Getting an 1871 league?

[Kelric]

Gambo's 1.5 database apparently goes back to 1871 and I'd like my league to as well. But, as with last year IIRC, as soon as I enter in 1871 as the year of importation the game automatically changes that to 1901. Is there any way around this yet again?

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by Kelric

Gambo's 1.5 database apparently goes back to 1871 and I'd like my league to as well. But, as with last year IIRC, as soon as I enter in 1871 as the year of importation the game automatically changes that to 1901. Is there any way around this yet again?

Apparently not unless you're willing to give up a whole lot of options that start in 1901, including the all-important recalc function. I spent most of the evening trying, and I'm close to giving up on the 19th century.

[Kelric]

The only thing I can think of is doing what I did last year, creating the entire world from scratch with fictional players and then running some tests for proper results. Sigh. I really wish the 1800s worked better with OOTP.

[hydrostar]

We seriously cannot start before 1901? That makes no sense....you can fast-forward to any decade you like...but you can't go backwards to baseball's origins before 1901?

That's weak. Is this confirmed? I hadn't had time to test this yet, and I was hoping to get a history of baseball sim going this weekend.

[swampdragon]

There are serious reasons that the game can't handle the myriad of franchise changes, etc., that took place in the pre-1900 era. What I don't understand is why I can't start a fictional game in 1871, import real players and get the game to adjust the era settings, do the three year recalc, and adjust the financials. If I'm able to import the players and handle the franchise shifts as a commissioner, the data for everything else is already in the game: financial coefficients, era settings, and league totals going back to 1871.

[plannine]

If you start as a fictional league earlier and bring set for historical rookies, you can make the change in 1871 - there is not enough players in 1871 for more then a couple of teams. With previous versions i did fictional from 1860 until 'real players' enter. It will take a few test runs to make adjustments to league total modifiers to do the mix smoothly. You should also make adjustments to the nation & ethnicities files to eliminate the excessive amounts of latin ballplayers.

I usually start in 1860 with 8 teams playing 60 games, expand to 12 teams in late 1870's playing 90 games and expand to 16 teams in the late 1880's playing 140 games. I also stick to teams names that played in 1901.

[Garlon]

Starting in 1871 is a bit trickier than it used to be. I did do it when I was beta-testing though. When Arod23 and I release an update to our DB I will also release an 1871 Quickstart.

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Starting in 1871 is a bit trickier than it used to be. I did do it when I was beta-testing though. When Arod23 and I release an update to our DB I will also release an 1871 Quickstart.

The game now nukes the National Association stats and gives all the 1871 players horrible ratings. That was part of my problem. I'll be very interested to see what you came up with. I had the problem using both your database and an unmodified Lahman. I've started in 1876, but if I can't use the recalc function I'll probably abandon it in favor of 1901.

[Garlon]

The game nukes any stats from any leagues not NL or AL. When Arod23 and I update our DB we will change all the league abbreviations of the NA, AA, PL, UA, and FL to NL so that the players impot correctly. When I was beta testing I changed the league abbreviations in my DB and ran a simulation 1871-1900.

[BaseballMan]

I am wanting to start a league in 1871 but i dont care that some options dont work. It just would be nice to start a historical league in 1871 regardless of what options are available. If i can import a 19th century then obviously his ratings can be calculated. Maybe not as good as the modern era but workable. If i want it to be more accurate i can edit the database.

But i think it would be a mistake to try to get accurate stats for a 19th century league or to make it like a modern league. Like its been said there was so many different changes and weird stats like Kilroy throwing 513 strikeouts in a season and a game having an attendence of 6. But just like the real leagues were learning as time went by i think of my league doing the same thing.
So what i want to do is maybe have some fictional ballparks based loosley on
the ballparks of that day and use real historical ballpark names. Maybe start with an 80 game schedule and expand it to 154 by 1903.
Have injuries and fatigue low so i can use a small roster at first.
Then when i arrive at 1901 i want to be able to use the recalc function and have more accurate stats. I do however wish to keep 19th century players from putting records too far out of reach. For example i dont want a player batting .492. If however he bats .420 in 1871 and no one can break it then thats fine. I may edit the database for the missing stats since even though all
players would be missing stats for those years, it would put some players at a disadvantage. If i can be sure that the computer is gonna look at the players whole career when it rates the player then that would be fine since i dont know how many sbs a player had when theres no stats. But what i dont want to see is a player imported with a low sb ability because he had no stats for sb in his first 5 years but yet he was in the top 5 for say the last 5 years of a ten year career.

[LeafsFan2005NC]

Couldn't we just ask Markus and co. to not nuke non AL or NL stats? I'm sure it's just a matter of changing a line of code to ignore the league abbreviation.

