throwing my suggestions into the fray

[Canary85]

- please nerf defensive range. i've played in various online leagues and people would try to have 65+ range for every single position and then somehow the team is just elite even though they can't hit, since no one ever scores on them. it is beyond unrealistic. defense isn't even valued as much today with the growth of TTO. furthermore just because you have great range doesn't mean you are a great defender (IKF) and you can have not great range and still be a good one (dansby swanson). at least according to baseball prospectus' newest defense metrics released before this season...


- !!!MISSION COMPLETE!!! speaking of defense i would love to see catchers get catcher ability split into blocking and framing. as we now know from savant's newest defensive metrics, blocking is a huge deal. i don't really understand folding blocking and framing into the same tool though. would create a new challenge for GMs where you have to deal with more variables.


- !!MISSION MORE OR LESS COMPLETE!!! i would love to player development get fleshed out more. it is the new frontier now that every team has an army of nerds doing projection models and is playing moneyball to some degree. splitting into hitting and pitching development and having to figure out how to budget those would be a great place to start. it would allow you to focus on drafting/signing amateurs on one side of the ball and then you can flip them for trades or use free agency to build the other side of the ball. look at the marlins for example. or maybe instead of hitting/pitching, just splitting into different things would be better, like contact, power, discipline, stuff, movement, control. a system coordinator personnel role could be added, where they have strengths and weaknesses in those tools, altho tbh i find hiring stuff to be kind of tedious. and there could be a mechanic where we select a handful of players to specifically focus on as well and pick one tool for them to try and improve on. could also do something with teaching pitchers new pitches or improving them. the 20/20 changeup is possibly the most annoying thing in the game. plus it would be cool to turn a reliever into a starter if they have 50+ stamina or w/e by getting them a third pitch.



- i'd also like to see scouting changed. i think the favors tools or ability stuff should just be nixed and instead a scout has different strengths and weaknesses in things. but expand that a bit more so that instead of just "international" or "amateurs" its "high school hitters" or "college pitchers" and so forth. it adds more variables that you have to weigh and no one likes ability scouts anyway (at least in my online leagues i've played).



- i'd love to see something that is between low and normal injury setting. i feel like when i play low that essentially no one gets hurt. however if i play on normal, more often than not a player good enough to play every day is going to be fragile by the time theyre 30. i understand that's realistic but it also isnt fun. and having everyone on low and no one getting hurt also makes it not super fun. i realize this is an annoying suggestion/complaint but i'm only human, ok?


- i would like to see the engine do something about what i call "talent creep." this is when you get deep into a save and it seems like every team is good. like a back end starter will be 55/50/55 for most teams. everyone has adequate corner outfielders. its basically impossible to find people to trade with when this happens because no one has any needs. the only solutions for this are adjusting player creation modifiers, seriously altering player development/scouting baselines, or cranking up injuries. however i feel like the game should just be able to normalize and keep this from happening altogether. if the dev team was only going to use one of my suggestions i would prefer it be this one.


- you guys should consider hosting online leagues and let people pay a fee to use them, like how most of us do with statsplus. maybe the commish can set a timer for when the sim will happen, similar to what PT does, and the sim will occur. running an online league is a tremendous pain in the ass but there are some hardcore OOTP freaks that love them and we would greatly appreciate you hosting the leagues yourselves because it would make our lives way easier.


- lastly someone who works on the game should win the lottery so that you have the funds to create a badass physics based engine and then start implementing stuff like seam shifted wakes, horizontal launch angles, csw%, and so forth and then i can have fun doing stats only and pretending the rays would hire me. wishing you luck on getting the right numbers. thanks guys.

aight i think that's it. will let you know if i come up with more ideas since i know you're probably dying for more.

