Draft pool low quality of players?

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

His component ratings. His stuff rating is 116 (throws 91-93). His individual fb and cb ratings are both 163, which is excellent. Movement is 127 and control 109. Stamina is 125.

He's a 20 but teetering on the brink of being a 40 or so. There's really not much difference at all between a 20 that's at Meisner's level and a 40.

That's a decent MLB pitcher right there if he just hits that potential. If he gets a couple good talent boosts then yeah, he could end up close to Syndergaard levels. If not he won't, and it's not likely he will, but that's true irl anyway.

How do we know this without using commish mode, which feels like cheating to many, myself included?

[Subby]

[snipped]

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by HolyCow98

For the record, any opinion I've expressed has been based on my perceptions and results from 25-30 round drafts. It has been sometime (OOTP 10 or perhaps longer) since I've used anything as small as a 5 or even 7 round draft pools with the exception of the one online league I'm (NPBL) which uses 6 rounds and is about to increase that to 7. That league is currently using OOTP 13 (going to covert to 15 in the near future).

The problem with online leagues is that anything past that number of rounds just becomes tedium.

For ages the FOBL was five rounds, and that sufficed (This was in the v5 days, where for many, many organizations the minor leagues were an afterthought. There wasn't enough players to fill them, and nobody much cared.) With later versions (v9, v11, v13 -- you can see a pattern here), we expanded to ten rounds to fill out the minors and to add a little bit of lotto goodness - but only the first five rounds were drafted manually, and only those picks were tradable. Rounds 6-10 were just auto-drafted; in many cases owners couldn't see too much differentiating players in the 4th and 5th rounds as it was, so no reason to drag the draft process out. A few seasons ago we decided to generate 11 rounds-worth of players, but only draft 10 to attempt to get a slightly better spread.

That's just how things go. It's the same for FOF leagues - seven rounds, and things start to really wane in the 4th or 5th round (or for a poor class, even the third).

-----

The thing that strikes me about trying to emulate how MLB approaches international players - and having the game rely on that player pool being there - is that as RonCo said a few pages ago it only became this way relatively recently (so if you're trying to emulate a different era it really doesn't make any sense), and that as a system it is really screwed up and anti-competitive. International signings and player development are basically the wild west. It doesn't necessarily play well with MP.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

How do we know this without using commish mode, which feels like cheating to many, myself included?

You can't know that precisely.

You can see the stuff, movement and control ratings using whatever ratings scale you use. They won't be perfectly accurate if scouting is turned on, but they'll be there and they're really the important things to look at, not the star or overall ratings.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Rain King

However, lukasberger seemed to indicate that his numbers were normal...which confuses me a bit. I know that lukasberger has worked extensively with the real world roster set, could it be that the draft classes (star-wise) look much different against that set than an initial fictional league that OOTP creates?

That is true to some extent but almost in the opposite way than I think you may be thinking. The MLB roster set actually has somewhat higher potential ratings in general than a fictional league likely would, so guys will actually be less likely to show up as having more than one star in the MLB roster set environment than in a typical fictional league.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

You can't know that precisely.

You can see the stuff, movement and control ratings using whatever ratings scale you use. They won't be perfectly accurate if scouting is turned on, but they'll be there and they're really the important things to look at, not the star or overall ratings.

OK, that's what I figured. As I mentioned yesterday, I use 20-80 for ratings, but maybe I need to consider a different scale.

[Ben E Lou]

ROFLMBAO: RonCo unwilling to test. Now THAT is rich!


DISCLAIMER: I am not a member of the FOBL and have not been other than for like a week four or five years ago when I never got around to actually exporting.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

The problem with online leagues is that anything past that number of rounds just becomes tedium.