[BaseballMan]

Or we could adjsut the database so that 1871 becomes 1901 and 1872 becomes 1902 etc etc. But we would have to make sure to adjust everything else too
and maybe assign AL or NL to the teams. Might be a little weird to have Cap Anson playing in 1901. Seems like it would work.

[redmarkYankees]

This might be a silly question, but has anyone used the leagues with the accurate abbreviation used in Lahman setup within their world and still seen the ratings get nuked?

It would seem logical that if an import file uses a league abbreviation that is setup in game, it would then use the specified League Equivalences for that league when importing the players; but if that league doesn't exist it will assume it to be low level and nuke the players?

[Garlon]

LeafsFan2005NC - I requsted this during beta testing. Apparently this may cause some sort of problem with building the complete league history. Say you started a league in 2001, but want OOTP to build the entire History from the Lahman DB. I don't think OOTP can deal with those additional leagues and franchises for whatever reason.

BaseballMan - I tried that a couple years ago. One of the problems you run into is that when you reach 2007 (which would then be 1978) OOTP stops importing from the DB.

redmarkYankees - I think you are a bit confused about how OOTP imports players from th DB. The problem with the 1800's players is that it doesn't recognie the abbreviations of NA, AA, UA, and PL. Players get nuked if they have any of thoe abbreviations in their batting/fielding/pitching stats in the Lahman DB. The game also doesn't like the FL. You have to go in and change all of those abbreviations to NL (or AL) and then the game sees these as legitimate players. I did this during beta testing and ran a league from 1871-1900 and everyone imported properly. The league totals modifiers also kept the league stats on track just fine too.

When Arod23 ad I update our DB we will fix the abbreviation issue. Then just do th same thing we always do: Starta fictional league in 1870, set the draft date to Dec 1st, simulate through the playoffs, make al players free agents, delete all free agents (league now has no fictional players), proceed to rookie draft...you then have all the 1871 players going into the 1871 season.

[BaseballMan]

Garlon,

Is that your career db? Because i was wondering how the game would handle recaculating ratings when using a database based on career avgs. If not i would like to use your method of filling in the missing data for sb, strikeouts etc for 19th century players and add the negro league players to the lahman database.
But in your opinion which one is more accurate, using the lahman database and the recalulating ratings based on real season function or using a career avg database? Seems like a player like Moonlight Graham would be a career minor leaguer if using the recal function in most historical leagues..

[Morty Ruth]

Garlon,

Thank you for these suggestions. On the surface it seems as if these principles (cited below) may be applied for starting with other 19th C years, should one want to play out some games/seasons beginning any time between 1871-1900, for example. Will try after work. It definitely beats importing individual players one by one from Lahman, which is what I have been trying to do!

"redmarkYankees - I think you are a bit confused about how OOTP imports players from th DB. The problem with the 1800's players is that it doesn't recognie the abbreviations of NA, AA, UA, and PL. Players get nuked if they have any of thoe abbreviations in their batting/fielding/pitching stats in the Lahman DB. The game also doesn't like the FL. You have to go in and change all of those abbreviations to NL (or AL) and then the game sees these as legitimate players. I did this during beta testing and ran a league from 1871-1900 and everyone imported properly. The league totals modifiers also kept the league stats on track just fine too.

When Arod23 ad I update our DB we will fix the abbreviation issue. Then just do th same thing we always do: Starta fictional league in 1870, set the draft date to Dec 1st, simulate through the playoffs, make al players free agents, delete all free agents (league now has no fictional players), proceed to rookie draft...you then have all the 1871 players going into the 1871 season."

[Garlon]

BaseBallMan - You can use either the Lahman or the Arod23Garlon regular DB for the 3-yr recalc mode. If you use the Career Avg DB the ratings for individual players wil be th same every year of their cqareer since there stats are the same for all years they played in that DB.

Morty Ruth - The thing with the 19th century is that you pretty much have to start in 1871 because when the game reads the DB it will grab all of the 1871 players...all of the 1871 players in the DB debuted that year. You can't do the fictional work-around in say 1886, and then move to 1887 and get all the players in the league from 1887 to import...you will only get the 1887 rookie class. If you want to start any season in he 1800's asid from 1871 you are oing to have to manually import each individual player.

[Morty Ruth]

I see, shucks. Thanks for the clarification.

[LeafsFan2005NC]

I can see why the game wouldn't like the extra leagues. But, since all that's required is adjusting the old abbreviations to new ones, I should be able to live with that.

Maybe in 2008 they'll add an option to choose how much history to build.