Turning Off/On Historical Transactions Off-Season

[Trav876]

I have been toying with trying to make a long-term (career-mode) sim that is a blend of historical and AI / user transactions, but can't tell exactly how it's working or if it could be better, and looking for any input.


What I've been doing is a historical league, with historical transactions (1993 Rockies for example), full minor leagues, but then turn them off once the season starts.


This is so that, let's say a team in the game is pushing for playoffs, but perhaps in real life they weren't, and, playing for next year, they trade away one or their studs for a prospect. Thus now hurting their chances in the game.


I also disable trades, but leave waiver wire open, so that teams can pick up players that are waived to make room on the 40-man for example. But they won't do any trades- you keep the team you start with after spring training, for example.


Then I turn on the historical transactions in the off-season so that now, your next season (e.g. 1994) has the correct players on the squad, but you've still developed guys in your minors ... still going off of stats from the prior year... still going to have some cool surprises, or guys that fizzle out so now your minor leaguer gets more of an opportunity.



The only issue I run into, is it seems the historical transactions don't simply "blanket" everything to start the next year, but rather just do them one at a time as they happen. So if there was a trade at the trade deadline in real life, when I have historical transactions turned off in the game, it won't place that guy on his appropriate roster during the off-season when I turn historical transactions back on.


Is there any way to "reset" the rosters during the off season to be applicable to the year you're entering, does anyone know? Otherwise the transactions only take place in the offseason (since that's when I turn them on), and you end up with teams who would have acquired a guy the prior year during the season, and keep him on for the next year, now don't have him and he's still on his prior team for good (or until he gets moved during the off season, when historical trans are on).

[pstrickert]

No, I don't think so.

[Charlie Hough]

The game is not going to process a transaction after the fact. When you're using real-life transactions, OOTP is coded so the transactions are processed on the day they happened in real life. After that date, it won't suddenly "catch up" and process those transactions if you suddenly allow them again.

Besides, even if OOTP could do this, if you're allowing AI transactions, that would create conflicts with the historical transactions. For example,if a player is traded in your simulated season, but he was supposed to be involved in a different trade in real life, the game wouldn't be able to make sense of this and complete the transaction.

Unfortunately, OOTP isn't going to support what you're trying to do. To make this work, you would have to make all the off-season transactions manually, and that's a lot of effort.

[Trav876]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

The game is not going to process a transaction after the fact. When you're using real-life transactions, OOTP is coded so the transactions are processed on the day they happened in real life. After that date, it won't suddenly "catch up" and process those transactions if you suddenly allow them again.

Besides, even if OOTP could do this, if you're allowing AI transactions, that would create conflicts with the historical transactions. For example,if a player is traded in your simulated season, but he was supposed to be involved in a different trade in real life, the game wouldn't be able to make sense of this and complete the transaction.

Unfortunately, OOTP isn't going to support what you're trying to do. To make this work, you would have to make all the off-season transactions manually, and that's a lot of effort.

Appreciate the response.

As far as the conflict though, what could be done is just having a button under the league settings (kind of like there's one that "resets all injuries," etc.) that simply puts all players on appropriate rosters for that particular year as if you were entering the game.

So even if a guy got traded as a non-historical transaction, as you mention, once the button is pushed it would place him back on his appropriate team. Then you can keep your guys you've been developing in the minors (unless they've been signed or traded in real life), while doing a "career" mode historically.

However if this isn't a feature, or no way to do this besides manually, that's good to know so I'll figure something else out.

P.S. The only issue I have with the regular historical transactions is, again, if a team happened to be a non-contender in real life and trade based on that, but they happen to be a contender in the game, they'll still execute that trade. Would be nice to play the full season out, then turn back on "historical transactions" for the following year(s).

[Charlie Hough]

Yes, I certainly understand what you're trying to do here. But it's trying to combine features that are more or less designed to be mutually exclusive.

Historical transactions are really designed for people who want to do strict replays of real life seasons. They want teams to field the exact rosters they had day-by-day during each season, and it's usually combined with as-played lineups to create the same conditions of each game during that season and see how the results play out.

