Integrated Historical League - erasing the color line in the 20th century

[3fbrown]

I have a long-running historical league (Replay League), but I started a new historical league last year with two goals. One was just to do something different - play with free agency, bring in rookies differently, etc. I'll describe that in another post. The second, more interesting goal was to learn more about the Negro Leagues. So I started a historical league in 1871 and simmed through until 1901, which is when I started managing and paying close attention.

When Black players became available, even before 1901, I would import them. I use a database I got from these forums, though I forget exactly where it came from. It lists every such player that is in the OOTP minor league database, and it actually includes Negro League players, Blackball players (pre-Negro Leagues Black ballplayers), and Cuban League ballplayers.

Unfortunately, as you might expect, data for these players is sparse, especially for the pre-Negro League era. Black ballplayers were playing on barnstorming teams, playing in unofficial "leagues" or for local teams. Even players known to be terrific might not have any real stats to use. So these players almost always import as terrible. Cuban ballplayers are better in this regard, but not great.

So, I have to manually adjust every player I import. It takes quite a while, since there have been roughly 100 players per year, through the first 11 years of the 20th century. I don't mind too much, since I get to learn about the players, and that was the original intent.

Most players have very minimal stats, which I get from Seamheads, an amazing resource. The website will say that they went 0-3 in one game, or pitched twice, five years apart. Nothing helpful. For those guys - truly marginal ballplayers, I don't spend much time worrying about. They probably were in fact marginal, and so they can have low talent in the game. I will look for information about each person online, but rarely find anything for these guys. But occasionally I learn about a fascinating person like William Clarence Matthews or Lorenzo Dow Turner or Bobby Marshall - guys that are awesome for reasons having little to do with baseball.

For better players, with more substantial careers, I use the website to try and estimate how good they were at various parts of the game, knowing that it is nothing but a very rough approximation. I also use some other websites to get more information for some of the top players, which helps me flesh out what they were like.

Hall of Miller & Eric
Agate Type
Baseball History Daily
Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum

I also have a book that I use, which occasionally helps me learn more about the guys I am creating.

I can share more about specifically how I come up with talent ratings for guys if anyone is interested. It's hard to tell how well I am doing, since I don't know what these guys should be like, and nobody else really does either. I can tell you that Cyclone Joe Williams has been pretty amazing, Charles Dougherty is strong, Spottswood Poles just had an excellent season, John Henry Lloyd and Pelayo Chacon are very good, and Rube Foster is very likely headed to the HOF for his pitching. I am sure some guys are too good and others are not good enough, but I am enjoying the process either way.

I am curious if anyone else has done anything similar, and if so, how you dealt with issues of giving those guys appropriate talents.

[3fbrown]

While the addition of Black and Cuban players to the league is the most interesting part, for me at least, I should also share how I run the league. Assuming I post information and updates from the league itself, knowing how it runs is useful context.

Basic historical info: I use real historical settings for the game (offense at era-appropriate level, etc). I also have the development engine on and recalc off. So in theory, a player appears as a rookie with historically accurate talents/potentials, but then they might get better or worse as fate decrees.

My goal was to do something different from my Replay League, which has an annual rookie draft and no financials - meaning that the reserve clause is in effect. So the big thing here for me is that I have modern financials, with some small tweaks. After three years, players reach arbitration, and after three more years they reach free agency. I cut away any additions to free agency (compensation picks, etc). Also, a year of service time is reached after ONE DAY on the major league roster, so there is no playing around with service time, Kris Bryant-style. But since I also don't have expanded rosters in September, if a guy is in AAA all year, he usually stays there ALL year.

With rookies I did something fairly novel. Rookies are assigned to teams completely randomly. This means that not only are teams getting random quality of rookies, but the quantity of rookies is also random. I like how the rookie class a team gets is independent of their record (no incentive for tanking), and also how you never know what kind of rookies you will get until they arrive. As expected, this means that the quality of your rookie class makes a HUGE difference in how good a team is. This is especially true in the deadball era, as there is a giant chasm in production between the superstars and the regular players. If you happen to be the team that gets Eddie Collins or Walter Johnson, that is a huge boost.

