Guerrero LAA - No
8 Curtis Granderson DET - Close
9 Jack Cust OAK - No
10 B.J. Upton TB - No
11 Manny Ramirez BOS - No
12 Mike Lowell BOS - No
13 Victor Martinez CLE - Injured
14 Carlos Guillen DET - No
15 Frank Thomas TOR - No
16 Hideki Matsui NYY - No
17 Grady Sizemore CLE - No
18 Alex Rios TOR - Yes
19 Nick Markakis BAL - Close
20 Placido Polanco PHI - No



So out of those 20 guys, two guys were still in the top 20, and 3 guys were close.* I will do a sim to 2017 to see how this list compares. I think this may be the main problem, player turnover rate.

*Note that I understand player stats are different than player ratings, and if someone wants to go a little more in depth I'm all for it.

[Izz]

Have you tried altering your Talent Change Randomness? Default is 100. Higher (200 max) means more random changes (stud prospects flaming out, scrub prospects suddenly becoming good), lower less.

[Fyrestorm3]

PCM's aren't really my forte, so I don't think I can help you there. However, I will point out that your list of top OPS's is made up primarily of older players who would have hit their stride in 2007, and started to decline thereafter:

A-Rod: 32 in 2007 as opposed to 37 in 2012.
Ortiz: Same as A-Rod.
Pena: Has fluctuated as a hitter his entire career. Not a surprise that he'd make one list but not the other.
Mags: 33 compared to 38.
Thome: 37 at the time of the first list, of course he won't be playing at 42.

And so on and so forth. There are only a few on that list that you should be concerned about, in my opinion (Markakis, V-Mart, etc.), but some guys are always going to miss the mark from season to season, and 5 years is a long time. The rest of the list makes perfect sense to me.

If you still want to tone down the age settings so that A-Rod or Ortiz are still cranking them at 37, try messing with the Batter and Pitcher Aging Speeds in Player & Picture Options.

[Matt Amick]

Fyrestorm, thanks for the response.

Those were real life stats from '07 to 2012. I was actually trying to make the point that the turnover in real life baseball is much higher than in the game. For example, in real life only 2 of those top 20 players in OPS came back as top 20 players 5 years later, but in the game if you sim to around 2017 you see that most of the players that were very good currently are still rvery good in 2017. I'm just trying to find the perfect balance.

Izz,

I have not tried that, but what I don't want is to have a bunch of random players become extremely good.

I really just want to find the perfect mix of players/prospects busting. That would mean the ideal setting would be talent randomness to be low, so that there are still a few guys that break out to become studs (Matt Kemp, Matt Holliday, etc were not first round picks). But at the same time I want the good players to be made up of higher draft picks for the most part.

I don't have a problem with first rounders being bad, I just have the problem of not having enough busts. TOO MANY first rounders are good, and then that couples with having multiple guys who should be career minor leaguers jump up to be stars. The ratio of first round picks should be around a third of them living up to their potential, and the rest become full on busts, or just ok. When I am managing my team I want it to feel somewhat random so it;s not too easy, but not too random where my ****ty AAA player can just become a full on star.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by Matt Amick

Fyrestorm, thanks for the response.

Those were real life stats from '07 to 2012. I was actually trying to make the point that the turnover in real life baseball is much higher than in the game. For example, in real life only 2 of those top 20 players in OPS came back as top 20 players 5 years later, but in the game if you sim to around 2017 you see that most of the players that were very good currently are still rvery good in 2017. I'm just trying to find the perfect balance.

Gotcha, I misunderstood the post.

I usually have the opposite problem, with guys who have been really good for a few years flaming out when they hit 30, so I'm afraid I won't be much help here.