Trades on hard....too hard?

[GoodOlKevin]

Wonder what you guys think about this...I also have favor prospects what about everyone else?

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

I have trade difficulty on average and neutral and try to just make sure the trade makes sense on both sides. It's more fun for me that way.

The "favor prospects" as a blanket piece of advice makes no sense to me, since it can make a trade more or less easy depending on what you are trying to acquire. If anything, if you were looking for a challenge you'd want to adjust this depending on if you were in a rebuilding mode or not.

[NYY #23]

I do hard and neutral. I'm not a big fan of the favor prospects because a team trying to win now shouldn't favor prospects and vice versa.

Trading on hard takes a little more work to find a match. It seems that some players who should have some value don't have much when it's set to hard. But I do feel it helps keep me honest.

[mking55]

Originally I was skeptical of using "heavily favour prospects" because I wanted the AI to be "very hard" for all players. This was whenever this setting was introduced (OOTPxx).

After reading so many users say use "heavily favour prospects", I threw that in with my "very hard". It didn't make sense to my way of thinking but who cares if it makes sense if it works.

It works. You can still have a hell of a time getting a 38-year-old good player unless you are willing to give up something good. For some reason (and once again who cares), heavily favour prospects doesn't seem to hurt when trying to get the old guys. You are not getting a 38-year-old Tris Speaker for nothing. It's on the verge of impossible to get a good young guy, but that's good. The AI should be skewed towards the game's advantage and not the players.

So I personally go with very hard and heavily favour prospects since it's very hard to rip off the AI and therefore makes for a better game. And if I really want to trade for Babe Ruth because I have to have him (which I don't), I'm in Commissioner Mode so I can always force trade. (That was a joke).

[sandman2575]

I'm still very newbish, but I just set trade difficulty to "Very Hard" (neutral) in my fictional league. I was playing with "Hard", but the AI still seemed a little gullible on this setting. Not a push-over, but still willing to entertain trades that no GM in real life would seriously consider.

Specifically, I was trying to pry a rookie super-star-in-the-making lefty 3B-man from a team with low budget / revenue. He was making league minimum, and the team was in the red, so they couldn't afford to take on any new salary burden. I was offering a lot of junk in return -- some mediocre minor leaguers, a 1st and 3rd round pick.

On "Hard" setting, the AI said "OK, I'll have to consider this, let me get back to you. But on "Very Hard," AI said "This is a bad deal for us -- throw in more or I guess we don't have anything further to discuss." Since that seemed a much more realistic response to me, I've decided to go with "Very Hard" here on out.

In the end, the Very Hard AI wouldn't make any deal. Who knows -- maybe this will prove very frustrating in the long run -- but then again, that strikes me as pretty realistic!

[Dave Hansen]

Hard...neutral...1 for 1 or 2 for 1 trades only.

No matter the settings, the above house rule of not throwing 3 or 4 players at the AI in the trade minimizes trade rip offs the most.

Also, with the above I can still make some good deals from my perspective if I really "work the league" for opportunities. I've on occassion got a good deal with the above settings after working the phones after 15-20 trade proposals across many teams with different combinations...it's satisfying and "legit"...IMHO.

[sandman2575]

Originally Posted by Dave Hansen

No matter the settings, the above house rule of not throwing 3 or 4 players at the AI in the trade minimizes trade rip offs the most.

This makes a lot of sense -- I'm going to try to stick to this. (I may have to tone it back down to "Hard / neutral" in that case!)

[hluraven]

Very Hard, and even then need house rules like not adding 3 scrubs to the deal to get the AI to accept.

The annoying thing about VH is that shop a player never/rarely returns any players. VH should not stop the AI wanting the best players one-for-one for scrubs.

In my experience, on average you can get a good player in return for an average player from 25 out of the 29 others, on hard from maybe 5 of them, and on very hard you may need to throw in a couple other (not very good) players to get a trade from 1 or 2 of the teams. None of them are realistic, VH is just harder work to rip off the AI, but still easily doable.

[ezpkns34]

Even on Very Hard & Heavily Favor Prospects, it's still easy to load your MLB squad & minors before playing 1 game

The only way to prevent this is to institute some form of house rules as mentioned above. That, or play a fictional league w/ lower scouting accuracy so you don't know if that steal of a deal you're getting really is a steal

[PSUColonel]

My big question is this: Is a prospect still a prospect if he is 27 years old and one of the best players in the league at his position? In other words, is a 23 year-old unknown with a lot of potential worth more than a 27 year-old who is great and maxed out is potentials? How does the trade difficulty system within OOTP view these two different types of players on "heavily favor prospects" vs. neutral?

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by ezpkns34

Even on Very Hard & Heavily Favor Prospects, it's still easy to load your MLB squad & minors before playing 1 game

The only way to prevent this is to institute some form of house rules as mentioned above. That, or play a fictional league w/ lower scouting accuracy so you don't know if that steal of a deal you're getting really is a steal

Play stats only. It can be years and years before you have any idea how good any given trade was.

[PhillieFever]

Originally Posted by mking55

Originally I was skeptical of using "heavily favour prospects" because I wanted the AI to be "very hard" for all players. This was whenever this setting was introduced (OOTPxx).

After reading so many users say use "heavily favour prospects", I threw that in with my "very hard". It didn't make sense to my way of thinking but who cares if it makes sense if it works.