One downside to this combination is that superstars rarely reach free agency. Since (for example) Ty Cobb is so valuable, his team will not let him get away, and will always sign him to a contract extension. Maybe that's not so crazy, but superstars are never available on the free agent market, so the value of getting them as rookies is a little too high. The problem might be mine - I may not have the financial settings quite right, and I am working on that. But it makes building up the team that much more difficult.

Finally, I should explain how I choose my team. I pick my team randomly, and control them (GM, not in-game) until I win the pennant. Once I win the pennant, I roll the die and get assigned another random team. I like the constant challenge, and change in circumstances. My history so far:
St. Louis Cardinals: 1901-1902
Detroit Tigers: 1903-1907
Brooklyn Superbas: 1908-1910
Chicago White Sox: 1911-????

Since I still feel smarter than the AI, one handicap I give myself is that I am not allowed to have a top 5 payroll. I may eventually restrict myself further, but like I said, I don't feel confident enough in the financial settings to worry about that.

[luckymann]

Really looking forward to this one!

[3fbrown]

Sorry for abandoning this immediately upon creation! I was meaning to progress fairly quickly, but when I changed over to OOTP21, every rookie pitcher in 1912 imported as a flyball pitcher, which made them all allow lots of HR, so I waited, hoping the OOTP folks would fix it. They haven't, so I am going to continue with OOTP19 for the time being.

I am not sure what is most interesting to share here, so for now I will share about the importing process. All Negro and Cuban League guys must be imported manually. They all exist in the minor league database, but they are all universally terrible, so it takes a lot of editing to get them to a realistic level of talent. And with the limited statistical and/or biographical information available for many of these guys - especially in the pre-Negro League era I have been dealing with so far - their level of talent involves a lot of guesswork.

Most of the information I get from seamheads.com, which has the definitive database of Negro League and Cuban League stats. The nice thing is that not only are their stats, but they show how the most important rate stats compare to league rates. This gives context, so I know for example how often a player walked compared to his league average. They also give a percentile (e.g. Player X was in the 77th percentile for SB) that gives context as well. There are stats for offense, defense, and pitching.

I generally do not translate much for the level of the league. If a player was roughly a league average pitcher in his league, I will make him roughly a league average pitcher in my league, maybe rounding down a bit. While the level of competition was certainly lower outside of MLB, I do not want to put in the work to create those translations. And besides, the point of this all is to learn about these guys, so if some of them are better than they should be, I don't mind!

I also use the excellent translations created by The Hall of Miller and Eric. For top Negro League players, they created MLB equivalencies, and I acquired a spreadsheet that gives career totals for WAR, WAA, and for hitters splits that into hitting, baserunning, and defense. They also provide scores indicating how good the data is. This helps me better understand the contours of a player's profile. For example, as I worked on 2B Bienvenido Jimenez last night, I could see that he was well-balanced as a player, as opposed to Bingo DeMoss, who was all glove and baserunning, with much less bat. It also helps me find the MLB analogs for the players, which helps me think things through. Jimenez was pretty similar to Marty McManus, in terms of total value, average value per season, and relative contributions of hitting and fielding. DeMoss, on the other hand, was like a more defense-heavy Willie Randolph.

Another great part of this is learning stories. Today I learned about Jose Leblanc. He was Cuban, and started out as a catcher and utility player. Once he started playing in the Negro Leagues in the US, he became a pitcher, and was absolutely dominant. But he only got to pitch for three years, because there was an argument during a ballgame, and an opposing player hit him in the head with a baseball bat, killing him. This was in 1922, less than two years after Ray Chapman died after being hit by a pitch. But unlike Chapman, nobody knows the story of Leblanc at all!

Also, there are some great nicknames. Just this year so far, John Cunningham's nickname was "Red" which seems unlikely. I learned about Lefty "Little Pitch" Harvey, a nickname that seems less likely to fly in modern times. Then there is George "Headache Band" Capers. I have no idea where that could have come from.

I am about halfway through this year's rookie crop, which is 35, a relatively small batch. Usually it has been closer to 100, but a lot depends on what was happening in the Cuban Leagues that year.

Sometime soon I will try to comment on some of the black stars of the IHL so far. Some haven't lived up to their promise, others have been terrific, like any other player.

