So What Will We Be Able to Do With the Historical League Generator?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by thehef

Then the modders will take over and provide all kinds of files, from simple, three-level (AAA, AA, and A) historically plausible structures to complex ones that are historically authentic, if not completely accurate.

[Mr. T] I pity the fool that has to do all that work researching and creating those files! [/Mr. T]

Originally Posted by thehef

Applying this to the majors, too, would be a big step towards solving the issues with 19th-century historical, and with the Federal League.

Certainly it'd be a big step forward, but even so there are AI considerations that have to be worked out. Getting independent clubs in an otherwise affiliated league to work fairly realistically; having the AI manage reasonably well a situation where it might have literally two dozen affiliates; how to work the Rule 5 draft as it was quite different when the minors were more independent; what to do about the difference between working agreements and the later player development contracts, as the former gave minor league clubs some flexibility in terms of trading players with other clubs, as well as having its own signed players; and so forth.

There's lot of layers to this cake when one cuts into it.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

There's lot of layers to this cake when one cuts into it.

I agree. You're indubitably right on that. As to that though, I'm just going to copy my last reply to you when we had the long discussion on this on the beta forums.

Originally Posted by lukasberger

But then the question becomes, since we can't do this 100% perfectly, should we simply not do it at all?

I don't see that that follows. As you say, 19th century baseball in OOTP is far from perfect. But it's still in the game in all its imperfect, less than historical, glory. And the game is far better for that.

Not to mention that there are other things in OOTP that aren't quite "right". The draft doesn't have the signing bonus slotting system or bonus pool caps implemented. The international complexes don't really exist in reality as they're implemented in game, as the DSL and VSL actually play games, which doesn't happen in the int complexes as of now. For some years even the current MLB rosters were missing players, lacked stats for minor league players and had players that weren't even rated. Thankfully that's not the case anymore, but it was for a while. That didn't stop us from putting real rosters in OOTP and then working to improve them.

I could go on and on about things in OOTP that aren't quite right and don't match the current or historical reality. But most of those features still add enormous amounts of fun to the game and make things feel more real than if they didn't exist in game at all.

We could do the same kind of thing for the historical minors and do it very well. Do it in a way that adds a lot of flavour, complexity, historical detail, and fun to the game. It wouldn't be perfect, but that shouldn't be the question. The question should be this: Would it be better than what we have now? It would. I'm sure of it.

Clearly, some compromises would have to be made. Some teams would be axed. Perhaps some leagues would have to be consolidated or expanded in slightly a-historical ways. Other hard choices might have to be made.

So yes, the results at that point won't be truly "historical". But the results you get when playing out seasons and careers in OOTP vary greatly from history too. OOTP is a game that uses history as a basic template to go on and create its own history. It's not really a historical simulator, rigid replay type game.

Because this can't immediately be done perfectly shouldn't mean that we throw the baby out with the bath water and do nothing. If the setup I'm proposing isn't 100% "historical" then so be it. It would still be far better and far more historical than what we have now, which is essentially no historical minor leagues and very few to no historical milb players.

Does that make any sense?

So to me, you're right on everything you say. But where we disagree is that you seem to be portraying your totally valid observations as a legitimate reasons for doing nothing on this, to not even try to setup the framework to get historically plausible minors into the game.

I just don't see that as the right approach. Sure there are major issues and I'm not minimizing them. But that there are large hurdles in the way is not a valid reason to perpetually do nothing about historical minors, especially when it's other people than Markus who would end up doing the heavy lifting here. He just has to do a bit to make it worth their while to do that lifting.

Am I completely off base on that?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

But where we disagree is that you seem to be portraying your totally valid observations as a legitimate reasons for doing nothing on this ...

Not at all. I'm simply trying to point out the cake has a lot of layers (this cake is NOT a lie!) and as a result it needs to be thought out carefully. I don't want to see a situation where an implementation is rushed in, only to find out later that certain improvements are hard or impossible because they weren't considered in the initial implementation structure.

I'm saying it's better to come up with a solid plan and all its facets and then implement things (in stages if need be) according to that plan. That way all the pieces are part of a larger, coherent whole, and fit together with little problem.

Be mindful of the law of unintended consequences—all these deep minors get added but then the AI has no idea how to manage them. I have a hard time seeing how that will ultimately improve many users' experience. (There are arguably already issues with how OOTP handles multiple affiliates in the same minor league classification level, and multiple affiliates at the same level is much more common in the past.)


