No Players to draft

[ewank]

I just started a new historical game in OOTP26 with the start year 1977. When it came time for the draft (I always set it to June as in reality) there were no players to draft. Why? Where are they? There are also only 5 free agents. What gives, how can you develop a team with no draftees?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by ewank

I just started a new historical game in OOTP26 with the start year 1977. When it came time for the draft (I always set it to June as in reality) there were no players to draft. Why? Where are they? There are also only 5 free agents. What gives, how can you develop a team with no draftees?

Since it's a historical game, OOTP will not import the rookies for the Amateur draft until your first offseason. Even after the first offseason changing the date of the amateur draft in a historical game is not recommended.

[LansdowneSt]

Dave is correct. He's even being too kind on the "not recommended."

Bottom Line, put the draft and draft reveal date back where they were. This was the case in OOTP25 too based on a change made last year.

[ewank]

Okay, easy to do, but the date of the draft in OOTP is wrong to start with. Why can they not set it up same the as MLB, early June?

[omg_pwnasaurus]

I'm assuming because it imports players the year before their IRL professional debut into the pool and having the draft occur in season straddles that line maybe.

[Matt Arnold]

If you play with minor leagues on, switching the draft over to June after the first year can work.

Players are "created" for the first year they have stats for (whether that's MLB stats or MiLB stats, depending on whether you have minors enabled or not). So if you start a game in 1977, everyone who appeared in 1977 would already be created at the beginning of the game. The draft in November 1977 would thus be drafting for 1978 players.

If you play with minors off, then having a draft in June is not recommended, because players will come in when they first made a major league appearance. So Ronald Acuna Jr would appear in the June 2018 draft, and it's a little weird to plan your team around someone who comes in expecting a .900+ OPS mid-season. Hence why we prefer to have them debut at the start of the previous off-season, you can plan around it a lot more.

If you play with minors on, there's less concerns. Acuna would end up in the 2015 draft, so even drafting mid-season would be less of a shock. Although you still have foreign players enter through the draft, like 2001 Ichiro.

In any event, you can switch to mid-season, if you don't mind those cases depending on your league and setup. But since the initial season players have already been pulled in, that's why you see nobody in the first year (other than a few random free agent types who missed in the initial import).

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

If you play with minor leagues on, switching the draft over to June after the first year can work.

Players are "created" for the first year they have stats for (whether that's MLB stats or MiLB stats, depending on whether you have minors enabled or not). So if you start a game in 1977, everyone who appeared in 1977 would already be created at the beginning of the game. The draft in November 1977 would thus be drafting for 1978 players.

If you play with minors off, then having a draft in June is not recommended, because players will come in when they first made a major league appearance. So Ronald Acuna Jr would appear in the June 2018 draft, and it's a little weird to plan your team around someone who comes in expecting a .900+ OPS mid-season. Hence why we prefer to have them debut at the start of the previous off-season, you can plan around it a lot more.

If you play with minors on, there's less concerns. Acuna would end up in the 2015 draft, so even drafting mid-season would be less of a shock. Although you still have foreign players enter through the draft, like 2001 Ichiro.

In any event, you can switch to mid-season, if you don't mind those cases depending on your league and setup. But since the initial season players have already been pulled in, that's why you see nobody in the first year (other than a few random free agent types who missed in the initial import).

So does this mean the game will import the minor league players at the end of the season as it does now and then hold those players till June when the draft takes place? Or, does changing the draft date change when the game imports historical players for the draft?

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by David Watts

So does this mean the game will import the minor league players at the end of the season as it does now and then hold those players till June when the draft takes place? Or, does changing the draft date change when the game imports historical players for the draft?

Changing the draft date would change what date players are created to bring in. Whenever the draft pool reveal is when they get created

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Changing the draft date would change what date players are created to bring in. Whenever the draft pool reveal is when they get created

What about the maintain historical minors aspect of all this? When would that occur? Is that a completely separate process from the importing of the minor league players for the draft? The way one gets the game to import the minor league players is to select the option to maintain historical minors. As far as I know there isn't an option to simply import the minor league players without also maintaining the minor league structure.