question on setting up an alternate history league

[bobellis75]

So I had a version of OOTP a while back that I never had much time to play and have recently gotten back into the game via the iOOTP versions the last 2 years....

I'm wanting to get OOTP 14 (great sale right now!) and set up a historical league....it looks like the best way to go is to download the spritze DB and start in 1901....what I'm wondering is can I start from that date, with rosters as they should be, and what I want to do is pretend there was never a color barrier.

So...I want to control where I place some of the Negro League guys throughout the history of the game...and I'm not sure if there's a way I can bring them in via draft or free agency or what.

But basically I want to start with the real rosters and simulate from 1901 on, bringing players into the game at the proper times, etc. And include negro league and possibly Japanese players as well.

Thanks for any words of wisdom. I look forward to playing around and running various ideas through the history of the game....

[Lukas Berger]

Spritze's db includes all the *** players as well as many, many Negro League and Caribbean players.

So if you just start the game with his db and setup OOTP to have a draft in your league, you should be pretty well good to go for what you want to do.

[Ike348]

Originally Posted by bobellis75

So I had a version of OOTP a while back that I never had much time to play and have recently gotten back into the game via the iOOTP versions the last 2 years....

I'm wanting to get OOTP 14 (great sale right now!) and set up a historical league....it looks like the best way to go is to download the spritze DB and start in 1901....what I'm wondering is can I start from that date, with rosters as they should be, and what I want to do is pretend there was never a color barrier.

So...I want to control where I place some of the Negro League guys throughout the history of the game...and I'm not sure if there's a way I can bring them in via draft or free agency or what.

But basically I want to start with the real rosters and simulate from 1901 on, bringing players into the game at the proper times, etc. And include negro league and possibly Japanese players as well.

Thanks for any words of wisdom. I look forward to playing around and running various ideas through the history of the game....

I don't know how you can add extra players to the draft, but you can, each year, add players as free agents, and from there, using the editor (make sure commish mode is on!), you can manually add them to a team.

To add the players, use the "import historical player" button on the free agents screen. First, make a text file with the player IDs from the database, comma-separated with the year. Yes, you have to look up each player ID.

The rule is generally first 5 letters of last name followed by first two letters of the first name followed by two digits to distinguish between players with the same IDs. However, with Negro Leaguers and Japanese-leaguers, the two digits do not follow this pattern.

A sample text file could look like this:

ruthba01,1927
aaronha01,1957

Once you've created the file, click that button and select the file and each player will import.

You will have to create a new file for each year.

[bobellis75]

Originally Posted by Ike348

I don't know how you can add extra players to the draft, but you can, each year, add players as free agents, and from there, using the editor (make sure commish mode is on!), you can manually add them to a team.

To add the players, use the "import historical player" button on the free agents screen. First, make a text file with the player IDs from the database, comma-separated with the year. Yes, you have to look up each player ID.

The rule is generally first 5 letters of last name followed by first two letters of the first name followed by two digits to distinguish between players with the same IDs. However, with Negro Leaguers and Japanese-leaguers, the two digits do not follow this pattern.

A sample text file could look like this:

ruthba01,1927
aaronha01,1957

Once you've created the file, click that button and select the file and each player will import.

You will have to create a new file for each year.

This could be what I ideally want to do.

I'm curious...if I set the game to bring in guys when they are supposed to debut...will it put them in a draft or will it put them on the correct teams? Or is that a manual thing I'd need to do as well? So...Lou Gehrig for example...if I just let it go...will he wind up on the Yankees? Or in the draft?

[bobellis75]

One last question (for now anyway) would be this:

Are the negro league players importable by their respective NLB teams? Could I, say, add the KC Monarchs to the major leagues? I don't mind manually adding teams. So...could I start with the proper 1901 teams, and then add teams as I go. Say I do an expansion with teams made up of Negro League players...so I'd add the KC Monarchs, the Birmingham Black Barons, New York Cubans, and so on....

My thinking being this: I was also thinking of pretending the color barrier was down...BUT...not totally down. As in white teams and black teams, and then eventually dropping the barrier completely and letting guys plays anywhere (and in the process probably getting rid of some teams as players fully integrate, etc). Maybe sprinkling the black players into the other teams by geography (Players on Negro League teams in NY would go to the NY MLB teams, for example. And so on.) And in some cases, just to spice it up...maybe the MLB team identity would go away and the Negro League team would continue on as the operating franchise. So maybe the White Sox disappear in favor of the Chicago Union Giants. Or say, due to the influx of players, we expand by 4 teams and those teams keep their Negro League identity. maybe the Monarchs, Jacksonville Red Caps, Indianapolis Clowns, and Portland Rosebuds continue as MLB franchises. Or the Houston Eagles are an MLB franchise until they eventually become the Colt 45's/Astros.