[3fbrown]

I will soon get to the update on how individual Black players are doing. But first a brief 1911 season update. I am running the White Sox, and they are doing well, though I don't know how. The rotation is led by Ray Caldwell, who is solid, then a bunch of Dudes like Rube Kroh and Nick Maddox. The defense is keeping the runs allowed though - my middle infield of Solly Hofman and Al Bridwell is very good. And Tommy Leach in CF is having a good season even at his advanced age. My OF depth was very good, so I traded away young star George Burns for rookie 1B Jack Fournier before the season. It was a wise choice, as Fournier is hitting .326 with power and patience, while I had plenty of guys to cover OF.

My main rival in the AL is Cleveland. Their roster is overflowing with talent. But they have had several major slumps and losing streaks, and so the race is close. In fact, the White Sox lead by 1.5 games in mid-August. The big mystery is scoring. Cleveland is better at everything that Chicago - better batting average, more power, more walks. Yet Chicago has scored more runs. Luck? Probably. The only other idea I have is that the White Sox don't strike out much, so maybe my opponents are making errors and we are scoring unearned runs? In 1911, it's a reasonable idea.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

Just this year so far, John Cunningham's nickname was "Red" which seems unlikely.

Why?

[3fbrown]

Just this year so far, John Cunningham's nickname was "Red" which seems unlikely.
Why?

I meant only that the nickname "Red" typically refers to someone having red hair. John Cunningham was a Black man, and Black folks don't often have red hair. But actually, you made me look into it a bit more, and while rare it is more common than I (a White man) assumed. There are no pictures of Cunningham that I could find, so I don't know where the name came from. So while "unlikely" is literally true, I was probably wrong to single it out as noteworthy.

[3fbrown]

Without trying to give a detailed history of segregated Black baseball - which I am not qualified to give anyway - I think of turn-of-the-century Black baseball as having two eras, which I will briefly describe below. But in general, you can think about Black baseball as being a few decades behind White baseball in terms of organization. Which makes sense, as they had a smaller population to draw from, and fewer resources.

Please note that I am a novice, and you should do your own research if you want to really learn about this era of baseball. But I think you should - if you enjoy learning about Honus Wagner, you will also like learning about John Henry Lloyd!

The Independent Years - In the early years, late 19th century into the early 20th century, there were Black teams. The best (and best funded) were stable, but many came and went. They would barnstorm and play other Black teams or White teams, or even integrated teams. There were still some Black players in Organized baseball (by Organized I mean the official major and minor leagues, part of the National Agreement), but by the end of the century they were forced out. The statistical record is painfully thin. Even for the truly great Black ballplayers of this era, we have few actual statistics.

I should note that on multiple occasions folks tried to start actual leagues, but they did not last. The Southern League of Colored Base Ballists and the National Colored Base Ball League were real attempts, and are interesting in their own right. The first Black players in my league come from the NCL. But making them involved a lot of guesswork and imagination, since they only played a few games.

Players also played for local teams with a permanent home, sometimes associated with a hotel (the players were employees at the hotel) that would play for the entertainment of the guests. But this wasn’t the Four Seasons, as should be obvious by the top teams including the French Lick Plutos (yes, that’s Larry Bird’s hometown), as well as more familiar (non-hotel associated) teams like the Cuban X Giants and the Chicago American Giants. [“Giants” was a code word for a Black team in those days.]

We have some stats from this era, but not too many. Mostly stats come from the 4-6 top teams, and even then they are certainly not complete. But for top players there is enough information - both statistical and anecdotal - to at least get a picture of the player. The best place for such stats is the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database.

During this time the Cuban League also started, and this is better documented. I was better able to make accurate players from there. Interestingly, in the early years of the Cuban league, run scoring was LOW. Much lower than deadball MLB. For example, in the 1905-06 season, the entire league had an ERA of 1.67. No team could even hit .200! Seamheads also has Cuban League stats.

[3fbrown]

The League Years - I haven’t gotten here yet, but the Negro Leagues as we think of them now began in 1920. My league is currently in 1912, so I have a few years before that. But there are players in my league that did play in the NNL later in their careers, which helps with statistical information.

When I describe a player here, I will give their debut year, and this may give you a hint as to the circumstances of their baseball career, and the amount of data I am likely to be working with. I will try to include a bit of biographical background if such information exists. But there are hundreds of Black ballplayers, so I will only be mentioning a small fraction of them. After all, just like in MLB, most of them were marginal players with brief careers. But in these cases, I don’t know anything at all. In many cases, even their first names are unknown.

