Questions about Promotion/Relegation leagues

[smythejd]

Hello community

I am a long time player of fictional leagues and have some questions about setting up my first Pro/reg league. Hope you all can help me.

I want three levels of 8 teams each. The top is JBL, then JBA and finally JBC.

1. As I am setting up the leagues, Do I assign the top league as the "Parent League"? And the other leagues under that?

2. The top league has a "League reputation of 10. Should I assign all leagues with the same reputation?

3. If I chose to hold a draft, how does the game decide the draft order? Just by winning % regardless of the quality of the league?

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by smythejd

1. As I am setting up the leagues, Do I assign the top league as the "Parent League"? And the other leagues under that?

No, none of your 3 leagues should be affiliated. They should all be Major Leagues. Each can be a Parent League to one or more Minor Leagues, but they themselves should be unaffiliated.

I have a fictional 3 tier promotion/relegations league myself. I assigned the top league as a major League with reputation 10, the second league an International League with reputation 3 and the bottom league an Independent league with reputation 1. The reason for a different designation for each level is that this keeps players stats seperate per level, something I prefer. (All 3 designations are treated as Major Leagues in game in the sense that they can have Minor leagues affiliated to them.) You can also designate all 3 as Major Leagues but then players stats are bunched together as these are kept per level and not per league.

In the league option you can choose which league promotes/ relegates to which league. This together with league reputation and league financials determines the "ranking order" of each league.

EDIT: The bold part in the above text is incorrect. See post #18.

Originally Posted by smythejd

2. The top league has a "League reputation of 10. Should I assign all leagues with the same reputation?

No, top league should have the highest reputation, bottom league the lowest.

Originally Posted by smythejd

3. If I chose to hold a draft, how does the game decide the draft order? Just by winning % regardless of the quality of the league?

Not sure, I don't use a draft.

[smythejd]

Thanks Dutch Alexander

Will make those changes

[CH1MA3RA]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

Not sure, I don't use a draft.

I'm quite curious what you do instead of a draft? Care to share?

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by CH1MA3RA

I'm quite curious what you do instead of a draft? Care to share?

Players enter my league in three different ways: As scouting finds, as Amateur Free Agents (requiring a signing bonus) and as Established International Free Agents (about 8 per year). The scouting finds and the Amateur Free Agents are domestic players and end up in the International Complex. In my league though there is nothing "international" about the complex. Rather it serves as a domestic "youth academy". From there they are promoted, when ready, to the single A team which has an age limit of 21 and serves as a youth team. From there they progress to AAA (the "reserve team") and then the first team.

Main reason for not using a draft is that this is a specific North American system. My fictional league is located in a part of the world where this does not exist so it would feel out of place. From a GM perspective this is maybe less interesting as the draft is one of the main ways to improve a team but personally I'm interested in the Manager role first and GM second. And there is still the signing of amateur FA, which is a bit like a mini draft. You're still evaluating prospects and deciding who to target.

[Marinersfan51]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

Players enter my league in three different ways: As scouting finds, as Amateur Free Agents (requiring a signing bonus) and as Established International Free Agents (about 8 per year). The scouting finds and the Amateur Free Agents are domestic players and end up in the International Complex. In my league though there is nothing "international" about the complex. Rather it serves as a domestic "youth academy". From there they are promoted, when ready, to the single A team which has an age limit of 21 and serves as a youth team. From there they progress to AAA (the "reserve team") and then the first team.

Main reason for not using a draft is that this is a specific North American system. My fictional league is located in a part of the world where this does not exist so it would feel out of place. From a GM perspective this is maybe less interesting as the draft is one of the main ways to improve a team but personally I'm interested in the Manager role first and GM second. And there is still the signing of amateur FA, which is a bit like a mini draft. You're still evaluating prospects and deciding who to target.

It never occurred to me to use the IAFA system for domestic players as a draft replacement. I had toyed with the idea of having an open amateur free agency system instead of a draft for a pro/rel league, but I never found a good way to implement it. I may have to give that a shot now.