edit: 4.6.24
- the prospect pipeline ranking should be fixed so that instead of just potential being used, it should also consider proximity to the majors. for example, the pipeline from osa is ALWAYS full of new iafa/scouting discovery teenagers from latin america (or whichever country). however, those international signings are almost never actually in the top 100s for any of the major prospect publications due to the high risk and variance of someone so young. i don't think a single teen from last year got into the top 100 except for maybe ethan salas (or was he the year before?). this year only de vries, also a padre, made some top 100s. generally the top prospects are guys pretty close to the majors. jackson holliday and paul skenes for example. or last year when gunnar and corbin were tops, having already debuted in the majors. adley and wander before them. just doesn't make sense to have guys who are 5+ years away from making the 40 to be ranked so highly.

edit: also 4.6.24
- in staff search you should be able to have 'organization' as a filter instead of just team, league level, etc. similar to how players have an org filter.

edit: 6.23.24
- doing an export for morale should have the emojis convert into text so that i can use them in excel.

- the colors need to be tweaked. 50 should not be green. green means good. 50 is not good. 50 is average. this is confusing af.

edit: 9.15.24

- the cy young should be determined by using tom tango's cy young predictor formula. this would mean far less baffling decisions in the future. or there should at least be some kind of toggling for how you want the ai to determine awards. standard ootp, this, the altered fip predictor tango came up with, and so forth.

- similarly there should be some tweaked mvp voting. maybe something like bsr + zr (and with positional/innings played adjustment) + woba (with a PA adjustment for volume/sustainability) + wpa. instead of it just going to the guy with the highest ops most of the time. you could have sabermetric option vs traditional stats option vs w/e other option.

- coaches, scouts, and trainers should have tcr with their ratings. we've seen how some coaches or front offices fade with the times or adjust to them. doesnt make sense for a guy to be an elite coach for 30 years really. tony la russa was incredible but turned into a dinosaur for example.

4.8.25 edit

- when you do exports, babip potential is listed as 'HT P' instead of 'BABIP P' or 'BA P'. this is strange and confusing. please fix it.

[alloutwar]

It brings me no joy to report that these are all good

[finn]

these are all really good suggestions. i would especially like to see a more comprehensive defensive rating system, in addition to being able to delineate between framing/blocking/game-calling for catchers, i'd also like to see things like arm strength/arm accuracy, instincts vs pure range.

definitely also agree with the player development and scouting systems needing an overhaul at some point, those budgets seem to be more confusing than anything else, as far as what they actually do

[Canary85]

oh i thought of another thing

- edit coaches to be less controlling of sliders, hiring practices, etc. sometimes i want to keep my manager but then they become too controlling and there is no way for me to edit this in a game that is notorious for allowing you to edit anything.

[YankeesMissedThePlayoffs]

Made an account to say I agree with these ideas and would love to see them in future games

[CD360]

Bumping this to say that I agree with all of these. Especially nerfing defensive range. It feels like that is the only rating “in the know” GM’s look at. It should probably be the most important rating, but it’s prioritized to an extend that a) doesn’t seem realistic and b) definitely takes some of the fun out of evaluating players.

[Canary85]

Originally Posted by Canary85

oh i thought of another thing

- edit coaches to be less controlling of sliders, hiring practices, etc. sometimes i want to keep my manager but then they become too controlling and there is no way for me to edit this in a game that is notorious for allowing you to edit anything.

manager in a new save took over lineups and pitching staff only 1.5 seasons into becoming manager. no controlling personality. plus i have ootp classic or w/e turned on where the gm is supposed to manage all this stuff.


annoying! and there's no way to edit this away! plz fix

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Canary85

manager in a new save took over lineups and pitching staff only 1.5 seasons into becoming manager. no controlling personality. plus i have ootp classic or w/e turned on where the gm is supposed to manage all this stuff.


annoying! and there's no way to edit this away! plz fix

I'm not sure what you mean by "ootp classic or w/e" so just to be clear do you have

"GM only users are always in control of lineups and hiring (Legacy Mode)"

checked under "Game settings>Global Settings" ?

This is the way I play and I have never had any issues with managers not allowing me to make decisions.