ETA: If we all want to sit down and thrash out a list of all the things that need to be considered, how these items will work together, and ways to accomplish the goal, then formulate a bullet pointed memo laying it out, that alone would be a good step forward as it provide a good outline of a plan.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Not at all...

Well, I can't disagree with any of that, even if I wanted to, which I don't

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Well, I can't disagree with any of that, even if I wanted to, which I don't

Oh, sure, be Mr. Agreeable! Where's the fun in that?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by thbroman

The title says it all. I am crossing my fingers that historical leagues are being done up in a way that will allow us historical-fictional gamers to re-create the minor-league historical universe of different eras in the 20th century.
I fear for the worst, however - the lack of mention of financials for minor leagues is not a good sign.
Please Markus, help an long-time OOTP fan out & give me some hope!

No, historical minor leagues are not a focus this year. This would be a huge amount of work, and unfortunately not many people would be interested in this I fear. I always have to decide how to spend my very limited time. So, I doubt real historical minor leagues will make it into OOTP anytime soon...

[Orioles1966]

Will I be able to import my OOTP14 Leagues over to OOTP15 w/o a problem,considering the Leagues all have over 200 teams (3 Universe's,6 Leagues overall)?

[Carlton]

I don't who this might interest but

I was creating and saving a template for 1901 where I create the following

AAA

International (was Eastern League back then) and American Association
They will have a Little World Series and All Star Game
All teams are affiliated with a MLB team, and I chose some that were a mainstay for teams, i.e. Montreal Royals are the Superbas, KC Blues are the Orioles/Yankees

Pacific Coast League
non affiliated, has financials, yet is AAA level...I am hoping they don't trade with MLB on a constant basis like they did when I made them a 'major' league last time and because they are non affiliated they have a 15 man reserve roster and 25 man active roster...hoping that will not grab all the FA's
Should I make it affiliated with NO affiliates instead?
My PCL has the main 8 teams that came into existence during 1919
Salt Lake will change to the Hollywood Stars then the SD Padres
Vernon changes to Mission Reds then Hollywood Stars but all other teams are the same
My playoff is division winner vs wildcard and they have an all star game

AA
Southern Association and Texas League
Will have a 5 game playoff, no all star game
Again teams are setup with affiliates and those who are long standing with a MLB team are there Chattanooga Lookouts = Senators

A
Eastern League (with Albany,Elmira,Wilkes-Barre) and Western League (Denver,Pueblo,Colorado Springs)

All MLB teams are setup with a AAA,AA,A and the PCL is there to grab players as well.
I use Spritz's professional debut DB, with PCL/Japanes/Negro league players so I have 19th century players still hanging around and guys like Scoops Carey,Ed Abbacittio and Mordecai Brown are FA's that I put on their respective teams ML affiliates with lower ratings. The PCL guys are being put on their respective PCL teams

I was also going to fill the rosters of A teams, 99% will never make the majors, and one could block fictionals from making the major leagues, but I like seeing a PCL guy or fictional player once in awhile break the barrier of MLB. Plus, Rube Foster is always my 'Jackie Robinson' around 1904 and always with John McGraw so historical accuracy is 50/50 with me

The PCL and AAA teams already get a schedule assigned to them, so there is that. I will have to check for accuracy though as the PCL only had 6 teams. If inaccurate, I make a fictional 120 game schedule at first, then a 140 so that they end before MLB. And the American Assc. and International league were not in existence during 1901

It's a half assed workaround, and I think you need to have the same DB as I, but it's fudged enough where one only has to make small changes to teams (Providence Grays to Syracuse Stars for IL, the aforementioned PCL teams,Eastern League Springfield to Utica to Schenectady

but other than that, you can roll with these until 1960

If someone can babystep to me how I can get this up to OOTP Mods (and if it works for 14 and 15, since I am using 13) I'll upload it.
Or, I can wait until 15, make my mistakes on this one and upload it then

[thbroman]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

No, historical minor leagues are not a focus this year. This would be a huge amount of work, and unfortunately not many people would be interested in this I fear. I always have to decide how to spend my very limited time. So, I doubt real historical minor leagues will make it into OOTP anytime soon...

Thanks, Markus, I appreciate your candor.
I wish there was a way to get half a loaf on this. That is, I wish there was a way for your to provide some basic functionalties and then for others to mod files and/or create leagues that would produce a handful of archetypical historical-fictional minor leagues environments.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by thbroman

Thanks, Markus, I appreciate your candor.
I wish there was a way to get half a loaf on this. That is, I wish there was a way for your to provide some basic functionalties and then for others to mod files and/or create leagues that would produce a handful of archetypical historical-fictional minor leagues environments.

