Project Holy Grail – CBL’s creation of D1 Baseball (all teams) League Journey

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by rwd59

I guess my question would be is will all leagues be equally rated? I mean hitting .400 in the Horizon League because you play the majority of your games against that league is not the same as hitting .400 in the SEC playing the majority of your games against SEC opponents. You get what I mean? I mean in reality all leagues are not equal. I know there are games that adjust things between stronger and lesser leagues/conferences to give advantages to stronger conferences. But is that even possible with OOTP? Not knocking what you are doing just thinking about things. When you are retired you got a lot of time to think, lol.

With team budgets the power 4 conferences (especially SEC) have SIGNIFICANTLY more money than the tiny schools. This money is to simulate NIL money, conference prestige etc.

What I’ve seen is the game is doing a great job to maximize budget spending on players the school can afford.

So in OOTP terms, SEC/ACC schools can probably afford multiple 5* type talents. Tiny schools will basically fight it out for 1.5-2.5 stars. Sometimes a random 3+ star.

Some mid tier like CUSA and others have more money to spend than the tiny schools…so like real life you will see majority of the talent signed/being recruited by the big time schools.



Also….ive set development up to 2.000 since the players are not around long for college.

[WooBallFan43]

Originally Posted by rwd59

I guess my question would be is will all leagues be equally rated? I mean hitting .400 in the Horizon League because you play the majority of your games against that league is not the same as hitting .400 in the SEC playing the majority of your games against SEC opponents. You get what I mean? I mean in reality all leagues are not equal. I know there are games that adjust things between stronger and lesser leagues/conferences to give advantages to stronger conferences. But is that even possible with OOTP? Not knocking what you are doing just thinking about things. When you are retired you got a lot of time to think, lol.

League Reputation might do the trick. SEC, ACC, B1G, PAC-12 at 10, Patriot/Horizon at like a 4 or something?

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by CBLCardinals

With team budgets the power 4 conferences (especially SEC) have SIGNIFICANTLY more money than the tiny schools. This money is to simulate NIL money, conference prestige etc.

What I’ve seen is the game is doing a great job to maximize budget spending on players the school can afford.

So in OOTP terms, SEC/ACC schools can probably afford multiple 5* type talents. Tiny schools will basically fight it out for 1.5-2.5 stars. Sometimes a random 3+ star.

Some mid tier like CUSA and others have more money to spend than the tiny schools…so like real life you will see majority of the talent signed/being recruited by the big time schools.



Also….ive set development up to 2.000 since the players are not around long for college.

Ok, that makes sense. I was just wondering how the differentiation of league strength would be handled.

[CBLCardinals]

Using AI (Claude) I was able to grab all 308 D1 teams stadium name, seating capacity, grass/turf, park factors, and even stadium dimensions for many of them. Here is an example below. Over next few days going through this list and update anything I need to in the league. Getting REALLY exciting now fellas...!!

[CBLCardinals]

Also...special thanks to several OOTP members for reaching out and sending me awesome stuff such as logos, uniforms, pants, caps, and even 3D stadium models for ALOT of teams!!

[rwd59]

This is going to be amazing! Do you ever actually have time to play the game, lol?

[millhousebc]

Is there going to be a beta to test? Asking for a friend….😉

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by rwd59

This is going to be amazing! Do you ever actually have time to play the game, lol?

THIS is a great question lol

[sprague]

Hi CBL,
I thought I should bring up a couple of things, because I tried something like this in the past and ran into 2 main issues.
The first is if you use reserve rosters, which my guess is you are. The problem is that players do not gain any fielding expereince in them. I mean the number 1-200 listed next their position. An 18 year old tends to start at 120 I think, but if he stays on the RR it never goes up (or at least hasn't in all prior versions). It is why I had to use 1 minor league so those guys could get to 190 or 200 by 19 or 20 so that they could actually be legitimate starters on the upper roster. You might want to check that.

Second was how the AI signs new created free agents (without a draft). If they are 18 or 19 it tends to be as a minor league contract, and there thus seemed to be little tied to how much money a team had and somewhat more random (as opposed to how the international free agent market works, where a good 16 year old tends to be signed by a top team). Again going without a draft you want to see where these best players are being signed by, and what sort of salary signing is happening.

Anyway just a couple of issues that frustrated me way back when, when I tried something similar, so thought to pass them along in case one of those issues are happening still in your set up

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by sprague

Hi CBL,
I thought I should bring up a couple of things, because I tried something like this in the past and ran into 2 main issues.
The first is if you use reserve rosters, which my guess is you are. The problem is that players do not gain any fielding expereince in them. I mean the number 1-200 listed next their position. An 18 year old tends to start at 120 I think, but if he stays on the RR it never goes up (or at least hasn't in all prior versions). It is why I had to use 1 minor league so those guys could get to 190 or 200 by 19 or 20 so that they could actually be legitimate starters on the upper roster. You might want to check that.