[BBGiovanni]

Since you have 3 different leagues, you can have 3 different drafts, which is what I do because I reduce the lower leagues' PCMS.

You could also put all 3 leagues in an association and do a shared draft, but I've always been too chicken to try that.

[smythejd]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

Since you have 3 different leagues, you can have 3 different drafts, which is what I do because I reduce the lower leagues' PCMS.

That is good to know. thanks for sharing.

Question, since each league has a different reputation will the draft classes be of equal value or are there better players created for the draft for the top tier league?

Showing my ignorance but what is PCMS?

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

You could also put all 3 leagues in an association and do a shared draft, but I've always been too chicken to try that.

I will not go there either.

[Dogzilla]

PCMs=Player Creation Modifiers

By default, all leagues will have the same quality of talent. I usually make lower leagues have lower quality players, for instance, if the top league has all 1.00 for PCMs, next league down may have all .90, then .80 etc.

If you leave them all default, you'll probably get more rotation through the levels but you may want that.

[dim13]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

Players enter my league in three different ways: As scouting finds, as Amateur Free Agents (requiring a signing bonus) and as Established International Free Agents (about 8 per year). The scouting finds and the Amateur Free Agents are domestic players and end up in the International Complex. In my league though there is nothing "international" about the complex. Rather it serves as a domestic "youth academy". From there they are promoted, when ready, to the single A team which has an age limit of 21 and serves as a youth team. From there they progress to AAA (the "reserve team") and then the first team.

Main reason for not using a draft is that this is a specific North American system. My fictional league is located in a part of the world where this does not exist so it would feel out of place. From a GM perspective this is maybe less interesting as the draft is one of the main ways to improve a team but personally I'm interested in the Manager role first and GM second. And there is still the signing of amateur FA, which is a bit like a mini draft. You're still evaluating prospects and deciding who to target.

I'd be very interested in modeling your leagues. By any chance, could you please save your game as a Quickstart game and post the zip file of your Quickstart ? Would be very much appreciated.

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by dim13

I'd be very interested in modeling your leagues. By any chance, could you please save your game as a Quickstart game and post the zip file of your Quickstart ? Would be very much appreciated.

Sure, below link is the zip file of the entire game folder. Just put the entire unzipped folder in your saved_games folder.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/io4b1...tup.lg.7z/file

This is the "base file" of my league that I use for testing. There are no players in it and the settings are optimized for testing (no facegen, no boxscores saved etc.), so it is a small file. When testing my settings I make a copy of this base file and fill it with players and coaches, then simulate till 2001 and delete all history. This gets rid of the initial batch of players and ensures that all players in the league have entered it as intended. After deleting history the real test begins (25-50 years) and then I analyze the results. Based on these results I then adjust modifiers etc. in the actual base file. Then I make a copy of the updated base file and the process repeats until the test results are satisfactory.

This league is a fictional league with fictional players but with actual teams. The teams are all actual Dutch baseball teams (allthough 3 no longer exist). This fictional league represents an alternate history in which the league is much bigger then real life and the level of play higher. Stadiums are much bigger (2000 - 6700) then real life (2500 max) and there is a lot more money as well. The way I envision this league is that it is about AA level with star players of AAA ability. With the salaries in this league it would present an alternative for players not quite good enough to reach the top level in the US, Korea and Japan.

There are a total of 32 major league teams in this world devided over 3 leagues with promotion / relegation between the tiers. All 32 AAA teams play in the same league and all 32 single A teams play in the same league. So there are a total of 5 leagues in this world (3 major and 2 minor), so it is a compact world and each organization is compact too with only 2 minor league teams.

In this league I use fixed modifiers, I never change them and never use re-calculate. I view the modifiers as the playing environment and feel that by using re-calculate you are manipulating the results. In real life a players performance is determined by his own skill level, the league average skill level, the overall playing environment (elevation, humidity, field and lighting conditions, type of bats and balls used etc.) and park factors. By using re-calculate for the modifiers you are constantly changing the playing environment which doesn't make much sense to me. In my league if there are an above average number of HR hitters in the league then the league total for HR will likely be above average, which it should be. Another reason for using fixed modifiers is that this is a pro/reg league. This means that every season not only teams change leagues but also their home parks. So some years there are an above average number of pitcher friendly parks in the league and other years an above average number of hitter friendly parks. This will have an effect on league totals obviously as it should. If you re-calculate the modifiers then you are changing the playing environment to offset the change in average park factors.