I don't know...I'd like to get creative with it.

[thehef]

My understanding is that the Spritze High School db will bring in players after high school, at age 18, and that they will import to the team they are most-associated with (Babe Ruth a Yankee, Steve Garvey at Dogder, etc), and that the Spritze-Gambo db will bring in players as of their pro (typically minor-league) debut, and they will import to the correct historical team. For Negro leaguers, both db's would import them as free-agents (and thus you wouldn't need to import players individually, but you would need to manually assign them to teams). The Spritze HS db includes a bunch of ***-ers, whereas the Spritze-Gambo one only includes the top 50 or thereabouts... If my numbers are right, you'll get about 200 more Negro leaguers with the HS db...

Pretty sure you'd want to use neutralized stats regardless of which of the two db's you use. If you want the major-leaguers to be on their original teams, then you'd need to use the Spritze-Gambo one, and if you want transactions according to history (for major leaguers, of course) I'd suggest that you use the historical_transactions.odb file that comes with OOTP 12 (the ones for 13 and 14 release players who, for example, played season in the minors sandwiched around major-league seasons).

You could also use the historical db that comes with the game and then manually import selected Negro & *** (and career minor-leaguers, if you want any of those). This might be a good option if you don't want to add too many non-major-leaguers. Using this option, major leaguers would debut in your majors at the same time they did in real life, and of course the Negro leaguers & NPBers would debut when you import them.

Can't guarantee everything above is 100% correct, but I think so! Good luck.

[bobellis75]

Originally Posted by thehef

My understanding is that the Spritze High School db will bring in players after high school, at age 18, and that they will import to the team they are most-associated with (Babe Ruth a Yankee, Steve Garvey at Dogder, etc), and that the Spritze-Gambo db will bring in players as of their pro (typically minor-league) debut, and they will import to the correct historical team. For Negro leaguers, both db's would import them as free-agents (and thus you wouldn't need to import players individually, but you would need to manually assign them to teams). The Spritze HS db includes a bunch of ***-ers, whereas the Spritze-Gambo one only includes the top 50 or thereabouts... If my numbers are right, you'll get about 200 more Negro leaguers with the HS db...

Pretty sure you'd want to use neutralized stats regardless of which of the two db's you use. If you want the major-leaguers to be on their original teams, then you'd need to use the Spritze-Gambo one, and if you want transactions according to history (for major leaguers, of course) I'd suggest that you use the historical_transactions.odb file that comes with OOTP 12 (the ones for 13 and 14 release players who, for example, played season in the minors sandwiched around major-league seasons).

You could also use the historical db that comes with the game and then manually import selected Negro & *** (and career minor-leaguers, if you want any of those). This might be a good option if you don't want to add too many non-major-leaguers. Using this option, major leaguers would debut in your majors at the same time they did in real life, and of course the Negro leaguers & NPBers would debut when you import them.

Can't guarantee everything above is 100% correct, but I think so! Good luck.

These sound like good options…I'm not sure I definitely want transactions to be historic but that would be pretty cool at least to a point…can I turn this off at some point? Also does doing something pretty historic and then importing negro leaguers, etc, allow me to expand the league or contract teams (or rename franchises and so on)? I like the sound of importing the negro league guys and then assigning to teams…but as I suggested in earlier posts, what if I wanted to say, expand the MLB by 2 to 4 teams made up solely of black players, and then further break down the color barrier later (maybe more in tune with the 1940 era as in real life). So…import players onto a couple of all black teams in the 20's and 30's for example, then fully integrate after that…which means I might need to add and subtract franchise. Or at least add them and maybe leave them, let them morph into future real life expansion teams. SO…if I were to build a KC Monarchs team into the 1930 season, for example, could I then contract that team, or be able to leave it in to later morph into the KC A's/Royals. And would that throw off the more realistic imports of players onto their real teams (like Mantle to the Yankees and so on)?

Just curious how much freedom there is when wanting to start based on reality…can I at some point start to really stray from things if I want. I might not mind really straying from things at that point anyway (the full integration of the league) and may not care so much at that point where players debut, I guess…to further the fictional/alternate reality. But it'd be kind of cool if guys still debuted with the proper teams - Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Koufax, and so on, and so on…..

Thanks for all the replies…all helpful stuff.