[mitchkenn]

Another great book on the subject is "The Biographical Encyclopedia Of The Negro Baseball Leagues" by James A Riley.
https://www.amazon.com/Biographical-.../dp/0786700653
It has a short (mostly) bio and history of most players in the book. Only downsize for me was it has few stats. Still the short history of players gives them some context. i was able to find the book used on Amazon about 6 years ago. It was the first of a dozen or so books on the subject i bought back then, still one of the more interesting ones, along with "Only The Ball Was White".

Great idea and method you're doing. i find i hand edit all the Negro League players i use in my games, mostly from data from Seamheads with a tweak from the Encyclopedia mentioned.

[3fbrown]

Thanks mitchkenn. I do things very similarly, hand editing every player using Seamheads and other online resources. I don't have that book, the only one I have is "The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History" by Phil Lewis. No stats, but the stories definitely help, and it is a really cool book. Your book sounds more useful for this though!

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

I meant only that the nickname "Red" typically refers to someone having red hair. John Cunningham was a Black man, and Black folks don't often have red hair. But actually, you made me look into it a bit more, and while rare it is more common than I (a White man) assumed. There are no pictures of Cunningham that I could find, so I don't know where the name came from. So while "unlikely" is literally true, I was probably wrong to single it out as noteworthy.

Ellis Boyd Redding would like a word.


https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/...k-tease_jvtuks

[3fbrown]

Sorry for the delay...life!

George Williams (1887)

Williams was the first Black player to be a regular starter in the IHL. The real Williams played 2B and 1B, mostly for the Trenton Cuban Giants. My Williams played 1B for Pittsburgh, and later Milwaukee. Since he was a 2B in real life, he was a very good defensive 1B, winning four gold gloves. He was a regular every year from 1887-1900, and was an above average hitter, ending up being worth around 30 WAR.

[3fbrown]

Arthur Thomas (1887)

A catcher for those same Trenton teams, Thomas was an average backstop for a number of years. It’s likely not a coincidence that these two guys started in the same year and played for the same team. I suspect it is entirely due to the fact that someone kept decent records of the games they played, so they are the rare players with substantial statistical records to use.

[3fbrown]

Sol White (1887)

White was a solid 2B of the early Black baseball years. But he is better known for being a top manager through the independent years and into the early Negro League years. Maybe his greatest accomplishment is writing History of Colored Base Ball, the first book on the history of Black baseball, in 1907. In fact, it was the only such book until Only the Ball Was White in 1970.

In the IHL, White was a defensive whiz at 2B, collecting seven consecutive gold gloves from 1892-98, and making four all-star teams. His best year was in 1891, when he earned the silver slugger award by leading the league with 15 HR and having an OPS 50% above the league average. But usually he was a league average hitter with great defense, and ended up being worth about 38 WAR in his career.

[macprivateer]

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

I can share more about specifically how I come up with talent ratings for guys if anyone is interested. It's hard to tell how well I am doing, since I don't know what these guys should be like, and nobody else really does either...

I would love to hear more about this, how you do the edits, policies/process really anything you'd like to share in terms of how you rate them. Not sure how far you have gone but any info on what you do for each era based on their debut (how you do dead ball debuts of Black players vs guys entering in the 20's 30's, etc.



And I'm a newbie so going into gory details is just fine by me.


I would like to do basically the same setup, having these players enter MLB when they started their playing careers (regardless whether that was Cuban leagues, barnstorming, Negro Leagues, etc.) and I'm worried about them being either too good or too bad. So any insight you can share would be great.



I also wonder if there are enough players entering to do some manual expansion of the league, for example, do you feel it's possible, with the added talent, to have the league expand say during the 1920's to 10 team leagues. You mentioned adding 100 players per year, I'm guessing some years were south of that number and others higher, but having done all this, do you feel you could field 20 teams in MLB during the 1920's as a result?


You also mentioned you are doing development On and recalc Off, I'd prefer to go the opposite route (dev off, recalc 3yr) and would like to know if you have any thoughts on that? Again, a newbie here, but I'm assuming I have to have ALL season data for the imported players in order for the game engine to do the recalc's. And then I'd have to manually edit players ratings each year. So I'm guessing I have a lot more work ahead of me in preparing the data used for the import and then even more work after the import. I'm so new to this game I really don't know if the things I want to do are even possible, so any light you can shine would be much appreciated.

