Absolute Blockbuster of a Trade in my 42 year old Historical Random Debut

[crawdad5000]

Here's my preseason predictions page for my first try of this league. I have the stats and modifiers all set to 1984 with finances at the current year of 1871. I did have to fix the finances after I punched in 1984 the day before opening day. For some reason the finances reverted to 1984 also. Under league settings I just clicked on fictional contracts for all players and it went back to 1871 contracts. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496868261

The stats look to be in line with 1984 even though Dizzy Dean shows 440 K's. Mickey Mantle, at age 21, looks to be the first superstar.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by crawdad5000

Here's my preseason predictions page for my first try of this league. I have the stats and modifiers all set to 1984 with finances at the current year of 1871. I did have to fix the finances after I punched in 1984 the day before opening day. For some reason the finances reverted to 1984 also. Under league settings I just clicked on fictional contracts for all players and it went back to 1871 contracts. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496868261

The stats look to be in line with 1984 even though Dizzy Dean shows 440 K's. Mickey Mantle, at age 21, looks to be the first superstar.

Forgot about that bugaboo in OOTP18 with the finances re-setting every time you input 1984 for your stats output. That doesn't happen in OOTP16, but I do remember it happening with OOTP18 Every. Single. Year.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by crawdad5000

Here's my preseason predictions page for my first try of this league. I have the stats and modifiers all set to 1984 with finances at the current year of 1871. I did have to fix the finances after I punched in 1984 the day before opening day. For some reason the finances reverted to 1984 also. Under league settings I just clicked on fictional contracts for all players and it went back to 1871 contracts. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496868261

The stats look to be in line with 1984 even though Dizzy Dean shows 440 K's. Mickey Mantle, at age 21, looks to be the first superstar.

You've got HR all over the place. We'll see how it stacks up at the end of the season, but I never see that many in my preseason predictions. That could be another difference between OOTP16 and OOTP18.

[Lordofbrewtown]

Great thread guys - lots of useful info - especially the mention in the early thread about turning development on with the recalc or the last season repeats. I didn't have that turned on, but will.

On the neutralized stats - VERY disappointing. Where are they getting that 7 users from (is that for effect or real)? Any threads going to revive this in wants for new versions? Does that mean in a future version the box when importing historical players will disappear?

Some questions for Action (or anyone):
1) You use 1984 as a stats base - is that the most "neutral" year in your opinion/why did you select? My quick searches have not been successful trying to look up the best base "neutral" year. Have you ever tried changing everything to 1.0000 across the board?

2) Random Debut/Historical. Thoughts on what to do if I wanted more than 30 teams, say 50 or even 70? Will there be enough initial players, or would I be forced to start with less and go crazy with expansion?

3) Players debuting in initial year at older ages: If you would choose to delete the player, would that player possibly debut again later, or has OOTP already "counted" that player/removed from available pool? If that doesn't work, My thought would be to delete any true HOF type players who debut in the initial year as old, and import into the draft pool (that year or next year) in their rookie year

Great stuff guys. I've been playing historical, haven't done random yet, and haven't stuck with a league for a long time yet either/keep tweaking and restarting.

[crawdad5000]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

You've got HR all over the place. We'll see how it stacks up at the end of the season, but I never see that many in my preseason predictions. That could be another difference between OOTP16 and OOTP18.

I noticed that too but it's not too bad. I went to baseball reference (1984) to compare and they are a bit higher but some of the players, like Mantle, have higher power ratings. I'll sim the first season and report back.

[crawdad5000]

Originally Posted by Lordofbrewtown

Some questions for Action (or anyone):
1) You use 1984 as a stats base - is that the most "neutral" year in your opinion/why did you select? My quick searches have not been successful trying to look up the best base "neutral" year. Have you ever tried changing everything to 1.0000 across the board?

3) Players debuting in initial year at older ages: If you would choose to delete the player, would that player possibly debut again later, or has OOTP already "counted" that player/removed from available pool? If that doesn't work, My thought would be to delete any true HOF type players who debut in the initial year as old, and import into the draft pool (that year or next year) in their rookie year

Great stuff guys. I've been playing historical, haven't done random yet, and haven't stuck with a league for a long time yet either/keep tweaking and restarting.