[Ike348]

Just want to clarify that you only need to do what I mentioned in my original post for the non-major leaguers. The major leaguers should either import as a draft class ot import to the player's debut team or the team with which they spent the most time.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by bobellis75

These sound like good options…I'm not sure I definitely want transactions to be historic but that would be pretty cool at least to a point…can I turn this off at some point? Also does doing something pretty historic and then importing negro leaguers, etc, allow me to expand the league or contract teams (or rename franchises and so on)? I like the sound of importing the negro league guys and then assigning to teams…but as I suggested in earlier posts, what if I wanted to say, expand the MLB by 2 to 4 teams made up solely of black players, and then further break down the color barrier later (maybe more in tune with the 1940 era as in real life). So…import players onto a couple of all black teams in the 20's and 30's for example, then fully integrate after that…which means I might need to add and subtract franchise. Or at least add them and maybe leave them, let them morph into future real life expansion teams. SO…if I were to build a KC Monarchs team into the 1930 season, for example, could I then contract that team, or be able to leave it in to later morph into the KC A's/Royals. And would that throw off the more realistic imports of players onto their real teams (like Mantle to the Yankees and so on)?

Just curious how much freedom there is when wanting to start based on reality…can I at some point start to really stray from things if I want. I might not mind really straying from things at that point anyway (the full integration of the league) and may not care so much at that point where players debut, I guess…to further the fictional/alternate reality. But it'd be kind of cool if guys still debuted with the proper teams - Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Koufax, and so on, and so on…..

Thanks for all the replies…all helpful stuff.

You could, for example, start in 1901 with teams & transactions historical, and immediately began importing Negro leaguers (via auto-import using the Spritze HS or Spritze-Gambo db, or by manually importing), and let the game play out according to history through, for example, 1930 (which would mean only a couple of franchise moves in the early 1900's). Your players would come into MLB and would move to new teams as they did in real life (depending upon which db you are using), except for your Negro leaguers, who would stay on whatever team you assigned them unless a) the AI at some point released them, b) they retired, or c) you manually traded or moved them to another team.

Then in 1930 (again, just as an example) you could turn off historical transactions and allow (or not allow) the game to trade players on its own. You could also turn on Automation League Evolution, which would mean that teams would periodically relocate and the league may expand (and possibly contract, not sure) from time to time. I've never used Dynamic League Evolution so I'm not the expert on it. (You can absolutely expand and contract manually, too.)

Most of my reply was drafted before you edited your last post to describe more-specific scenarios. I believe the short answer to pretty much everything you want to do is Yes, but at some point you'd need to decide 1) whether you still want major-leaguers to import to their original (or most-common) teams, as opposed to using a draft or manually assigning them, and 2) assuming you continue to have them import to their original team, whether you want historical transactions to still occur. You can't have only some players - Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Koufax, as in your example - stay with their teams and/or be traded as according to history and have others not be handled that way unless you introduce a fair amount of manual editing (either undoing trades you don't want to happen, or manually making the trades you do want to happen). But yes, what you describe can be done.

[bobellis75]

Originally Posted by thehef

You could, for example, start in 1901 with teams & transactions historical, and immediately began importing Negro leaguers (via auto-import using the Spritze HS or Spritze-Gambo db, or by manually importing), and let the game play out according to history through, for example, 1930 (which would mean only a couple of franchise moves in the early 1900's). Your players would come into MLB and would move to new teams as they did in real life (depending upon which db you are using), except for your Negro leaguers, who would stay on whatever team you assigned them unless a) the AI at some point released them, b) they retired, or c) you manually traded or moved them to another team.

Then in 1930 (again, just as an example) you could turn off historical transactions and allow (or not allow) the game to trade players on its own. You could also turn on Automation League Evolution, which would mean that teams would periodically relocate and the league may expand (and possibly contract, not sure) from time to time. I've never used Dynamic League Evolution so I'm not the expert on it. (You can absolutely expand and contract manually, too.)

Most of my reply was drafted before you edited your last post to describe more-specific scenarios. I believe the short answer to pretty much everything you want to do is Yes, but at some point you'd need to decide 1) whether you still want major-leaguers to import to their original (or most-common) teams, as opposed to using a draft or manually assigning them, and 2) assuming you continue to have them import to their original team, whether you want historical transactions to still occur. You can't have only some players - Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Koufax, as in your example - stay with their teams and/or be traded as according to history and have others not be handled that way unless you introduce a fair amount of manual editing (either undoing trades you don't want to happen, or manually making the trades you do want to happen). But yes, what you describe can be done.

Thanks again guys. This is all great helpful stuff…I think what I'm leaning towards doing is keeping it pretty historic up to a point. Then I feel like the influx of non-white players should be the timeframe where maybe I abandon some of the more historic stuff…because, let's face it…that would've changed everything anyway.