I have experimented with using the exact same modifiers for each league and found this works well for the 3 major leagues. So this means the playing environment is the same in all 3 major leagues and player performance is determined by their own ratings, the league average ratings and the league average park factors. This feels more natural to me. There are only 3 modifiers that are different between the 3 leagues: sacrifice hits, SB attempt (these represent tactics used, not player ability) and SB succes. So only SB succes is manipulated as I found that with the same modifiers the difference in succes rate between the leagues is unrealistically high.

Using the same modifiers for the minor leagues doesn't work. Mainly because minor stats like PB, WP and BK are not part of the development engine so you do not see the same increase in these at lower levels as you would in real life. So both minor leagues have their own modifiers based on totals that I think are realistic. There are still 4 modifiers in the minors that are exactly the same as the major leagues: Hits, HR's, Bases on Balls and Strikeouts. So the 3 true outcomes and contact are all the same in every league. So the 3 basic pitching ratings (Stuff, Movement & Control) are afffected by the exact same modifiers (Strikeouts, HR's and Bases on Balls) in every league. The same is true for hitters: Contact, Home Run Power, Eye / Discipline and Avoid K's are affected by Hits, HR's, Bases on Balls and Strikeouts. The only basic player rating that does not have a constant related modifier is Gap Power since I found that using the same modifiers for Doubles and Triples leads to an unrealisticly low number of doubles and triples in the minors. (the Gap Power rating is part of the development engine so undeveloped players have a low actual rating leading to a low number of doubles and triples. This is not how real life works. For it to work pitchers would need a Gap Power rating as well, then both undeveloped ratings would cancel each other out.) All league totals I see with these same modifiers seem realistic and I like the results.

[dim13]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

Sure, below link is the zip file of the entire game folder. Just put the entire unzipped folder in your saved_games folder.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/io4b1...tup.lg.7z/file

This is the "base file" of my league that I use for testing. There are no players in it and the settings are optimized for testing (no facegen, no boxscores saved etc.), so it is a small file. When testing my settings I make a copy of this base file and fill it with players and coaches, then simulate till 2001 and delete all history. This gets rid of the initial batch of players and ensures that all players in the league have entered it as intended. After deleting history the real test begins (25-50 years) and then I analyze the results. Based on these results I then adjust modifiers etc. in the actual base file. Then I make a copy of the updated base file and the process repeats until the test results are satisfactory.

This league is a fictional league with fictional players but with actual teams. The teams are all actual Dutch baseball teams (allthough 3 no longer exist). This fictional league represents an alternate history in which the league is much bigger then real life and the level of play higher. Stadiums are much bigger (2000 - 6700) then real life (2500 max) and there is a lot more money as well. The way I envision this league is that it is about AA level with star players of AAA ability. With the salaries in this league it would present an alternative for players not quite good enough to reach the top level in the US, Korea and Japan.

There are a total of 32 major league teams in this world devided over 3 leagues with promotion / relegation between the tiers. All 32 AAA teams play in the same league and all 32 single A teams play in the same league. So there are a total of 5 leagues in this world (3 major and 2 minor), so it is a compact world and each organization is compact too with only 2 minor league teams.

In this league I use fixed modifiers, I never change them and never use re-calculate. I view the modifiers as the playing environment and feel that by using re-calculate you are manipulating the results. In real life a players performance is determined by his own skill level, the league average skill level, the overall playing environment (elevation, humidity, field and lighting conditions, type of bats and balls used etc.) and park factors. By using re-calculate for the modifiers you are constantly changing the playing environment which doesn't make much sense to me. In my league if there are an above average number of HR hitters in the league then the league total for HR will likely be above average, which it should be. Another reason for using fixed modifiers is that this is a pro/reg league. This means that every season not only teams change leagues but also their home parks. So some years there are an above average number of pitcher friendly parks in the league and other years an above average number of hitter friendly parks. This will have an effect on league totals obviously as it should. If you re-calculate the modifiers then you are changing the playing environment to offset the change in average park factors.