If you do have that checked any chance you are playing in "challenge mode"?
I don't know if this would have any affect as I've never played challenge mode but maybe CM voids user GM-only control?

[Canary85]

Originally Posted by Sweed

I'm not sure what you mean by "ootp classic or w/e" so just to be clear do you have

"GM only users are always in control of lineups and hiring (Legacy Mode)"

checked under "Game settings>Global Settings" ?

This is the way I play and I have never had any issues with managers not allowing me to make decisions.

If you do have that checked any chance you are playing in "challenge mode"?
I don't know if this would have any affect as I've never played challenge mode but maybe CM voids user GM-only control?

yeah legacy mode. maybe i don't have it turned on... not sure. but i think i do. will double check. but either way the inability to just edit that stuff out, along with a manager wanting to hire his coaches or control strategy sliders, etc is frustrating.


another thing - can we fix the ai to use more short stamina pitchers? i've built an entire rotation in this new expansion team save from the expansion draft and r5 to have like 8 pitchers who are very good but only have 35-40 stamina and are never used as starters. meanwhile i plop them into my rotation and they all have a sub 4 fip/era with 150 innings.



the phillies also signed a b2b cy young winner who was 80/75/60, dude was putting up 7 war with 150-160 innings cuz he only had 40 or 45 stamina, then he dropped to 35 and they turned him into a closer who makes 40m per year for the next several seasons. he could still start and put up 5+ war which is obviously better than having the best closer. dumb!

[Canary85]

there's still time to add some of this to ootp 25 i bet if you haven't already <3

[Canary85]

Originally Posted by Canary85

- i would love to player development get fleshed out more. it is the new frontier now that every team has an army of nerds doing projection models and is playing moneyball to some degree. splitting into hitting and pitching development and having to figure out how to budget those would be a great place to start. it would allow you to focus on drafting/signing amateurs on one side of the ball and then you can flip them for trades or use free agency to build the other side of the ball. look at the marlins for example. or maybe instead of hitting/pitching, just splitting into different things would be better, like contact, power, discipline, stuff, movement, control. a system coordinator personnel role could be added, where they have strengths and weaknesses in those tools, altho tbh i find hiring stuff to be kind of tedious. and there could be a mechanic where we select a handful of players to specifically focus on as well and pick one tool for them to try and improve on. could also do something with teaching pitchers new pitches or improving them. the 20/20 changeup is possibly the most annoying thing in the game. plus it would be cool to turn a reliever into a starter if they have 50+ stamina or w/e by getting them a third pitch.

want to let all ootp players out there that i am taking credit for the player development lab creation. you're welcome.

[Canary85]

Originally Posted by Canary85

speaking of defense i would love to see catchers get catcher ability split into blocking and framing. as we now know from savant's newest defensive metrics, blocking is a huge deal. i don't really understand folding blocking and framing into the same tool though. would create a new challenge for GMs where you have to deal with more variables.

seeing ppl on reddit say that catcher blocking is now a rating


going to take credit for this as well


austin hedges will continue to be the GOAT

[Canary85]

edited OP to add a new incredible suggestion.

[finn]

Originally Posted by Canary85

edited OP to add a new incredible suggestion.

seconding this one, the OSA/pipeline rankings or whatever they're called are basically useless as it stands because 1) farm rankings don't take into account a team's entire system, only top 100 prospects, which makes no sense + 2) what OP said about proximity to the majors

[Canary85]

newest patch has supposedly fixed ultra young players being top prospects

i am the god of ootp suggestions

[Canary85]

edited op to include two new incredible suggestions that would make the game even better

[Canary85]

big news i added some more ideas to op.

[Valhoun]

Fully agree with the proposed middle injury option between low and normal for use in online leagues. I like realism. But it's a drag when so many leagues have to have a house rule where the commish will need to edit injury lengths.

I'd like an injury rate somewhere between low and normal and a max length of injury at 90 days.

[Canary85]

breaking news. i have added a new suggestion. note: i am on 25 still not 26 so maybe this has changed since then.... ?