I think action went with 1984 for the balance across the league. Hits, power, wins, era, sb's all were pretty even. What I mean is no area far exceeded others like in the 90's with HR's or the deadball era with wins. cg's and sb's, etc.

What you could do for older players is use spritzes db to import players at 18. Like if Ruth comes in the inaugural draft at 37 you could delete him before the draft and import spritzes Ruth at age 18. My oldest player in my draft is Jeff Kent at 39 but for the most part I was pretty happy with the ages in my draft. Hardly any real impact players were in their 30's.

[crawdad5000]

Here is what my player creation modifier page looks like under the players tab at the start of the season for you to critique.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496901691

[crawdad5000]

Final standings for 1871.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496901819

Homeruns are up with the leader, Khris Davis, at 54. Everything else looks pretty good.

[crawdad5000]

Here are the teams total hitting and pitching stats. Homer totals are definitely up per 1984. 193 homers per team in 1871, 123 per team in 1984 but I have DH on for both leagues. I don't want career DHers like Frank Thomas riding the pine if they end up in the National League w/o DH.

Also, pitching ERA is up slightly more then one run league wide compared to 1984.

Other then that I'm pleased with the results. Critique please.


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496902281

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496902281

[crawdad5000]

Mantle wasn't the superstar I though he would be but still had a decent year. He was injured 4 times for 7 1/2 weeks, missing 34 games. Go figure!

Brooklyn Atlantics defeated the Baltimore Canaries 4-2 in the best of 7 WS. Oscar Gamble was the series MVP, .440 5 HR 11 RBI.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496902635

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496902635

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by crawdad5000

Here is what my player creation modifier page looks like under the players tab at the start of the season for you to critique.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496901691

The player creation modifiers are definitely 1984esque. Those are exactly the ones I use.

[actionjackson]

Crawdad, it looks like you've got extreme offense in your game. That's either a result of OOTP18 being too "hot" offensively, or the first year of your game being too "hot" or both. IRL, the MLB slash line was .260/.323/.385/.708, so as you can see there's too much offense (at least for my taste). It almost looks like a steroid era league. Also, your R/G are way higher than anything I've ever seen with 1984 settings. IRL, the MLB R/G rate was 4.26. Yours was 5.04, which is extraordinarily high. MLB league ERA that year was 3.81, yours was 4.74. So something is inflating those numbers and I'm not sure what. Also I noticed you've got 4 guys with around 350 or more Ks. That seems a bit hot too. I wonder what's going on to make that happen. If you're OK with it, it's good, but WOW! Seems a bit hot for my taste.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Lordofbrewtown

Great thread guys - lots of useful info - especially the mention in the early thread about turning development on with the recalc or the last season repeats. I didn't have that turned on, but will.

On the neutralized stats - VERY disappointing. Where are they getting that 7 users from (is that for effect or real)? Any threads going to revive this in wants for new versions? Does that mean in a future version the box when importing historical players will disappear?

Some questions for Action (or anyone):
1) You use 1984 as a stats base - is that the most "neutral" year in your opinion/why did you select? My quick searches have not been successful trying to look up the best base "neutral" year. Have you ever tried changing everything to 1.0000 across the board?

2) Random Debut/Historical. Thoughts on what to do if I wanted more than 30 teams, say 50 or even 70? Will there be enough initial players, or would I be forced to start with less and go crazy with expansion?

3) Players debuting in initial year at older ages: If you would choose to delete the player, would that player possibly debut again later, or has OOTP already "counted" that player/removed from available pool? If that doesn't work, My thought would be to delete any true HOF type players who debut in the initial year as old, and import into the draft pool (that year or next year) in their rookie year

Great stuff guys. I've been playing historical, haven't done random yet, and haven't stuck with a league for a long time yet either/keep tweaking and restarting.

Turning player development on with recalc is actually David Watts idea. Not sure where he got it from, but he deserves the credit for it.

I'd love to know how many of us use neutralized stats because I think it's way more than seven, but that's what Spritze says and on the basis of that, they won't be done anymore. They will be available for seasons from 1871 through 2015, but not after that (I believe). Also about 15-20% of the players in the database are missing seasons for neutralized stats (generally it's fielding stats that are missing). I notified Spritze, but he was not interested in doing anything about it (it is just him working on it, so I don't blame him). Maybe if we want neutralized stats to continue we're going to have to offer to help.