I have experimented with using the exact same modifiers for each league and found this works well for the 3 major leagues. So this means the playing environment is the same in all 3 major leagues and player performance is determined by their own ratings, the league average ratings and the league average park factors. This feels more natural to me. There are only 3 modifiers that are different between the 3 leagues: sacrifice hits, SB attempt (these represent tactics used, not player ability) and SB succes. So only SB succes is manipulated as I found that with the same modifiers the difference in succes rate between the leagues is unrealistically high.

Using the same modifiers for the minor leagues doesn't work. Mainly because minor stats like PB, WP and BK are not part of the development engine so you do not see the same increase in these at lower levels as you would in real life. So both minor leagues have their own modifiers based on totals that I think are realistic. There are still 4 modifiers in the minors that are exactly the same as the major leagues: Hits, HR's, Bases on Balls and Strikeouts. So the 3 true outcomes and contact are all the same in every league. So the 3 basic pitching ratings (Stuff, Movement & Control) are afffected by the exact same modifiers (Strikeouts, HR's and Bases on Balls) in every league. The same is true for hitters: Contact, Home Run Power, Eye / Discipline and Avoid K's are affected by Hits, HR's, Bases on Balls and Strikeouts. The only basic player rating that does not have a constant related modifier is Gap Power since I found that using the same modifiers for Doubles and Triples leads to an unrealisticly low number of doubles and triples in the minors. (the Gap Power rating is part of the development engine so undeveloped players have a low actual rating leading to a low number of doubles and triples. This is not how real life works. For it to work pitchers would need a Gap Power rating as well, then both undeveloped ratings would cancel each other out.) All league totals I see with these same modifiers seem realistic and I like the results.

Thank you !! Very much appreciated !!

[dim13]

Dutch Alexander,

Thank you again. I've been going though the settings in your file today. I must say, your file is genius. It really shows that you put a ton of thought and work into your file. Greatly appreciated you sharing with the community.

[smythejd]

Hello again..

I just completed my first season and the have noticed some stuff which makes me think I do not have this league set up correctly.

I have 3 leagues of 8 teams each. Each team has a AAA team. Each league has its own AAA league (as I do not know how to make just one). \\

After the season, the program did its promotion/regation of the top and bottom teams. Everything worked well in the top leagues but the AAA teams stayed (did not follow their major league teams to the new leagues.

I know I need to change things around but not sure what to change.

They are not part of an association. Would that help? Also, I would like to put all the AAA teams in one league. Again, Association?

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by smythejd

After the season, the program did its promotion/regation of the top and bottom teams. Everything worked well in the top leagues but the AAA teams stayed (did not follow their major league teams to the new leagues.

Minor league teams never move. Promotion / relegation only applies to the Major League teams. So your league is functioning normally. If you want the Minor League teams to move you will have to do it manually, which is just a few mouseclicks.

Originally Posted by smythejd

I have 3 leagues of 8 teams each. Each team has a AAA team. Each league has its own AAA league (as I do not know how to make just one). \\

If you want to make one Minor League just move the teams from 2 leagues to the other one and delete the 2 empty leagues. Teams will retain their affiliation. (In the League setup page all Minor League teams who do not have a parent team in the parent league will show no affiliation but they are still affiliated. If you look at such a teams organisational overview you will see the AAA team is still affiliated)

The only issue with this this setup is that Major League teams without a Minor League affiliated will loose all Minor League settings in the league setup. This means no Minor League free agency can be set for that league. In practice this is not much of a problem as the rules for the parent Major League will apply to all players in that Minor League. Only when you would want to set different Minor League FA limits for each Major League this would not be possible.

The only real problem with this setup is that you loose the option to set the secondary roster size. This option is no longer available. But there is a workaround for this issue. Simply temporarily affiliate the Minor League to that Major League and set the secondary roster size. When you change the affiliation back to the original league the secondary roster size is then still recognized by the game. The game will continue to recognize the secondary roster size until you visit the options page for that league again. Then it is lost and you will have to repeat the aformentioned procedure.