Second was how the AI signs new created free agents (without a draft). If they are 18 or 19 it tends to be as a minor league contract, and there thus seemed to be little tied to how much money a team had and somewhat more random (as opposed to how the international free agent market works, where a good 16 year old tends to be signed by a top team). Again going without a draft you want to see where these best players are being signed by, and what sort of salary signing is happening.

Anyway just a couple of issues that frustrated me way back when, when I tried something similar, so thought to pass them along in case one of those issues are happening still in your set up

Thank you for your insights!

The reserve roster / defense is very interesting. I’ve upped development to 2.000 - but not sure they may help. Maybe it will help them get that D boost quicker once off reserve and on main roster??

I know the BABIP for NCAA is much worse than MLB (.330ish) due to 300+ teams with a very wide range of defensive abilities, and of course it as polished or developed as MLB level players. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Also…for the 18/19 year olds…I’m tinkering with setting development to “halfway” or even “3/4” so those free agents/recruits when created still sign for higher amounts to most of the power teams.

I’m also considering bumping the talent change up to 200…

Again thank you for input and something I can keep an eye on.

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by millhousebc

Is there going to be a beta to test? Asking for a friend….😉

Dude I appreciate it but right now eyeball-deep in getting the stadium info entered for all 308 teams. I anticipate once that is done I can do a bit more testing then release.

I’m out of town later this week so TBD when that release may occur.

More to come!

[CBLCardinals]

My lord all ballpark factors, names, park factors HAVE NOW FINALLY BEEN loaded for 308 teams.

[CBLCardinals]

THIS is pretty awesome....ran a team through Claude AI for a season-preview and produced these results...

The formatting / page breaks may be a bit off but the potential is AMAZING...

[millhousebc]

That looks amazing

[CBLCardinals]

Here are a few more cool previews I've created for the College Baseball League (CBL) using Claude -

SEC Preview 2026 season

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fAD...ew?usp=sharing

National Preview (all 308 teams by conference)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vu6...ew?usp=sharing

[zappa1]

Impressive for sure.

[CBLCardinals]

Hey gang,

I’m out of town and away for a few days
League progress will pick back up next week!

[CBLCardinals]

Hey gang!

Back at it and getting closer to official release!! Running through test sims for a season, and tasks you will need to do to keep the league running smoothly.

I do have a question posed on the boards below, and one of the things I am seeing in year #2 of the sim...

Hey gang,
Testing a lot of aspects of my college league, and running in to the issue below....

League set up with Reserve roster - why would AI not fill out the reserve roster with minor league offers?

And yes, there are plenty of scrub-worthy players in the FA pool that will accept a minor league offer.

I am seeing very small budget teams ($10M) go on a massive spending spree to be 20-25M over budget.

AI teams that are over budget I'm assuming can still at least offer minor league contracts? Is this correct?

More updates hopefully soon!

[CBLCardinals]

Ok gang still testing all of this out... looks like everything is working well

To start to wrap your mind around how the College Baseball League (CBL) will operate both at a macro and micro level, I've typed up below.

Again, running through more testing to ensure things look smooth.

Getting closer to an official release

I have the Word document also attached, which is cleaner than my copy and paste below:


College Baseball League (CBL) League Events and Flow

Macro League Calendar

• OPENING DAY 2026 – Mid February
o Delete any remaining FA’s Opening Day
o Delete any remaining FA’s on Day #2
o Create 500 scrub level catchers for free agents
• SEASON PLAY
o 60 games total – most leagues set up for 45 conference games (F-Sa-Sun) and 15 Non-Conference opponents (Tuesdays)
o Regular season will be ~Mid February through end of May.
• POST SEASON PLAY, THE ROAD TO OMAHA (~June)
• Season ends – Regular Seasons Awards.
• “Retiring” Seniors
• Creating new draft class for both graduating High School Seniors (18), and Junior College (20) eligible players
• Recruiting occurs ~ July through February 10
• Any players that are still free agents after February 10 delete them.
• From here, you circle back to the Opening Day instructions and start season #2!!!
 
Micro League Calendar

OPENING DAY STEPS!!!!

• WECOME TO OPENING DAY. YOU ARE ABOUT TO BEGIN THE MOST AMBITIOUS PROJECT I HAVE EVER CREATED IN OOTP. 308 D1 TEAMS, 29 CONFERENCES. GET READY TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!
• First day of the season – be sure to DELETE all free agents.
• Day two of season….be sure to DELETE all free agents again. When the season starts, many teams have over the 20-player allocated to reserve roster. This is typically resolved after a day or two into the official start of the season. Unlike pro leagues, college teams will not be constantly signing and releasing minor league/reserve roster players. We delete these players to ensure this type of transactions do not occur.
• I’ve not seen this happen yet, however, to safe guard team(s) do not run out of catcher options be sure to create ~500 “scrub” level catchers to now be in free agency. I view these players as “walk on’s” in case a team(s) loses all/majority of their rostered catchers due to injuries. What I’ve seen so far is most teams carry 3 catchers on main roster, and another 1 or 2 on reserve roster. Catcher is such a specialized set of skills I would hate for a team to have all rostered catchers wiped out due to injury and having to use another player significantly out of position trying to play catcher. Again, this is mostly to be proactive for worst-case scenarios. The scrub level catchers will (or should) be worse than virtually all other catchers in the CBL universe… so my assumption is that the AI will only sign them to minor league deals if disaster strikes. In the free agency screen, create catcher, talent level “scrub”.