Knowing that I CAN expand the league and create a couple of teams, etc…I MIGHT go with creating a couple of teams named after Negro League franchises, with the storyline that, the MLB decided there was too much money to be made on players of color…so they expanded with the allowance of a couple of teams to join the MLB (teams of all black players). Then let that go for a bit and integrate fully.

OR…I might import those players as free agents (it will still allow me to import the Negro League players based on their Negro League debuts, is that correct? So I could keep them within the correct timeframe?) and then based on geography let's say the MLB came up with a rule that NY teams would have dibs on the Negro League players from NY rosters, and so on….Negro League teams without MLB cities would still go regionally. Then at that point we are integrated and moving forward with a more "who knows what happens next?" storyline for MLB history.

I guess I need to figure out how many Negro League guys there are in the databases and the years they become available (to keep with historical accuracy)…like I don't want a 20 year old Satchel Paige in 1965.

Then kind of wing it from there.

I'll keep you guys updated…my plan is to do this and run updates in the Dynasty forum or possibly even expand into a blog or something.

[The Game]

Agh, why do people give false advice?

Yes Spritze DB players come in around 18, you can have a draft or have ML players go to their original teams. Babe Ruth will go to the Red Sox not the Yankees. If you create the Monarchs or Barons, to the best of my knowledge, (never tried) the *** players, Negro, etc will still be FA come the 1st day of Offseason. I use Gambo's DB for my History of the White Sox league, which has players at Debut year and has less players then the Spritze DB. All my ML players go to their original teams all others are FA. I have had 2 Negro League players play on the White Sox in the 1910's. Pop Lloyd being the most well known.
I use Sprtize DB for my History Of Baseball league but I use a draft. So I have drafted Josh Gibson & Satchel Paige. Paige is a 3 time All Star as of 1935. Gibson suffered a CEI while at AAA Boise.

[bobellis75]

Originally Posted by The Game

Agh, why do people give false advice?

Yes Spritze DB players come in around 18, you can have a draft or have ML players go to their original teams. Babe Ruth will go to the Red Sox not the Yankees. If you create the Monarchs or Barons, to the best of my knowledge, (never tried) the *** players, Negro, etc will still be FA come the 1st day of Offseason. I use Gambo's DB for my History of the White Sox league, which has players at Debut year and has less players then the Spritze DB. All my ML players go to their original teams all others are FA. I have had 2 Negro League players play on the White Sox in the 1910's. Pop Lloyd being the most well known.
I use Sprtize DB for my History Of Baseball league but I use a draft. So I have drafted Josh Gibson & Satchel Paige. Paige is a 3 time All Star as of 1935. Gibson suffered a CEI while at AAA Boise.

Sounds like from what I've read around the forums there are ridiculous amounts of ways to play this game...and sounds like from what I'm hearing in this thread I should be able to do what I am planning.....

So I assume the Negro League and *** players import at the time their Negro League or *** careers began? Sadduhara Oh debuted in 1959 for the Yomiuri Giants, for example. So would he import automatically in 1959 as a free agent?

And Satchel Paige began playing in the 1925/26 timeframe I think.

What about Jackie Robinson? Broke the color barrier in 1947, but played for the Monarchs in 1945, minor leagues in 1946...would he import in 1945 as a Negro League player (free agent)? I mean...that's 2 more years we could add on to his career...meaning he debuts at age 26 rather than age 28. So two pretty key years of his prime.

Jackie and Larry Doby would be interesting cases to import as Doby started playing in 1942 I think and then was away from the game (WWII) and came back to Negro Leagues in 1945 or 46 I think. Pretty sure Doby began playing when he was 16 or 17. I think he was still only about 23 when he debuted in the MLB.

Even importing Doby in 1945 (post WWII) would add a couple more years to his career as well.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by bobellis75

Sounds like from what I've read around the forums there are ridiculous amounts of ways to play this game...and sounds like from what I'm hearing in this thread I should be able to do what I am planning.....

So I assume the Negro League and *** players import at the time their Negro League or *** careers began? Sadduhara Oh debuted in 1959 for the Yomiuri Giants, for example. So would he import automatically in 1959 as a free agent?

And Satchel Paige began playing in the 1925/26 timeframe I think.

What about Jackie Robinson? Broke the color barrier in 1947, but played for the Monarchs in 1945, minor leagues in 1946...would he import in 1945 as a Negro League player (free agent)? I mean...that's 2 more years we could add on to his career...meaning he debuts at age 26 rather than age 28. So two pretty key years of his prime.