[smythejd]

Thank you Dutch Alexander

Will make the changes.

[Moneybrawler]

How do I make it have a draft where all the teams and leagues participate in the same draft?

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

I have a fictional 3 tier promotion/relegations league myself. I assigned the top league as a major League with reputation 10, the second league an International League with reputation 3 and the bottom league an Independent league with reputation 1. The reason for a different designation for each level is that this keeps players stats seperate per level, something I prefer....
You can also designate all 3 as Major Leagues but then players stats are bunched together as these are kept per level and not per league.

Since this thread is now bumped I will take this opportunity to retract the aboce statement. If you set up a promotion / relegation league DO NOT use different league designations as this will cause issues. With this setup I saw established players regularly sign Minor League deals with teams in the lower leagues. This does not happen when all leagues are deignated as Major League. Different league designations confuses the AI and leads to weird behaviour.

The part about the bunching together of players stats is actualy not true. Originally I used International League as league designation for all leagues and the stats were bunched together which is why I started using different designations. However if you designate all leagues as Major League this does not happen, the game keeps track of players stats per seperate Major League.

So my advise is if you set up a promotion / relegation league designate each league as Major League.

[Baconi]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

Since this thread is now bumped I will take this opportunity to retract the aboce statement. If you set up a promotion / relegation league DO NOT use different league designations as this will cause issues. With this setup I saw established players regularly sign Minor League deals with teams in the lower leagues. This does not happen when all leagues are deignated as Major League. Different league designations confuses the AI and leads to weird behaviour.

The part about the bunching together of players stats is actualy not true. Originally I used International League as league designation for all leagues and the stats were bunched together which is why I started using different designations. However if you designate all leagues as Major League this does not happen, the game keeps track of players stats per seperate Major League.

So my advise is if you set up a promotion / relegation league designate each league as Major League.

Do you find that the financials really work when they're all set to major leagues? I feel like I've tried everything to get pro/rel league working but it *always* results in players signing for way too low in leagues that are below their skill level, even when I've made sure every team has plenty of money to sign players. Doesn't make it any fun to play when you can easily sign star players in a lower league for peanuts.

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by Baconi

Do you find that the financials really work when they're all set to major leagues? I feel like I've tried everything to get pro/rel league working but it *always* results in players signing for way too low in leagues that are below their skill level, even when I've made sure every team has plenty of money to sign players. Doesn't make it any fun to play when you can easily sign star players in a lower league for peanuts.

I'm reasonably happy with what I see. The average player in the top league is clearly better than the two lower leagues and the top talent is usually playing in the top league. See below test results. Ratings 20-80 scale with 100% accuracy. I would like to see bigger difference in average ratings but it's not bad.

I still see players in lower leagues who could play in the highest league, partly because of relegation and trades and some who are still under team control. You will never get it perfect, also because the game is not really geared towards pro/reg leagues. In a real pro/reg league you would see more complex financials with relegation clauses reducing players salaries upon relegation to protect the teams. Similarly players on teams earning promotion would get a raise. This cannot be done in the game so you have to deal with simplified financials. In real life players probably would have clauses against being traded to a lower league as well. Pro/reg was never fully developed in the game.

I also think MLB type parity with a draft system does not work well with pro/reg leagues. I've set my league up with unbalanced financials, so some teams are big and rich and some are small and poor. Some of these rich clubs basically never relegate and if you have a few of these bigger clubs they will gobble up the top talent. I've also set trading frequency to very low to minimize top talent being traded to lower leagues and trading is not allowed during the season.

It is very difficult to get right. There are so many possible settings combinations that finding the correct settings that work for your particular league setup is very difficult. It's trial and error and a lot of testing. No easy solution I'm afraid. I'm finalizing testing the final settings in my league so I'm mostly focussing on the broad outlines and I like what I see. But once I actually start playing and experience the inner workings of the league I might well encouter issues that are not obvious when only testing.