 
• POST SEASON PLAY and the ROAD TO OMAHA
o Based on historical recent trends, I have pre-determined how many teams each conference will receive bids in the Regionals / Round of 64
o Power conferences have more teams selected.
o Each conference, regardless of size, will have at least the regular season champion in the Regionals. All 29 Real D1 Leagues will be represented!!
o Conf bids
 SEC – 12 teams / ACC – 8 teams / Big 12 – 6 teams /Big 10 – 6 teams
 Sun Belt – 4 teams / Conference USA – 3 teams / American – 3 teams
 All remaining conferences – 1 team from their regular season champion (22 teams)
o OOTP does not have a perfect solution to re-create the exact college playoff experience, however it’s a good compromise:
 Round 1 / Regionals
• Each team is placed in a Pod of 4 teams for double-round robin play. Each team will play teams in their regional/pod 2 times for a total of 6 games. One team from each Regional/Pod will move on to the Super Regionals stage.
o OOTP tie breakers for pool play apply
 If teams tie for the top of the pool play standings:
• Head to Head matchup
• Run differential for head to head matchups
• Result of last game
• Beyond this…I am unsure??
 Round 2 / Super Regionals
• Teams that win their Regional move on to Super Regionals, and best of 3 series. This round has 8 Super Regionals, with 2 teams in each respective Super Regional. Home team should have all 3 games. You MAY have to check if the highest seeded team has the home Field advantage. The 8 Super Regional winners move on to OMAHA WORLD SERIES
 Round 3 / OMAHA WORLD SERIES Quarter Finals
• As noted earlier, OOTP does not have a perfect way to simulate the actual logistics of the Omaha World Series. Real life its double elimination…. However, in our set up I had to switch to best of 3 series for each OMAHA round. Winners of the WS first round move to the WS Semi Finals.
• *** IMPORTANT NOTE *** switch all games to Omaha Field ID 215, Charles Schwab Field Omaha. You can do this in the league schedule edit screen once these games are available.
 Round 4 / OMAHA WORLD SERIES SEMI FINALS
• Same as above, best of 3 series.
• *** IMPORTANT NOTE *** switch all games to Omaha Field ID 215, Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
 Round 5 / OMAHA WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP
• Same as above, best of 3 series
• Regular Season ends.
o Late June/early July will have the announcement of 2026 College Awards
o Once you move past the College Awards, its time to graduate those seniors, and hit the road to recruiting!!!!
o Graduating seniors
 In OOTP I have ages of 18-22 enabled as eligible to play in the league. OOTP does not have a perfect solution to simulate Freshman-Senior years, so we have to get creative ;/
 On your league filter, search for all players that have a birthdate of LESS THAN February 13, 2005. This should capture all the 22-year-olds that will turn 23 before the next season begins. For future years, you just change the Year of Birth up one year.
 Once you filter to these players, click on the radio button at the top left and retire these players. This will simulate college seniors graduating.
 This will create new open slots for all teams to start the recruiting process (Free Agency in OOTP)
• Creating new class of Recruits, both Freshman and Junior College players
o Your seniors have now moved on, now its time to hit the trail for recruiting!
 We will first create incoming Freshman.
• In game settings->Players set the created players min and max to 18
• This will only create players who are 18 years old.
• In the free agents click on the far-right hand side to create fictional player(s)
• In the screen shot below you will see the settings to apply
o Important notes are set all to American nationality (or you can select whatever you wish), Player Quality set to Random, Development Stage Above Average (75%), and Service time to none.
o I keep this at Random so year to year you will see stronger or weaker draft classes.
 Next, we will create “junior college” players.
• In game settings->Players set the create players min and max to 20
• This will only create players who are 20 years old.
• In the free agents click on the far-right hand side to create fictional player(s)
o Important notes are set all to American nationality (or you can select whatever you wish), Player Quality set to Random, Development Stage to Fully Developed (100%) and Service time to none.
o I keep this at Random so year to year you will see stronger or weaker draft classes.
o Recruiting occurs ~ July through February 10
o Any players that are still free agents after February 10 delete them.
o From here, you circle back to the Opening Day instructions and start season #2!!!

[dev6015]

This looks and sounds awesome! Where can we find the league files to test it out ourselves?