I don't know what to do about it (if there's anything that can be done), but I'd love to see them continue. The writing was kind of on the wall when the game was released and neutralized stats were not done for the 2016 season because Spritze was too busy doing other things to do with the database, which is fair enough because he's had a lot of additions to work on over the last two versions. Again, I don't blame Spritze for any of this. He's given more to this game than virtually anyone on here except Markus. I just wish there was something that those of us that enjoy playing with neutralized stats could do to ensure that they will continue to be done for future versions.

As for your questions:

1) I use 1984 because it kind of hits the sweet spot for me. The slash line that year was .260/.323/.385/.708, with 4.26 R/G, and a 3.81 ERA. Homeruns are hittable, but not steroid era level crazy (or "launch angle" era level crazy for that matter). In my (now) 52 year RD league, only one player (Mickey Mantle) has ever hit 60+ HR in a season (63 in 1933 to go with 161 RBI). Only nine different player seasons have eclipsed the 50 HR mark (Mantle 63, McGwire 53, Reggie Smith 53, Schmidt 52, Mantle 51, McGwire 51, Colavito 51, Kingman 51, and Frank Howard 50). My career HR leaderboard has just 12 players at 500 HR or higher (Mantle 677, Frank Robinson 643, Reggie Smith 628, Schmidt 609, Killebrew 566, Gil Hodges 565, Graig Nettles 559, Miguel Cabrera 537, Colavito 518, McGwire 512, Kingman 511, and Strawberry 511). In my view, it should be hard to hit HR, just not dead ball era hard.

I wouldn't change everything to 1.000 across the board, as I think that'll just give you 2016 type output. Not 100% certain on that, but I think that's what that'll do. I just make sure 1984 numbers are the numbers that I use, and I don't mess with the modifiers in Stats & AI, I just take what's given to me, and usually it works out fine or close enough for my liking. That's in OOTP16 though. I don't know what OOTP18 will do. I have a feeling that offense is a bit hot in OOTP18, but OOTP16 was perfect and that's where I play this random debut game.

2) Remember that the more teams you add, the more players you are gonna need, and the more players you need, the faster you will run through the 19,000ish that are available from the database (at least there are 19,000ish if you set your years from minimum [1871] to maximum [2016]). Keep that in mind when you think about adding more teams to the mix in your league.

3) I know what you mean about players debuting at an old age. Babe Ruth was 34 years old in my Inaugural Draft. I just took it as it came and I figure there will be surprise HoFers to take the place of the sure-fire HoFers that can't make it due to some guys debuting late in their careers. One thing you can do to combat this is to import players in their rookie seasons and deleting the old farts. Use BB-Ref or fangraphs to figure out when their rookie seasons were, and bring them in using the import tool. You can also do as crawdad suggested and bring in the Spritze versions from the Spritze database. They will be 18ish if you do this.

Hope this answers your questions. Ask more if it doesn't, or if you have further questions, and thanks for reading, participating.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Turning player development on with recalc is actually David Watts idea. Not sure where he got it from, but he deserves the credit for it.

I'd love to know how many of us use neutralized stats because I think it's way more than seven, but that's what Spritze says and on the basis of that, they won't be done anymore. They will be available for seasons from 1871 through 2015, but not after that (I believe). Also about 15-20% of the players in the database are missing seasons for neutralized stats (generally it's fielding stats that are missing). I notified Spritze, but he was not interested in doing anything about it (it is just him working on it, so I don't blame him). Maybe if we want neutralized stats to continue we're going to have to offer to help.

I don't know what to do about it (if there's anything that can be done), but I'd love to see them continue. The writing was kind of on the wall when the game was released and neutralized stats were not done for the 2016 season because Spritze was too busy doing other things to do with the database, which is fair enough because he's had a lot of additions to work on over the last two versions. Again, I don't blame Spritze for any of this. He's given more to this game than virtually anyone on here except Markus. I just wish there was something that those of us that enjoy playing with neutralized stats could do to ensure that they will continue to be done for future versions.