For ages the FOBL was five rounds, and that sufficed (This was in the v5 days, where for many, many organizations the minor leagues were an afterthought. There wasn't enough players to fill them, and nobody much cared.) With later versions (v9, v11, v13 -- you can see a pattern here), we expanded to ten rounds to fill out the minors and to add a little bit of lotto goodness - but only the first five rounds were drafted manually, and only those picks were tradable. Rounds 6-10 were just auto-drafted; in many cases owners couldn't see too much differentiating players in the 4th and 5th rounds as it was, so no reason to drag the draft process out. A few seasons ago we decided to generate 11 rounds-worth of players, but only draft 10 to attempt to get a slightly better spread.

That's just how things go. It's the same for FOF leagues - seven rounds, and things start to really wane in the 4th or 5th round (or for a poor class, even the third).

-----

The thing that strikes me about trying to emulate how MLB approaches international players - and having the game rely on that player pool being there - is that as RonCo said a few pages ago it only became this way relatively recently (so if you're trying to emulate a different era it really doesn't make any sense), and that as a system it is really screwed up and anti-competitive. International signings and player development are basically the wild west. It doesn't necessarily play well with MP.

From what you're describing, I'd say you may just be generating too few players overall for the kind of ratings you want, which is likely what created the issue with not having enough highly rated players at the MLB level.

How many levels of minor leagues do you guys use?

I'll post something Markus told me recently. It's not directly applicable to the issue of having too few players, rather it's in regard to having too many, but it provides some insight into how OOTP works in regard to ratings and talent.

"Well, 35 rounds is the number that perfectly keeps the major league in balance in terms of league quality. More player equals more potential for talent boosts, hence more quality players and watered down stats in the end. So, I would rather not change that number "

So though he didn't explicitly say so it seems to me that if having more than 35 rounds (including int signings) of draftable players likely results in having too many highly rated players, then having way less than 35 rounds (while also not including int signings) will tend to have the opposite effect and result in too few talent boosts and too few highly rated players overall.

So your league's issue isn't really that the game needs int signings and "relies on that player pool being there" it's that in addition to not having int signings turned on, you're also seemingly generating way too few players in the draft.

Now in and of itself that's not an issue. As I've tried to explain, the OOTP ratings system is really flexible. It's perfectly possible to build a properly functioning league, with good statistical distribution and everything, while using only a small portion of the ratings scale.

I'm building the rl German League for myself right now, and there will end up being very few guys rated much higher than 40/250 in it. Most guys will be rated in the 20/250 range. Even though that's the case, the league will still function perfectly well , the stat distribution between the best and worst players will look good etc.

So even if a given league has what seems to be too few highly rated players, it really won't matter. The league will still function well. The problem comes from folks seeing those ratings getting low and being unhappy because that's not what they want, or expect.

So in the end, if you want the ratings for a given league to look like they do in the MLB roster set or a typical out of the box MLB league, it's really necessary to generate much more than 11 rounds worth of draftable players and no int fa's in order to get that to happen.

[frangipard]

Originally Posted by SirMichaelJordan

Isn't that work ethic and intelligence?

No.

How else are these scouts determining if a guy is a risk or a boom or bust prospect?

Even their written report is subjective and based on being optimistic.

All scouts everywhere, including the ones who make their living at it, are optimistic? Umm, no.

Let me explain by example, and then I have to run.

3B Maikel Franco has, by all accounts I've read, a gun of an arm, quick and soft hands on defense, and feet like cinderblocks. He is not a natural athlete, and so scouts differ a lot on his potential as a defender, because it all comes down to him developing good instincts, a good first step, and working on positioning. If he can do those things, he can be a 3B; if he can't he goes to 1B. And I've read scouting reports than range from "move to 1B is inevitable" to "plus potential at 3B." ... because it all comes down to developing a "feel" and an "instinct" for the position, and who the hell knows if he's gonna do that. By definition, instincts can't be taught. He might fairly suddenly (say in one year) "now he's getting it," it might be slow gradual improvement over multiple years, it might never happen.