[3fbrown]

Thanks mac, I have not been good about updating this thread I started...life this fall/winter has been difficult. I will try to answer your question, but please ask follow-up questions if you have them.

First, I have a spreadsheet with a list of all of the Negro/Cuban League guys that are in the minor league database. This file is a few years old, but presumably is still valid, since it seems to still work for the newer versions of the game. It has the ID and year needed for importing. This is how I know who to import every year. The list has issues (e.g. MLB players that played *against* NgL teams, duplicate players, guys who have no known first names, etc.) but overall works well.

When I import, the players are uniformly bad due to sparse stats, at least through 1913. So I manually adjust all talent. I use the stats available at Seamheads to base ratings from. That website also has percentiles and average values for comparison, which helps me put the stats in context. Of course, the majority of guys have minimal stats anyway, so there is nothing much to do.

To select talent levels, what I have done is look through the currently existing players in the league, and for all the individual ratings (contact, eye, stuff, control, range, etc) I have estimated the percentiles of the league. So I can see, for example, that the average contact for a MLB player is 57/100, 25th percentile is 47, 75th percentile is 71, and so on. This gives me, for every individual rating, a rough idea of where the league is. So if I determine that a particular player walks a little more than average based on his Cuban League stats, I can convert that into being a little above average in my league. This needs recalibration every few years I suspect, especially as my league enters the live ball era.

Quick note here - the Cuban and Negro leagues are definitely not equivalent to MLB, and maximum realism would require discounting. But I am more interested in learning about these Black players, so I discount very little. This probably makes them overpowered compared to reality, but that isn't concerning to me. It may be to others.

I also like to check players - at least the good ones - once they are created. So once I finish putting in the abilities of a player, if they are average or better, I look at their most important abilities and try to find comparable players already in my league. This is a sort of check on whether I am putting them at the right level. If a player is supposed to be a little above average, but guys with ratings like his seem to be all-stars, I may need to rethink.

You asked about deal ball Black players, which is all I have done so far, but hopefully is tougher than future NgL players. The stats are so poorly documented that a lot of extrapolation has to be done. I definitely have a few websites I check (plus google) to see if I can learn more about them. There are definitely guys that were likely star players, but have so few stats available that you would never know it from that. I also tend to give extra credit for long careers. The stats may be unreliable and sparse, but if a guy played for 15 years, that is strong evidence to me that they were a legitimately good player.

Your question about league expansion is a good one! I haven't tried that, but I can tell you that it definitely isn't necessary, at least in the deal ball era. While there may be a good number of Black players entering the league, few are impact players. And even the White players are in a similar boat - back then the back of the bench was far worse than in modern times, and there are plenty of actual MLB players whose careers would not be missed if they were pushed out for some Black players. I have not found this problematic at all. But I think that have 10 teams per league would probably work out OK as well, you should have enough players to make that work, no problem. The real issue in my mind is that those old leagues were dominated by a handful of players (Wagner, Lajoie, Mathewson, etc), and the more teams you have, the lower the chance that a team will have one of those stars. I was hoping to mute that issue by not expanding, though the issue still remains. Expanding would exacerbate it. But that isn't good or bad, it's up to what you are interested in doing. No right answer here.

You also asked about recalc. While I haven't tried it, I am pretty sure that that setting will make all of the Negro and Cuban League players terrible again after every year. So you would have to recreate them every year! That does not sound like fun to me, but what I do probably doesn't sound fun to many others...

I would be interested in hearing how this goes for you!

[macprivateer]

Again many thanks, your details are VERY helpful!!!

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

First, I have a spreadsheet with a list of all of the Negro/Cuban League guys that are in the minor league database.

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

I use the stats available at Seamheads to base ratings from.

Yes actually have seen that spreadsheet floating around the forums, I did download it and will take a closer look. And yep that Seamheads page is absolutely amazing. And I kinda thought those graphs they have might have been at least some use for you. So good to hear that.

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

You also asked about recalc. While I haven't tried it, I am pretty sure that that setting will make all of the Negro and Cuban League players terrible again after every year. So you would have to recreate them every year! That does not sound like fun to me, but what I do probably doesn't sound fun to many others...