As for your questions:

1) I use 1984 because it kind of hits the sweet spot for me. The slash line that year was .260/.323/.385/.708, with 4.26 R/G, and a 3.81 ERA. Homeruns are hittable, but not steroid era level crazy (or "launch angle" era level crazy for that matter). In my (now) 52 year RD league, only one player (Mickey Mantle) has ever hit 60+ HR in a season (63 in 1933 to go with 161 RBI). Only nine different player seasons have eclipsed the 50 HR mark (Mantle 63, McGwire 53, Reggie Smith 53, Schmidt 52, Mantle 51, McGwire 51, Colavito 51, Kingman 51, and Frank Howard 50). My career HR leaderboard has just 12 players at 500 HR or higher (Mantle 677, Frank Robinson 643, Reggie Smith 628, Schmidt 609, Killebrew 566, Gil Hodges 565, Graig Nettles 559, Miguel Cabrera 537, Colavito 518, McGwire 512, Kingman 511, and Strawberry 511). In my view, it should be hard to hit HR, just not dead ball era hard.

I wouldn't change everything to 1.000 across the board, as I think that'll just give you 2016 type output. Not 100% certain on that, but I think that's what that'll do. I just make sure 1984 numbers are the numbers that I use, and I don't mess with the modifiers in Stats & AI, I just take what's given to me, and usually it works out fine or close enough for my liking. That's in OOTP16 though. I don't know what OOTP18 will do. I have a feeling that offense is a bit hot in OOTP18, but OOTP16 was perfect and that's where I play this random debut game.

2) Remember that the more teams you add, the more players you are gonna need, and the more players you need, the faster you will run through the 19,000ish that are available from the database (at least there are 19,000ish if you set your years from minimum [1871] to maximum [2016]). Keep that in mind when you think about adding more teams to the mix in your league.

3) I know what you mean about players debuting at an old age. Babe Ruth was 34 years old in my Inaugural Draft. I just took it as it came and I figure there will be surprise HoFers to take the place of the sure-fire HoFers that can't make it due to some guys debuting late in their careers. One thing you can do to combat this is to import players in their rookie seasons and deleting the old farts. Use BB-Ref or fangraphs to figure out when their rookie seasons were, and bring them in using the import tool. You can also do as crawdad suggested and bring in the Spritze versions from the Spritze database. They will be 18ish if you do this.

Hope this answers your questions. Ask more if it doesn't, or if you have further questions, and thanks for reading, participating.

Oh man, have to step in here to clear one thing up. Turning development on with recalc is not my idea. The forum member that really made me want to try that method of play is VanillaGorilla. Want to say it was during OOTP14 and 15 that he had his incredible random debut threads in the historical section(boy do I miss them threads). He would play until all the players were used and detail the Hall of Fame inductees. Very cool.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Oh man, have to step in here to clear one thing up. Turning development on with recalc is not my idea. The forum member that really made me want to try that method of play is VanillaGorilla. Want to say it was during OOTP14 and 15 that he had his incredible random debut threads in the historical section(boy do I miss them threads). He would play until all the players were used and detail the Hall of Fame inductees. Very cool.

Oh yeah, I remember that now. So there you go folks, we have VanillaGorilla to thank for the combo of recalc and player development.

[crawdad5000]

Thanks actionjackson for all the input. The stats line for the AI is 1984: .260/.323/.385/.708. I skimmed two more seasons, 1872-1873, and there is definatly high octane offense in this universe. I'm wondering if it has to do with having just 8 teams and therefore less players to spread the stats around. However, the averages are wacky. In all three seasons the R/G is at 5.1. KO's are high as are HR's. 200 per team. Dizzy dean had 462 ko's in 1872. Mickey Mantle was the MVP in 1872 but struck out 250 times. But batting avg is around 1984. Weird.