As a hitter, Franco fits the profile I laid out above: he mashes the hell out of fastballs, but is lost versus junk. He may learn to hit them, or he may learn to lay off, or he may never get it. Work ethic and intelligence do matter here, but the point of it is that there is a lot of room for growth, because right now he swings at a lot of balls he can’t currently hit. The power is almost sure to happen; but he could update the swing and be a .300 hitter; he could develop a batting eye, and that combined with his power, makes him a 70+ walk guy; or he could be a classic “can’t hit the curve” AAAA player.

Franco's work ethic is reputed to be pretty unremarkable, but work ethic itself isn't stable. Some guys loaf it until they get sent down the first time, some guys who are immature at 19 grow up at 23. IIRC, Franco had a less than stellar home life and came to the game late. So he's a slacker at 21; nothing indicates he will always be.

One can realistically project him as .850 OPS at 3B; one can realistically project him as a .700 OPS at 1B. That’s a massive, massive difference.

OF Billy Burns of Oakland also has very clear strengths and weaknesses: he runs like the wind, has a great batting eye, a good glove in center. And that’s it. No power potential (little bitty guy, small frame), no arm potential. He’s probably a lock to make the majors and probably no chance to be a star. He’s the 21st century’s John Cangelosi, and the only question is whether he’ll hit .220 and be an up-and-down guy or whether he’ll hit .280 and be a useful bench player/borderline starter.
Yes, he will improve as a hitter, but the sphere of his possibilities is much smaller; he has a legendary work ethic, but he’s had a legendary work ethic for years, and at 24 he’s in AA. He probably already hits breaking pitches OK, but it doesn’t matter as much since he won’t see many: pitchers aren’t afraid of his bat, but they are afraid of his legs, so he’s gonna get fastballs in the zone all day long. This is the same thing he has always faced. His improvement will be hard-fought and incremental.
…
IMO, and while admitting I don’t have as much experience as others here, OOTP does a pretty good job of modeling Burns – almost maxed out his potential, high WE – but does a much poorer job of modeling players like Franco, who are almost equally likely to become superstars and bench bats.
This is especially true on defense, where I think OOTP has the most room for improvement; a guy like Franco has fairly clear parameters on defense due to his athletic limitations; ditto a guy like Burns who is athletic in some ways, not in others. The Phillies this year will likely be moving Roman Quinn to CF when he’s off the DL; if/when healthy he has Hamilton-level speed, so he clearly has potential to be great there; but it’s just as possible he’ll be a mess (how did they set Billy Hamilton’s OF ratings last year? Wild guessing, I’m assuming, because they had to).

I agree that something like a “boom potential” feels a little maddenish; but human beings are simply too complicated to accurately model strictly from the component level. In real life, there are guys who can hit the slider better than the curve, defenders who are better moving to their right than their left, and guys who go into a slump because Derek Jeter stole their road beef. You need shortcuts because an accurate model would have so many ratings it would be unplayable. This seems like a pretty good one.

I in fact do the same thing when I draft late rounds. I pick players based on individual skill (too much weight is being given to the OVR star rating in this thread) and have an optimistic look on a guy getting things right in the future. I treat work ethic and intelligence like another rating.

In real life. If a player is one of the select few to be drafted by an MLB team in the entire US than this guy is already an elite baseball player. ...

Thing is, a 20 is good enough to be a useful player in OOTP. The game doesn't have a bunch of maxed out players in it.

Agree with all this.

[CubsFan915]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

From what you're describing, I'd say you may just be generating too few players overall for the kind of ratings you want, which is likely what created the issue with not having enough highly rated players at the MLB level.

How many levels of minor leagues do you guys use?

I'll post something Markus told me recently. It's not directly applicable to the issue of having too few players, rather it's in regard to having too many, but it provides some insight into how OOTP works in regard to ratings and talent.