Jackie and Larry Doby would be interesting cases to import as Doby started playing in 1942 I think and then was away from the game (WWII) and came back to Negro Leagues in 1945 or 46 I think. Pretty sure Doby began playing when he was 16 or 17. I think he was still only about 23 when he debuted in the MLB.

Even importing Doby in 1945 (post WWII) would add a couple more years to his career as well.

If you have players going to their original teams then Oh, Doby, Paige, Gibson & Robinson will be FA.
Here is what 3 of the players who mentioned would look like. I have to PM Spritze and find out why OH imported badly. I tired a few different option and none of them changed.
No clue why Jackie has 5 yrs ML service.

[bobellis75]

Very cool. So I guess you're importing into the modern day (looking at the birth dates on the three examples above).

As far as Oh's ratings, as these guys import, we can always edit the player ratings (in Commish mode) correct?

I guess I need to go ahead and purchase the game tonight/download the player files, and start tinkering.....

[thehef]

Originally Posted by The Game

Agh, why do people give false advice?

Yes Spritze DB players come in around 18, you can have a draft or have ML players go to their original teams. Babe Ruth will go to the Red Sox not the Yankees...

Certainly no intent to give false advice, and I did preface my first reply with "My understanding is..." That said...

Just to make sure I wasn't giving false advice, I'm looking at the Spritze database batting files right now and unless I am completely misunderstanding the way this database works, it is a most-common-team database (every batting row for Ruth shows the TeamID as "NYA"). In other words, Babe Ruth will import as a Yankee, not with the Red Sox, and if you start up a league during the careers of Steve Garvey or Pete Rose, they will import as a Dodger and a Red, respectively, even for a season when in real life they were on other teams.

The Spritze-Gambo db (as opposed to the Spritze high school db) imports as actual team (for players who were with MLB organizations). There may be some exceptions for those who never made the majors; not sure.

[bobellis75]

I got the spritze db (high school) downloaded....I might be interested in the other as well. I'd like to see Babe import onto the Red Sox to start off. In the interest of keeping things pretty historic (to a point). I suppose I could control that, though, in commish mode.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by bobellis75

Very cool. So I guess you're importing into the modern day (looking at the birth dates on the three examples above).

As far as Oh's ratings, as these guys import, we can always edit the player ratings (in Commish mode) correct?

I guess I need to go ahead and purchase the game tonight/download the player files, and start tinkering.....

Yeah I PMed spritze to find out why Oh imported so poorly. I would have just edited in his stats each year. I have had problems with many of the *** players. Did you try the Demo?

[The Game]

Originally Posted by thehef

Certainly no intent to give false advice, and I did preface my first reply with "My understanding is..." That said...

Just to make sure I wasn't giving false advice, I'm looking at the Spritze database batting files right now and unless I am completely misunderstanding the way this database works, it is a most-common-team database (every batting row for Ruth shows the TeamID as "NYA"). In other words, Babe Ruth will import as a Yankee, not with the Red Sox, and if you start up a league during the careers of Steve Garvey or Pete Rose, they will import as a Dodger and a Red, respectively, even for a season when in real life they were on other teams.

The Spritze-Gambo db (as opposed to the Spritze high school db) imports as actual team (for players who were with MLB organizations). There may be some exceptions for those who never made the majors; not sure.

Sorry I missed the "My understanding is..." I ws just browsing and didnt fully read it it's just that what you said caught my eye.
I just ran a test league using just teh Sprtize DB. I use GamboSpritze DB for my White Sox league and through 1910 no player has gone to the wrong team. Ruth does go to the Red Sox.
Here is also a SS on the FA's all rookies and Jim Bluejacket of the Ed League.
Jim Bluejacket Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com
Hef Garvey debuted with the Dodgers. I was thinking Padres myself also then I had thought he was traded to the Dodgers then went back via FA to the Padres. Also Rose debuted with the Reds. Are we talking about the same thing here? If you start a year the player will be on the team he played for that year. Players who were out due to war may not appear, kinda unsure on that since i never seem to get to WWII. If you start at 1871 and sime to today the player will always to my knowledge no matter which DB you use debut with the team that he played for 1st at the ML level. I have never heard of anyone complain that Ruth was not a Red Sox or that Shoeless was not an A or the Bonds was not a Pirate.

Edit: Ages are off. Ruth should only be 18 in the SS not 19. He was 19 in his debut year. I'll ask Sprtize about that.

[The Game]

Update: My results are from the Gambo/Spritze DB not just the Sprtize DB. I had my folder labeled wrong. Gonna retest using the DB I just downloaded from Spritze a bit later on today. PM Spritze for his DB.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by The Game

Hef... Are we talking about the same thing here?

I just posted here http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post3616830 my understandings of what I think the databases contain and do, etc.