Here is what I had to do at the end of each season using OOTP 18. After clicking on offseason this is what happens:
Finances auto resort back to 1984. Just for players though, coaches stay at the 1870's rate. Unless a new coach is hired that year, then he will have a 1984 contract. Messes up the teams budget big time. So you have to go into league settings and under the financial buttons, click on new team budget, player contracts, and coaches contract. This is after you reimport that seasons finances manually.
Game schedule reverts to the season your in. So when I checked after the first season the games scheduled went from 162 to 50 because it was 1872. Easy fix, just changed it back to 162.
When you get to the preseason date the game advances a year for historical/stats ai sections. It showed 1985 so I changed it back to 1984.
I haven't done anything with the ballparks so I don't know what kind of impact on stats this would have. It shouldn't have much IMHO.
Here are some screenshots of 1872-1873. I'm thinking that there may be an issue of starting this in 1871. I'm going to put this universe on hold and start one in 1901 to compare.
For finances do you think it would be an issue to not touch the finances every season and let the game use the 1984 era every year?

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496975992

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496975992

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1496975992

[crawdad5000]

Well. after spending all night trying to get the offensive stats in line I think I came to a realization. Neutralized stats suck in ootp 18. Trying several different scenarios I could't get the run production down or the ERA. Homers still way up, in one universe I had batters hitting 100+ hr's in a season. Batters were consistently maxed out on their power, gap, eye ratings. I had several pitchers with 350+ko's.
So, being completely frustrated, I just created a 1871 universe and left all modifiers on. Kept finances at 1871. And the day before opening day the only thing I changed was the historical/sats AI pages to 1984. Double checked finances to make sure they stayed 1871. Here is the result of 1871. You can see that almost everything is in-line with 1984. 1984 is .260/.323/.385/.708, mine is .262/.328/.390/.718. Pretty close! I guess in ootp 18 the thing to do is just import the year you want stats for and leave most everything else alone. I think this may be the most towards a level playing field that you will get. We'll see. Now to advance to 1872...


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006311


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006311


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006311

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006207

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by crawdad5000

Well. after spending all night trying to get the offensive stats in line I think I came to a realization. Neutralized stats suck in ootp 18. Trying several different scenarios I could't get the run production down or the ERA. Homers still way up, in one universe I had batters hitting 100+ hr's in a season. Batters were consistently maxed out on their power, gap, eye ratings. I had several pitchers with 350+ko's.
So, being completely frustrated, I just created a 1871 universe and left all modifiers on. Kept finances at 1871. And the day before opening day the only thing I changed was the historical/sats AI pages to 1984. Double checked finances to make sure they stayed 1871. Here is the result of 1871. You can see that almost everything is in-line with 1984. 1984 is .260/.323/.385/.708, mine is .262/.328/.390/.718. Pretty close! I guess in ootp 18 the thing to do is just import the year you want stats for and leave most everything else alone. I think this may be the most towards a level playing field that you will get. We'll see. Now to advance to 1872...


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006311


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006311


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006311

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...1&d=1497006207

Looks so much better. .262/.328/.390/.718, with a 3.96 ERA, and 4.42 R/G is way better than what you were getting. Good job figuring it out, and for helping me figure out that I definitely need to stick with OOTP16 for mine because in OOTP16 you can tie the stats output, strategy settings, and player creation modifiers to a specific year while at the same time having financial settings advance as they did historically.

Between 16 and 18 something must've happened that doesn't allow you to do this anymore. Do I have that right, or were you able to tie together stats output, strategy settings, and player creation modifiers from 1984? Maybe you allowed the stats output modifiers to be whatever the game gave you when you input "1984" as the year that you wanted them to be, rather than reverting them all to 1.000 (which would give you an output closer to 2016 I think, which may have been why your strikeouts went so high and HR went up with them, as HR and K have definitely increased lately). Would love to see both sides of your Stats & AI settings page, plus your Financials settings page, and your Players settings page to see what you did, and see if I can replicate it in OOTP18. Thanks crawdad5000, and (hopefully) enjoy your random debut game.

[Lordofbrewtown]

Do you generally have Coaching enabled for these historical leagues? What about the morale/personality systems?

[crawdad5000]

Originally Posted by Lordofbrewtown

Do you generally have Coaching enabled for these historical leagues? What about the morale/personality systems?

I have coaching enabled because I like to turn players in to coaches who did it IRL. but not morale/personality. I'm just the commissioner so I really don't care if players get along or not. I do play through important games but as a spectator.