"Well, 35 rounds is the number that perfectly keeps the major league in balance in terms of league quality. More player equals more potential for talent boosts, hence more quality players and watered down stats in the end. So, I would rather not change that number "

So though he didn't explicitly say so it seems to me that if having more than 35 rounds (including int signings) of draftable players likely results in having too many highly rated players, then having way less than 35 rounds (while also not including int signings) will tend to have the opposite effect and result in too few talent boosts and too few highly rated players overall.

So your league's issue isn't really that the game needs int signings and "relies on that player pool being there" it's that in addition to not having int signings turned on, you're also seemingly generating way too few players in the draft.

Now in and of itself that's not an issue. As I've tried to explain, the OOTP ratings system is really flexible. It's perfectly possible to build a properly functioning league, with good statistical distribution and everything, while using only a small portion of the ratings scale.

I'm building the rl German League for myself right now, and there will end up being very few guys rated much higher than 40/250 in it. Most guys will be rated in the 20/250 range. Even though that's the case, the league will still function perfectly well , the stat distribution between the best and worst players will look good etc.

So even if a given league has what seems to be too few highly rated players, it really won't matter. The league will still function well. The problem comes from folks seeing those ratings getting low and being unhappy because that's not what they want, or expect.

So in the end, if you want the ratings for a given league to look like they do in the MLB roster set or a typical out of the box MLB league, it's really necessary to generate much more than 11 rounds worth of draftable players and no int fa's in order to get that to happen.

Lukas, we currently use only 4 levels of minor leagues - AAA, AA, A and R. We've also got a pretty strict age limit on the R level, where only players under age 20, or players over age 20 but in their first year of professional ball, are allowed in R. After that, they must go up to A ball.

How many rounds' worth of players do you think we should be generating?

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

From what you're describing, I'd say you may just be generating too few players overall for the kind of ratings you want, which is likely what created the issue with not having enough highly rated players at the MLB level.

How many levels of minor leagues do you guys use?

I'll post something Markus told me recently. It's not directly applicable to the issue of having too few players, rather it's in regard to having too many, but it provides some insight into how OOTP works in regard to ratings and talent.

"Well, 35 rounds is the number that perfectly keeps the major league in balance in terms of league quality. More player equals more potential for talent boosts, hence more quality players and watered down stats in the end. So, I would rather not change that number "

We're using ML, AAA, AA, A, and R. We currently have restrictions on who is allowed to stay in R-ball, so that tends to be the level that is the most sparse. Despite this, my personal R-ball team had 26 players at the end of last season.

As constituted in v13, ten or eleven rounds wasn't insufficient to keep minor leagues stocked. They may have been stocked with largely dreck that will never amount to anything (or should already be long gone), but they are stocked (I have 31 in AA, probably even more in AAA). The only thing that might result from extra rounds is that we'd be dealing with so much more churn. Those players have to go somewhere, and they'd be supplanting other players who went before them. There would be massive turnover.

As it is, with five levels I may be dealing with 125+ players in my system. It's not impossible, but that's a fair number of players to keep track of. That's without even taking a look at other teams (32 x 125? Probably not happening.) A system where we would have to evaluate and assimilate as many as 900 new players each season? Holy ****.


(Side-bar: wouldn't be a Markusquote without a Markussmilie. That's how I knew it was authentic.)

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by frangipard

No.

All scouts everywhere, including the ones who make their living at it, are optimistic? Umm, no.

Let me explain by example, and then I have to run.

3B Maikel Franco has, by all accounts I've read, a gun of an arm, quick and soft hands on defense, and feet like cinderblocks. He is not a natural athlete, and so scouts differ a lot on his potential as a defender, because it all comes down to him developing good instincts, a good first step, and working on positioning. If he can do those things, he can be a 3B; if he can't he goes to 1B. And I've read scouting reports than range from "move to 1B is inevitable" to "plus potential at 3B." ... because it all comes down to developing a "feel" and an "instinct" for the position, and who the hell knows if he's gonna do that. By definition, instincts can't be taught. He might fairly suddenly (say in one year) "now he's getting it," it might be slow gradual improvement over multiple years, it might never happen.