That's the part I'm still trying to figure out. I have only played two leagues so far, one single season, sort of my own tutorial, just to learn the game a bit. Now I'm doing another semi-longer term tutorial, again really just to learn the ins and outs of the game, started in 1969 and going thru to 1979 (no Dev and the recalc is just 1 year) but sticking with historical usage so players miss years they really did miss (due to injury, etc.). And I'm only at the tail end of the 1970 season so far. But it's helping a lot in learning some of the settings and their impact.


My rationale for trying to use the recalc is I'd like to stay as close to real stats as I can get. In these first two replays I'm doing I have seen the sim stats are for the most part pretty darn good in terms of staying with the "feel" of the players real abilities. Playing the Dodgers who in the early 70's had the great pitching but the power hitters they'd eventually have (Garvey, Cey, Reggie Smith) were not yet there so each game was like, well, like baseball in 1968...small ball to get a 1 run lead and hold on for the win. And sure enough, that is exactly how games are in 1970 for the Dodgers in the game.


Also my thinking is that recalc will work best for another thing I'm envisioning I'd like my long term league to do...erase war years. I do want to run thru the 40's and see Williams, DiMaggio, etc not miss out of some prime years.


The expansion early on I may have to rethink. At first I felt with perhaps 30-50 solid adds that would be enough plus as you say the lesser players to fill out 4 new teams to start 1901 with 10 each league, might then be able to create division play with that and LCS just for kicks.


But that is more of some fantasy options I'm just mulling around with right now. I know you can change an awful lot of settings in the game each season, but I'd like to try to have as much consistency year over year as I can get. And of course there are some settings that MUST be set for the duration. And for those I really want to make sure I get them right.


But anyway, many thanks for all the info. Hearing how you handle things is hugely helpful to me so again thanks and have a happy New Year 3 Finger!!! And definitely keep updating how things are going, your posts are great.

[bobellis75]

I haven't been around here in a while, but going to dive back into this game...I've never given it a fair shake, and really want to. Catching up here on the Negro League stuff (a passion of mine) and I have started (barely) looking at some players individually and "adjusting" their stats while projecting them out to playing over the full MLB schedules (having each player play the same percentage they played for their Negro League team). It's fun, it's painstakingly slow, and I have only done Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell for hitters and Joe Williams, Satchel Paige for pitchers. I projected each season of their career with a "neutralized/normalized" statistical adjustment and for pitchers, figured out how many W-L decisions they should have, then used pythagorean projections to come up with win-loss based on runs allowed, etc, etc....

All that to say - I'm super, super intrigued by these projects with incorporating Negro League players in the MLB game using OOTP....you guys are doing some awesome stuff, and I'm looking forward to purchasing the game and diving in...lots to learn on this game, but anyway....

If you're intrigued...I also add up each player's career totals and find their ranks among the all-time rankings. Josh Gibson in 1937 set a single-season record for SLG (with a .914 mark) and finished his projected career with 537 homers (18th all-time) and 2008 RBI (sixth all-time). He also finished 2nd all time in career SLG and 5th in career OPS (and third in OPS+).

Cool Papa compiled a lot of numbers over 23 years...winding up 4th all-time in AB's/Runs/Hits and 3rd in singles. He also stole 663 bases (again...projecting).

On the pitching side - Joe Williams I had at a career W-L of 360-256 while Satch was second all-time in ERA+ and 10th in career K's (239-143 record with 47 saves). Satch includes his actual MLB stats compiled on top of his adjusted/projected NL stats.


I'm curious to run some sims and see how the game has these guys rated, etc, and how they pan out versus what I might project, etc. (I know the game has a lot of variables...but will be fun to see regardless).

[djc]

So how is your project. I have tried something similar using Tiger Fans how to add fictional league to your historical mlb with minors enabled. I too have done a lot of research on Hall of Miller and Eric, Seamheads, and the like. I even created a spreadsheet of the 75 players most likely to make it to the MLB. Starting with Frank Grant in 1895ish all the way to Jackie Robinson. The spreadsheet includes the players info (bats, throws, debut year, etc) his MLE (Major League Equivalent) and his WAR per year. I was using another sim game Dave Koch Baseball because I could import his MLE on his rookie year then adjust his ratings yearly based on his WAR. What that didn't give was his time in the minors. Hence trying in OOTP. But with players like LLoyd he doesn't seem to move out of Minors AA. Sorry so long looking for insight. thanks in advance