If you want something that stays fairly close to real life but leaves room for your league to take on a life of its own, my best advice is to do this:

• Start with a historical season
• Use 3-year recalc with double the weight of the current season
• Allow AI transactions but with very low trade frequency
• Automatically assign rookies to their real life teams for each season

With these settings, your league should remain fairly close to real life in terms of season-by-season rosters and player performance. But trades will still occasionally happen and change things a bit, and if you're using free agency, those signings would certainly change things significantly. But you could restrict free agency more than the actual MLB if you want to minimize some of those signings.

[Trav876]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Yes, I certainly understand what you're trying to do here. But it's trying to combine features that are more or less designed to be mutually exclusive.

Historical transactions are really designed for people who want to do strict replays of real life seasons. They want teams to field the exact rosters they had day-by-day during each season, and it's usually combined with as-played lineups to create the same conditions of each game during that season and see how the results play out.

If you want something that stays fairly close to real life but leaves room for your league to take on a life of its own, my best advice is to do this:

• Start with a historical season
• Use 3-year recalc with double the weight of the current season
• Allow AI transactions but with very low trade frequency
• Automatically assign rookies to their real life teams for each season

With these settings, your league should remain fairly close to real life in terms of season-by-season rosters and player performance. But trades will still occasionally happen and change things a bit, and if you're using free agency, those signings would certainly change things significantly. But you could restrict free agency more than the actual MLB if you want to minimize some of those signings.

Good advice! I like that. Thank you

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

• Start with a historical season
• Use 3-year recalc with double the weight of the current season
• Allow AI transactions but with very low trade frequency
• Automatically assign rookies to their real life teams for each season

Historical rookies is the key. I play with regular free agency and average trade. Here's my team after 41 years.

4/5 SPs are historical team members
5/8 starting position players are historical team members
17/25 active roster are historical team members.

I'd be at 7/8 on position players and 19/25 overall except for a very difficult decision for a defensive upgrade in CF that resulted in me having to give up a home grown 1B.

Some of these historical players weren't on the historical team in the current year but it still feels right.

[Charlie Hough]

Interesting numbers. They probably bode well for the OP's desired experience.

For me, the one drawback of assigning historical rookies to their real life teams is that it doesn't make much sense given the MLB draft since 1965. Since an OOTP league's results would theoretically affect draft positions, historical rookies shouldn't necessarily debut with the same teams they did in real life. Drafts would play out somewhat differently, and so would player development in the minors once they were acquired. But I guess this is a technicality you have to overlook for the sake of convenience and more continuity with real life rosters.

[luckymann]

Charlie Hough, I wasn't around when you used to be on these boards but I just wanted to say how nice it is to have you back. Your engagement with other posters and thoughtful insights into the issues raised are a great (re-)addition to the forum!

[Charlie Hough]

Thanks, luckymann. It's good to be back, although I don't know how long this will last or how frequently I'll be posting. I tend to go through phases where I return to obsessions for a while, but then something else comes along.

The improvements to the 3D modeling have really rekindled my interest in OOTP, especially since I manage all of my team's games. As someone who began with MicroLeague Baseball in 1984, it's great to have those visuals that create tension and uncertainty as the result play out. I'm also having a great time with a fictional historical league starting in 1901 and based on the old Three-I league.

But I've played and beta tested a lot of historical MLB games over the years, and I'm always glad to help people with questions in this area. There are a lot of settings to potentially choose and tweak, but once you finally understand everything and get it working the way you want, it's a lot of fun.

[Wrathchild]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

If you want something that stays fairly close to real life but leaves room for your league to take on a life of its own, my best advice is to do this:

• Start with a historical season
• Use 3-year recalc with double the weight of the current season
• Allow AI transactions but with very low trade frequency
• Automatically assign rookies to their real life teams for each season

This sounds like an interesting concept. Is there a way to incorporate this into an ongoing strict historical replay? Can I change settings from what I originally started with to allow some of this?

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Interesting numbers. They probably bode well for the OP's desired experience.