As a hitter, Franco fits the profile I laid out above: he mashes the hell out of fastballs, but is lost versus junk. He may learn to hit them, or he may learn to lay off, or he may never get it. Work ethic and intelligence do matter here, but the point of it is that there is a lot of room for growth, because right now he swings at a lot of balls he can’t currently hit. The power is almost sure to happen; but he could update the swing and be a .300 hitter; he could develop a batting eye, and that combined with his power, makes him a 70+ walk guy; or he could be a classic “can’t hit the curve” AAAA player.

Franco's work ethic is reputed to be pretty unremarkable, but work ethic itself isn't stable. Some guys loaf it until they get sent down the first time, some guys who are immature at 19 grow up at 23. IIRC, Franco had a less than stellar home life and came to the game late. So he's a slacker at 21; nothing indicates he will always be.

One can realistically project him as .850 OPS at 3B; one can realistically project him as a .700 OPS at 1B. That’s a massive, massive difference.

OF Billy Burns of Oakland also has very clear strengths and weaknesses: he runs like the wind, has a great batting eye, a good glove in center. And that’s it. No power potential (little bitty guy, small frame), no arm potential. He’s probably a lock to make the majors and probably no chance to be a star. He’s the 21st century’s John Cangelosi, and the only question is whether he’ll hit .220 and be an up-and-down guy or whether he’ll hit .280 and be a useful bench player/borderline starter.
Yes, he will improve as a hitter, but the sphere of his possibilities is much smaller; he has a legendary work ethic, but he’s had a legendary work ethic for years, and at 24 he’s in AA. He probably already hits breaking pitches OK, but it doesn’t matter as much since he won’t see many: pitchers aren’t afraid of his bat, but they are afraid of his legs, so he’s gonna get fastballs in the zone all day long. This is the same thing he has always faced. His improvement will be hard-fought and incremental.
…
IMO, and while admitting I don’t have as much experience as others here, OOTP does a pretty good job of modeling Burns – almost maxed out his potential, high WE – but does a much poorer job of modeling players like Franco, who are almost equally likely to become superstars and bench bats.
This is especially true on defense, where I think OOTP has the most room for improvement; a guy like Franco has fairly clear parameters on defense due to his athletic limitations; ditto a guy like Burns who is athletic in some ways, not in others. The Phillies this year will likely be moving Roman Quinn to CF when he’s off the DL; if/when healthy he has Hamilton-level speed, so he clearly has potential to be great there; but it’s just as possible he’ll be a mess (how did they set Billy Hamilton’s OF ratings last year? Wild guessing, I’m assuming, because they had to).

I agree that something like a “boom potential” feels a little maddenish; but human beings are simply too complicated to accurately model strictly from the component level. In real life, there are guys who can hit the slider better than the curve, defenders who are better moving to their right than their left, and guys who go into a slump because Derek Jeter stole their road beef. You need shortcuts because an accurate model would have so many ratings it would be unplayable. This seems like a pretty good one.


Agree with all this.

But the use of words "if" "may" "could" are being optimistic in itself. You will never read a report that sats a play "will" do something so yes a professional scout is being optimistic and basing things that "could" happen because he cannot predict the future.

I would cringe if there was a rating that told me the possibility of a guy panning out or not. Having a potential rating is bad enough (thank god its not a static rating)

[The Wolf]

Here's an experiment for you. Take an MLB league and make a copy of it. In the original, draft every year on whatever team you have using your best methodology. Then auto draft for 20 years in the second one. Sim for 20 years and look at the relative team performance and draft results.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

(side-bar: Wouldn't be a markusquote without a markussmilie. That's how i knew it was authentic.)

