Import Historical Minor Leaguers without Structure

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by rogmax11

This is the main reason ( besides supporting the company in general ) that I pushed
the button on pre-order: I wanted access to the entire pool of players to fuel my
random entry, no racist, geographically aligned, quad MLB universe, with a National
WBC-like tourney to replace the World Series. Oh, and League-specific HOFs that
don't include players from other leagues, and, and, and.....

LOL!

I agree with a number of people here that among the most important additions needed are: 1) that you can import Negro League players and whole teams, at least form one or two minor leagues' players (PCL for example) directly, without having to create a new file typing in all the names, but just as historical teams like MLB teams; and 2) that when playing random debut there would be Negro League players directly in the draft pool. Any chance there is still time to make this happen for OOTP 18? I am loving playing the new version so far, with a historical league with real minors and the color line turned off, but it would be great to be able to import a whole historical team from the Negro Leagues (and some minor leagues) and to play historical leagues with random debut with Negro League players included at least as an option. Thanks.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by italyprof

I agree with a number of people here that among the most important additions needed are: 1) that you can import Negro League players and whole teams, at least form one or two minor leagues' players (PCL for example) directly, without having to create a new file typing in all the names, but just as historical teams like MLB teams; and 2) that when playing random debut there would be Negro League players directly in the draft pool. Any chance there is still time to make this happen for OOTP 18? I am loving playing the new version so far, with a historical league with real minors and the color line turned off, but it would be great to be able to import a whole historical team from the Negro Leagues (and some minor leagues) and to play historical leagues with random debut with Negro League players included at least as an option. Thanks.

In the Negro Leagues thread, Spritze has indicated he wants to put out an OOTP18 version of the legendary Spritze database, which would bridge this gap. He will only do it when all the problems with the default databases have died down to a dull roar though. See the post here. Until then, you can still use the OOTP17 Spritze database in OOTP18 as Spritze indicated in his post. The download link for the OOTP17 Spritze database is here.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

I don't have OOTP18 at the moment, but usually the player ID that you require is stored in Column B of the master file. If you were bringing in players from the minor league database (which is what you want to do), you would use the milbmaster.csv. The player IDs for minor leaguers are quite a bit more complicated than the major league ones, which tend to be first five letters of last name followed by first two letters of first name followed by two digits, which vary depending on where in history the player falls. For example Hank Aaron's player ID is aaronha01. You have to get the player IDs exactly right or the import will not work, so take your time with it even though you want the players in your game yesterday. For the text files, just create an ordinary .txt file using Notepad and store it in your OOTP Baseball 18 folder and then upload it using the "Import Historical Player(s)" function in the "Available Actions" box on either your free agents page or your latest draft pool page. I haven't ever used the text file method as I import a handful of guys individually, but it looks pretty self-explanatory to me.

Okay, I think I've figured this out. At least the part on how to do it. However, there were two issues.

I started a historical league in 1921 without real minor leagues. My first draft was set for late 1921, I successfully imported the players I want who debuted in 1922 in the minors database.

Issue #1 - Players who debuted in the minor leagues before 1922 but debuted in the major leagues in 1922 or later are lost. I have a workaround for this issue, not a big deal. I will have to cross-reference all players with a debut year before 1922 in the MiLBmaster.csv file who also have a debut year of 1922 or later in the master.csv file. I will add those players to my first year's txt file. There are some important guys who fall into this bucket, e.g., small time guys Lefty Grove and Lou Gehrig.

Issue #2 - Career minor leaguers seem way too highly rated in my first draft. I haven't done multiple drafts but I did repeat this import process a few times with the first class of 1922 debuts. Is there something this step misses about neutralizing stats for the level they were achieved at? Am I missing something where these guys will still perform at the correct level even though their ratings are extremely high? 10 out of the top 12 prospects in the draft by potential star rating played either one or zero career games in the major leagues.

Thanks again.

[Huckleberry]

Any ideas on the minor leaguer player strength?

[Spritze]

I have read on the boards opinions that OOTP18 increases all ratings for every player in every facet of the game
BUT
I have also read on the boards opinions that OOTP18 decreases all ratings for every player in every facet of the game

Take your pick?

The Spritze database contains no ratings only stats.
The stats are altered from IRL stats based on Level achieved at, player age, league strength and several hundred other things to create MLE's for each year of a players career..

[Huckleberry]

Okay, so if the database has MLEs then theoretically it should be fine. And to be honest it seems perfectly reasonable that there could have been major league caliber players all over the minor leagues in the early 1920s. Heck, Lefty Grove was one of the guys I was worried about not missing because of my start date and he had to dominate the "minors" for multiple years because his team's owner wouldn't sell him.

[Huckleberry]

Okay, any help on this would be appreciated. I'm doing the legwork to prepare my draft import file when I realized that there are some players who are in the master.csv file (major league players throughout history) who aren't in the MiLBmaster.csv file. As you can imagine, these are typically guys who never played in the minors like Jose Abreu and Dave Winfield. I'm assuming that for guys like that I will have to import them one at a time and select the normal historical database, is that correct?

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

Okay, any help on this would be appreciated. I'm doing the legwork to prepare my draft import file when I realized that there are some players who are in the master.csv file (major league players throughout history) who aren't in the MiLBmaster.csv file. As you can imagine, these are typically guys who never played in the minors like Jose Abreu and Dave Winfield. I'm assuming that for guys like that I will have to import them one at a time and select the normal historical database, is that correct?

Are you importing all of your draft eligible players from the MiLB database, and therefore missing out on gems like Winfield, Olerud, Abreu etc, or am I out to lunch? If that is the case, then yes you would have to import the MLBers that missed out on the long bus rides of the minor leagues from the MLB database. If that isn't the case, I'm confused and please clarify further.

[Huckleberry]

Yes, that's correct. It actually worked more easily than I thought. The text file worked when I used their major league IDs even without redirecting the database. In fact there wasn't even an option to do so.

So every year will be a two step process. First the text file for the MiLBmaster then another for the master.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

Yes, that's correct. It actually worked more easily than I thought. The text file worked when I used their major league IDs even without redirecting the database. In fact there wasn't even an option to do so.

So every year will be a two step process. First the text file for the MiLBmaster then another for the master.

That sounds like a lot of work. Can you not set it up so that your draft pool consists of MiLB guys drawn from the MiLB database, and then import the few guys that didn't play MiLB (the far smaller number) into the game using the MLB database?

[Huckleberry]

I don't want the minor league structure, that's why I have to manually import the players from the minor league database.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

I don't want the minor league structure, that's why I have to manually import the players from the minor league database.

D'oh! Learn to read action...As in the title of this thread.

[Painmantle]

does anyone have a functioning link for the historical importer?

[venflaalachi]

Anyone know if it is possible to use spritze's database on a mac?

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by venflaalachi

Anyone know if it is possible to use spritze's database on a mac?

It is just a CSV data file. It should work even on a Commodore 64 so I'd hope a Mac could handle it

[venflaalachi]

Originally Posted by Spritze

It is just a CSV data file. It should work even on a Commodore 64 so I'd hope a Mac could handle it

Awesome, i really have no idea how to install it or what I am doing when i change files, which is why i asked lol