That would seem the obvious way to do it.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

No, historical minor leagues are not a focus this year. This would be a huge amount of work, and unfortunately not many people would be interested in this I fear. I always have to decide how to spend my very limited time. So, I doubt real historical minor leagues will make it into OOTP anytime soon...

Markus clearly isn't seeing a lot of demand for it either.

I wish you guys better luck and increased demand in the future.

[Murcer]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Plus the fact is that someone would need to actually need to come up with a useable historical MiLB db to make the coding worth it. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation right now with nothing seemingly likely to change anytime soon.

Not sure if this would work for what you're trying to do but I did come across this site while looking for minor league data for a roto league draft I was prepping for...
Minor League Baseball Data.Com

It doesn't have all the info that would be needed for an OOTP database but it would probably be a great start for anyone wanting to do that. It goes back about 10 years or so.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

No, historical minor leagues are not a focus this year. This would be a huge amount of work, and unfortunately not many people would be interested in this I fear. I always have to decide how to spend my very limited time. So, I doubt real historical minor leagues will make it into OOTP anytime soon...

Well, if I ever complete my minor league standings file and minor league data file, you'll have much of the reference info needed to make it happen right there.

(If anyone reading this thread has a collection of The Sporting News Baseball Guides, let me know. You can help me out with some things. )

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Well, if I ever complete my minor league standings file and minor league data file, you'll have much of the reference info needed to make it happen right there.

What reference info do we need? I'm thinking these for starters:

year
team/franchise id
team city & name
league name/indicator
league level/classification ("AA" for example)
affiliate indicator
division indicator ("E", "W"...)
ballpark name
some sort of indicator to control franchise & player movement (for when teams change affiliations, move, cease to exist, etc.)

Most of the above is mostly known. What other data elements might we need?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by thehef

some sort of indicator to control franchise & player movement (for when teams change affiliations, move, cease to exist, etc.)

That particular aspect is a hornet's nest of difficulty. The franchise history of the minors is nowhere near as well-defined and documented as is the major leagues. There are numerous cases where it isn't clear just what happened with a club, and sometimes reference sources don't agree. I'll give one example.

In Minor League Baseball Standings, it says the following for the changes made for the 1989 New York-Penn League season: Little Falls moved to Pittsfield; Niagara Falls and Welland formed.

But in Baseball America's 1989 Directory, it says this: Little Falls moved to Pittsfield; Watertown moved to Welland; Niagara Falls and Watertown formed.

There are instances where it is not clear whether a club moved to a new city and an expansion team was placed in the vacated city, or if the team in the new city is the expansion team. Just looking at the standings from one season to the next will not answer the question.

Originally Posted by thehef

Most of the above is mostly known. What other data elements might we need?

What about the league level? E.g. league statistics, playoff formats, All-Star Games, average attendance, schedule lengths, etc.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

That particular aspect is a hornet's nest of difficulty. The franchise history of the minors is nowhere near as well-defined and documented as is the major leagues. There are numerous cases where it isn't clear just what happened with a club, and sometimes reference sources don't agree....

There are instances where it is not clear whether a club moved to a new city and an expansion team was placed in the vacated city, or if the team in the new city is the expansion team. Just looking at the standings from one season to the next will not answer the question.

What about the league level? E.g. league statistics, playoff formats, All-Star Games, average attendance, schedule lengths, etc.

Right. These would be certainly be challenges to one degree or another. They would not, however, be challenges for the developers; these would be challenges for modders who would be creating the csv files that control team movement & league evolution. In some cases assumptions would have to be made (as with the example you cited). But if we are looking for plausible and/or authentic rather than totally accurate, I'm sure we could get there.

First we need OOTP to simply allow the functionality to control minors via csv files.

[mgom27]

How your going to do Minor League Standings if we can't Edit the ones in Game yet?

[nutt]

So we can build a league history? Is this what i'm seeing finally?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by nutt

So we can build a league history? Is this what i'm seeing finally?

No it's not

No more than before at least. You can build a league history now. It's just that you have to make an OOTP compatible Lahman db and import it, which is no small step.

[nutt]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

No it's not

No more than before at least. You can build a league history now. It's just that you have to make an OOTP compatible Lahman db and import it, which is no small step.

Not to toot another game's horn, but you can edit a Lahman DB for Mogul. the Lahman DB can be a headache if you've never done it before

I remember editing the DB when I got OOTP11 then realizing I couldn't import it after spending ten days making massive edits.