:d

[Corsairs]

This started as a worthy topic of discussion between reasonable people making reasonable points on each side. I'd hate to see the discussion dropped too soon. The thing to remember is that we're all ultimately on the same side. We all want an enjoyable draft setup. Drafts are so central to this game, after all.

And OOTP 15 has certainly made strides here. I'm in agreement with those applauding the change from the old system where lots of seemingly high-quality prospects in the pool quickly get hit with the nerf bat after the draft. Those defending the current system also bring up the true point that the real MLB draft is very much a crapshoot, and so the new system that rates prospects so lowly is more indicative of the reality that the overwhelming majority of draftees aren't going to make anything of themselves, let alone become stars.

I think the heart of the matter for those of us who have some concern with the new system is that we're looking for some form of guidepost for our draft picks. The current system accurately conveys that the draft is crapshoot after the first couple of rounds, and it also allows for those fun out-of-nowhere surprises we all love to see. What it doesn't do so well is provide me with enough direction to make some kind of informed decision once the handful of top players are off the board.

That really is important because if I'm just making picks at random, I'm less likely to become emotionally invested in those picks since they are in no way a reflection of my clever deduction. If I hit on a useful player with my 34th round pick, it was by sheer happenstance, not because of any brilliant insight on my part. Indeed, I probably let the AI make the pick because I probably gave up directing selections after the first couple of rounds, when differentiation disappeared from players in the pool.

The good news is that there is more than one way to create guideposts for GMs. Differentiation doesn't necessarily require pumping up star ratings. Frankly, I wouldn't be bothered at all about a pool full of 1-star "prospects" after two draft rounds ... If I have some alternate means of making informed decisions. Alternate guideposts could take all kinds of different forms. Just a few examples:

• The "preferred list." My scouting director could provide me with his personal "preferred list," a shortlist of prospects that he (and his army of virtual area scouts) has a special interest in following. The list becomes available for GMs to review at the time the draft pool is released. A scouting director's internal ratings form his preferences, which in turn determine what kinds of players he targets for his list.
• Drafting for need. I'd love to see my scouting director piping up to remind me of my organizational needs and helping me narrow the options to fill those needs. For instance, tell me that I'm short on players in my minor league system who can adequately cover centerfield. Now give me a shortlist of, say, 5 players in the pool with enough range and maybe an extra smidgeon of offensive potential to fill my gaps. Sure, I may draft them as nothing more than organizational soldiers, but at least I know why I'm drafting them.
• Nepotism. I'm being tongue-in-cheek here to make the point that practically any form of differentiation helps make a draft more interesting. Tell me how it's round 49 and the son of a former player who spent 5 seasons playing for our AAA team is still on the board, and wouldn't it be nice to do the old man a solid and draft his kid? Hello, instant context!

These are just examples. Hopefully they make the point that we don't have to see players with huge, misleading potential ratings midway through the draft; we just need some form of differentiation to help direct our picks.

In my opinion, the key to a more enjoyable draft is context, and context requires communication. I want the game to communicate just enough to me to help me make my own semi-informed decision, so that even in the later rounds I'm picking players for what feels like a reason rather than at random. Even if the reason is just to put a warm body where it's needed, even if it's just nepotism. A reason for each pick, laid out clearly, without having to dig through pages and pages of player profiles. The more context we have for our picks, the more fun the process becomes and the more rewarding it will be when one of those picks surprises.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by CubsFan915

Lukas, we currently use only 4 levels of minor leagues - AAA, AA, A and R. We've also got a pretty strict age limit on the R level, where only players under age 20, or players over age 20 but in their first year of professional ball, are allowed in R. After that, they must go up to A ball.

How many rounds' worth of players do you think we should be generating?

Originally Posted by cuervo72

We're using ML, AAA, AA, A, and R. We currently have restrictions on who is allowed to stay in R-ball, so that tends to be the level that is the most sparse. Despite this, my personal R-ball team had 26 players at the end of last season.