I'm playing a team that historically wasn't active in signing major free agents. So historical rookies works to populate my team with historical players. I haven't checked but assume AI teams don't have such high percentages.

Turning off or restricting free agency would help my team but make teams that sign a lot of FAs less likely to have historical players. Presumably AI trades to improve its team and if so then restricting trades might diminish competition.

Anyway what I do works for me and might work for others.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

For me, the one drawback of assigning historical rookies to their real life teams is that it doesn't make much sense given the MLB draft since 1965. Since an OOTP league's results would theoretically affect draft positions, historical rookies shouldn't necessarily debut with the same teams they did in real life. Drafts would play out somewhat differently, and so would player development in the minors once they were acquired. But I guess this is a technicality you have to overlook for the sake of convenience and more continuity with real life rosters.

I originally played with historical rookies so when learning the game I had fewer things to deal with. Later I used the draft and found in an historical game a human player who remembers the players a bit has a huge advantage over AI. So after a time of playing using the draft I went back to historical rookies.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Wrathchild

This sounds like an interesting concept. Is there a way to incorporate this into an ongoing strict historical replay? Can I change settings from what I originally started with to allow some of this?

You can always change your settings, but depending on which one it is, it might not be applied until the next off-season or pre-season. For example, changing the recalc settings or how historical rookies are imported will only go into effect when player ratings get their annual update in the offseason and when the next rookies are imported from the database. However, changing the AI trade settings should go into effect immediately, although any negotiations already in progress wouldn't be affected.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Later I used the draft and found in an historical game a human player who remembers the players a bit has a huge advantage over AI.

Yes, this is always the case with any transaction involving historical players, especially if development is turned off and you're using recalc. It's also why I requested for years that OOTP add a new optional feature to allow the AI to "see" the future value of a historical player by seeing how many years he has remaining in the database, how good those seasons are statistically, and the arc of his career.

Adding this would make the AI extremely competitive with a human GM in historical games. But sadly this has never made it into the game as far as I know.

This is one of the reasons why I eventually started playing fictional historicals. Without some kind of house rules, historical games become too easy.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Yes, this is always the case with any transaction involving historical players, especially if development is turned off and you're using recalc. It's also why I requested for years that OOTP add a new optional feature to allow the AI to "see" the future value of a historical player by seeing how many years he has remaining in the database, how good those seasons are statistically, and the arc of his career.

Adding this would make the AI extremely competitive with a human GM in historical games. But sadly this has never made it into the game as far as I know.

This is one of the reasons why I eventually started playing fictional historicals. Without some kind of house rules, historical games become too easy.

Playing with historical rookies on a team that didn't draft any superstars for several decades and limiting spending to just a bit more than average is a great equalizer.

[scurvycure]

"... limiting spending to just a bit more than average is a great equalizer."


Intriguing. Are you suggesting a system where the human GM essentially has a salary cap but all other AI managed teams do not?

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by scurvycure

"... limiting spending to just a bit more than average is a great equalizer."


Intriguing. Are you suggesting a system where the human GM essentially has a salary cap but all other AI managed teams do not?

The AI teams get to spend what their owner says they can spend. I spend up to a bit more than average (if the owner allows it... I play a small market team).

Last year I was 13th in payroll out of 26 teams. This year I'm 15th out of 28 teams. I'm spending about 2/3 of my available payroll money. Payroll is $14,276,699 and budget room is $7,887,190.

Top payroll is $37,375,760
#2 is $32,898,400

#15 $14,276,699 (me)

#27 $7,314,640
#28 $7,111,760

[scurvycure]

I like this idea. In general, how does your team tend to fare in the standings? And are you using the current MLB financial system, with arbitration after 3 years and free agency after 6?

[Brad K]

I'm using the current financial system.

1955 to 1992 the historical team finished first 10 times and won 2 World Series.

Same years my team has finished first 10 times and won 4 World Series. I don't consider winning 4 WS to 2 significant.

To finish first I need several players to have better than average years for them at the same time. That feels right.

My overall winning percentage is .535