It works. You can still have a hell of a time getting a 38-year-old good player unless you are willing to give up something good. For some reason (and once again who cares), heavily favour prospects doesn't seem to hurt when trying to get the old guys. You are not getting a 38-year-old Tris Speaker for nothing. It's on the verge of impossible to get a good young guy, but that's good. The AI should be skewed towards the game's advantage and not the players.

So I personally go with very hard and heavily favour prospects since it's very hard to rip off the AI and therefore makes for a better game. And if I really want to trade for Babe Ruth because I have to have him (which I don't), I'm in Commissioner Mode so I can always force trade. (That was a joke).

Yeah I use very hard and favor prospects(I didn't want to push it to heavily favor) mainly because of exactly what you've said here. I don't want to be able to dominate easily by fleecing the AI or taking advantage of exploits. I also use talent change at 150, and a 2 to 8 player scale, this makes it much more difficult to pick out the gems in the draft.

[PSUColonel]

What is the the major difference between "Heavily favor prospects" & "Favor prospects"?

How does it affect trades?, and which come recommended?

[PhillieFever]

Speaking of trades, I was wondering what you guys thought of this, I'm asking because I really trying to get the trade settings in the game as accurate as possible, Here's the deal:

Team #1(rebuilding mode) offers
27 year old RF/1B making $540,000 Ov 32 Pot 36
Contact 5/5
Gap 4/4
HR Power 6/6
Eye 4/4
Avoid K's 4/4

Team #2(Win Now)
31 year old infielder making $850,000 Ov 26 Pot 26
Contact 5/5
Gap 5/5
HR Power 3/3
Eye 3/3
Avoid K's 6/6

24 year old closer type making $490,000 Ov 21 Pot 35
Stuff 7/7
Movement 6/6
Control 4/4
95-97 MPH

23 year old minor league SP Ov 23 Pot 39
Stuff 4/5
movement 6/6
Control 5/6
92-94 MPH

BTW, both clubs are located in large markets with 8 to 10 million left in the budget for the year so the money involved doesn't hurt

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J.

The "favor prospects" as a blanket piece of advice makes no sense to me,

Yeah, I see your point and understand.

But I think the story behind it being sort of a "blanket" piece of advice stems from the fact that most players spend most of their time in going for it mode, not rebuilding mode.

Until the AI gets challenging, I suspect this will remain the case for some time.

So, if you spend most of your time with teams near the top and very little actually rebuilding, then I can understand why it comes up as advice so often.

[PSUColonel]

Again...I think the real question here is: what constitutes a "prospect"? If it is the same as the game's definition, then a lot of good and very good young players are still being viewed as veterans. Prospects are in fact very raw and unproven, and as such there is no way the AI should really be favoring them.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Again...I think the real question here is: what constitutes a "prospect"? If it is the same as the game's definition, then a lot of good and very good young players are still being viewed as veterans. Prospects are in fact very raw and unproven, and as such there is no way the AI should really be favoring them.

What is the game's definition of a prospect? I have my settings at Highly favor them and see pretty good trades all the time from me and the AI. Teams that are selling load off their vets for highly ranked prospects (and throw in pieces) and vise versa. I see stuff like this all the time in real life. I never seen or have I been able to get a star player while offering a bunch of minor league backups in my game. The AI is still looking at Overall ratings after all. I would think professional service time may have something to do with who are considered prospects or not (maybe the manual says differently?)

[PSUColonel]

Prospects= Players below the age of 27 who have not exceeded more than 45 days of ML service time.

THis is the game's definition of a prospect...clearly there are very good young players who do not fall into this category.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Prospects= Players below the age of 27 who have not exceeded more than 45 days of ML service time.

THis is the game's definition of a prospect...clearly there are very good young players who do not fall into this category.

Ok I see.

At the same time though, If they were very good and exceeded 45 days of ML service then I'd think they would be regulars on a majors roster by then. (I guess depending on how your league is setup I guess)

Like Harper and Trout, they are regulars now, do you consider those guys to still be prospects?

I can see a young guy bouncing up and down between AAA and MLB for a few years accumulating MLB service days where he may not be considered a prospect anymore but at the end of the day how good is he, is he still valuable to other teams at that point? Maybe he's a case of being blocked by another player or was called up too early. I think all this stuff depends on how you set up your league. Are guys getting called up by the AI way too early because of Vets retiring too soon? I think it all depends on settings. I personally do not have young MLB ready players with over 45 ML service days stuck in the minors.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by SirMichaelJordan

Ok I see.

At the same time though, If they were very good and exceeded 45 days of ML service then I'd think they would be regulars on a majors roster by then. (I guess depending on how your league is setup I guess)

Like Harper and Trout, they are regulars now, do you consider those guys to still be prospects?

I can see a young guy bouncing up and down between AAA and MLB for a few years accumulating MLB service days where he may not be considered a prospect anymore but at the end of the day how good is he, is he still valuable to other teams at that point? Maybe he's a case of being blocked by another player or was called up too early. I think all this stuff depends on how you set up your league. Are guys getting called up by the AI way too early because of Vets retiring too soon? I think it all depends on settings. I personally do not have young MLB ready players with over 45 ML service days stuck in the minors.

No I don't consider them to be prospects...which means would you covet a prospect over players such as that? That is the point I am trying to make...how does the AI view this type of situation when you have "heavily favor prospects" enabled?

EDIT: I have one young player in the minor leagues, although I am not sure if he's a MLB caliber player either. Darren Ruf