As constituted in v13, ten or eleven rounds wasn't insufficient to keep minor leagues stocked. They may have been stocked with largely dreck that will never amount to anything (or should already be long gone), but they are stocked (I have 31 in AA, probably even more in AAA). The only thing that might result from extra rounds is that we'd be dealing with so much more churn. Those players have to go somewhere, and they'd be supplanting other players who went before them. There would be massive turnover.

As it is, with five levels I may be dealing with 125+ players in my system. It's not impossible, but that's a fair number of players to keep track of. That's without even taking a look at other teams (32 x 125? Probably not happening.) A system where we would have to evaluate and assimilate as many as 900 new players each season? Holy ****.


(Side-bar: wouldn't be a Markusquote without a Markussmilie. That's how I knew it was authentic.)

Well, I really don't know how much you'd want to be generating. I'd think this is one of those things that would require some real testing so that you could figure out just what level of balance between the overall ratings at the MLB level and the amount of milb teams and players you were comfortable with having.

In the end I can't answer for you, as I don't know just what you guys are looking for and don't really have the time to run the needed tests to figure this out. I do think it's safe to say that the number is probably closer to the 35 of the MLB quickstart than it is the 11 you guys are currently using.

The quick and dirty way to figure it would be to figure how many MLB and MiLB teams you guys have, then calculate that as a percentage of the amount of teams in the MLB roster set.

Assuming you have the MLB level 30 teams, with four levels of minors would be something like, what, 65% of the amount of teams in the default MLB setup?

So you'd want a minimum of 65% of the 35 draft rounds rounds in the quickstart, which would be 23 rounds.

Then you'd probably want to take into consideration the amount of players that come into the quickstart from int signings etc. That's probably 40-50% of the amount from the draft.

If you don't want the int signings you'd probably want that same amount of guys coming through the draft. So if you figured 40%, then you be looking at adding another 9 rounds.

So my quick, dirty, and almost certainly wrong estimate would be that you'd probably want 32 rounds in the draft, assuming that you have 30 MLB teams. If you have less or more then 30 MLB teams then just adjust the numbers I used. That should at least give you a starting point for testing purposes and you can fine tune things from there.

[Ruthian23]

Originally Posted by Doc_Brown

If you posted that 2 days ago, this thread would still be on page 1.

EDIT: I might have to start rooting for the Mets, as one of my sisters lives in the place where the Mets AAA team are based. I have some other family who live in the US of A but they live near AL teams, but the DH blows IMHO.

That's in Queens, right?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Ruthian23

That's in Queens, right?

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

The thing to remember is that we're all ultimately on the same side. We all want an enjoyable draft setup. Drafts are so central to this game, after all.

I'm on your side, but I think that we are in a minority here.

[Jythier]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

We're using ML, AAA, AA, A, and R. We currently have restrictions on who is allowed to stay in R-ball, so that tends to be the level that is the most sparse. Despite this, my personal R-ball team had 26 players at the end of last season.

As constituted in v13, ten or eleven rounds wasn't insufficient to keep minor leagues stocked. They may have been stocked with largely dreck that will never amount to anything (or should already be long gone), but they are stocked (I have 31 in AA, probably even more in AAA). The only thing that might result from extra rounds is that we'd be dealing with so much more churn. Those players have to go somewhere, and they'd be supplanting other players who went before them. There would be massive turnover.

As it is, with five levels I may be dealing with 125+ players in my system. It's not impossible, but that's a fair number of players to keep track of. That's without even taking a look at other teams (32 x 125? Probably not happening.) A system where we would have to evaluate and assimilate as many as 900 new players each season? Holy ****.


(Side-bar: wouldn't be a Markusquote without a Markussmilie. That's how I knew it was authentic.)

What's the problem with generating 35 rounds of players and then only drafting 20 rounds? I want to know what it is. Bigger draft pools make sense if you want the best talent. Is it a logistics problem with OOTP and the number of players?