Attempting to take the Feeder plunge (again)

PSUColonel · 06-06-2013, 02:16 PM

My problem is I am veery OCD, and really want a well working NCAA and High School feeder system to work with. I would like to use Nutt's NCAA Feeder template, but obviously it's big, and PCM's would need adjusting...I don't know what numbers would make it look good. I would also like 30% of my drafted players coming from high school, so that means I will need to add about 90 high school teams. Again I don't know what PCMs to use. Is what I am trying to do just utterly ridiculous? Does anybody have any good suggestions for how I can can feeders up and running? Does anyone have any good feeder templates to share? Honestly I have tried to get into feeders before ( and really would like to) but I always scrap it because it just seems so half assed. It's my OCD I'm sure, but that's just the way it is for me.

Déjà Bru · 06-07-2013, 11:05 AM

Heh, all of us have a tinge of OCD or else we would not be here!

My very general suggestion would be to look at the PCM's for your rookie league (or your lowest minor league, assuming you have minor leagues; if you don't, start a test league with full minors and observe PCM's there). Then notice the drop-off of this lowest league from the one above it. Work out what the feeder league would be if the same drop-off occurred down to this level.

As with anything else of this nature, the best thing to do is to run quick test sims of several seasons or more to see if the results match your expectations. Tweak as necessary and test some more. Only when you are satisfied would you apply the final feeder PCM's to your ongoing game.

Cinnamon J. Scudworth · 06-08-2013, 10:02 AM

My suggestion is to load a new, fictional test league with feeders. See what the default PCMs are there. Use those.

Biggio509 · 06-08-2013, 11:43 AM

It has been a long while since I used feeders. However, in the past the PCMs haven't been the problem. The problem is too many feeders give to too much talent. What you would need to do is alter the distribution in terms the percent of each level of talent. Lowering PCMs just means all players will be weaker.

In the end this is somewhat cosmetic. Even if you have a bunch of top rated guys, the league modifiers will keep the league at a normal stat level. What happens is players become more equal in ratings in your league not everyone is hitting 70 HRs a season and batting .400. If you lower the PCMs you still will be flooded with the top talent for that PCM because of all the feeders. Instead everyone has slightly above average or average ratings instead of being scouted as stars.

I don't think there is a way to lower the percentiles of top players, eg. only .5% of players will achieve the highest ratings per you PCMs instead of say 2%. What you would want is to make more players come out lower on the scale. Essentially skew the distribution. Make the low end tail fatter, shift the middle of the "bell" curve left and make the high end tail lower.

PSUColonel · 06-12-2013, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biggio509

It has been a long while since I used feeders. However, in the past the PCMs haven't been the problem. The problem is too many feeders give to too much talent. What you would need to do is alter the distribution in terms the percent of each level of talent. Lowering PCMs just means all players will be weaker.

In the end this is somewhat cosmetic. Even if you have a bunch of top rated guys, the league modifiers will keep the league at a normal stat level. What happens is players become more equal in ratings in your league not everyone is hitting 70 HRs a season and batting .400. If you lower the PCMs you still will be flooded with the top talent for that PCM because of all the feeders. Instead everyone has slightly above average or average ratings instead of being scouted as stars.

I don't think there is a way to lower the percentiles of top players, eg. only .5% of players will achieve the highest ratings per you PCMs instead of say 2%. What you would want is to make more players come out lower on the scale. Essentially skew the distribution. Make the low end tail fatter, shift the middle of the "bell" curve left and make the high end tail lower.

the big question then: Is this possible?

Andriko · 06-12-2013, 09:11 PM

There is a rule of thumb i saw somewhere that explains how many feeder teams you need to fdill the league based on how many minor league teams you have. I can't remember what the ruleof thumb is.

However, it worked fine for me with no modifiers adjusted, produced the right kind of drafts, ie, a handful of top talent then sharp drop off after first few rounds.

Hopefully someone remembers this damn rule of thumb though.

SunDevil · 06-13-2013, 12:45 PM

Out of the Park Baseball Manual

How Many Feeder Leagues Should I Create?
The number of feeder leagues you create is completely up to you. However, most people who use feeder leagues prefer to set them up in such a way such that your parent league's first-year player draft will be completely populated with feeder league players. Because there are so many ways to configure your game, there isn't an easy formula for precisely how many feeder leagues you must create to accomplish this. However, here are some guidelines on how to decide about feeder leagues:

First, decide how many draft rounds you will need in your first-year player draft. The rule of thumb is that you will need five new players for each level of minors to replace players who retire, have long-term injuries, etc. Therefore:

# of rounds in amateur draft = 5 * the # of levels of minor leagues in your game

For example, you have a parent league with AAA, AA, A, and rookie leagues. That's four levels of minors. 4 x 5 = 20 You should configure your parent league to have 20 rounds in the amateur draft.

Next, decide on the number of feeder teams you will need to populate this draft. Each feeder team produces 6 to 9 players for the draft per year. Taking the number of players needed for the draft and dividing by 6 gives you the minimum number of feeders you need. The guideline here is:

# of feeder teams needed = (number of teams in parent league x number of draft rounds)/6

So, using the example from above, let's say your parent league has 16 teams. (16 x 20)/6 = 53.3 I need around 53 feeder league teams to completely feed my draft with feeder league players. The configuration of teams in your feeder leagues does not matter, as long as you have 53 teams or so. Many people increase this number, resulting in more players than there are draft slots. Players that go undrafted will become free agents. If you create a configuration that doesn't generate enough feeder league players, OOTP will generate fictional players for the draft pool to cover the difference.

Increasing Feeder League Realism
While feeder leagues are intended primarily just as a source of players to be drafted, some people want the feeder leagues to behave as close to real life as possible. Some members of the OOTP community have recommended the following settings for feeder leagues:

For High School feeder leagues:

On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 14.
On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 17.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 14.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 14.

This will result in most high school players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 18.

For College feeder leagues:

On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 18.
On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 21.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 18.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 18.

This will result in most college players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 22.

Halara · 06-13-2013, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDevil

Increasing Feeder League Realism
While feeder leagues are intended primarily just as a source of players to be drafted, some people want the feeder leagues to behave as close to real life as possible. Some members of the OOTP community have recommended the following settings for feeder leagues:

For High School feeder leagues:

On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 14.
On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 17.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 14.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 14.

This will result in most high school players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 18.

For College feeder leagues:

On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 18.
On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 21.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 18.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 18.

This will result in most college players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 22.

One thing to remember regarding the ages. When you first create the leagues, you'll want to have the create age min and create age max settings so that they cover the spectrum of ages for each league before filling the leagues with fictional players. Then after filling the leagues with players, change the settings so that they are set to 14 for HS and 18 for college as suggested in the manual. That way each team will have a variety of ages in the first year and all freshman classes in the following years will be at the appropriate age.

ecd1973 · 06-13-2013, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDevil

Out of the Park Baseball Manual

First, decide how many draft rounds you will need in your first-year player draft. The rule of thumb is that you will need five new players for each level of minors to replace players who retire, have long-term injuries, etc. Therefore:

# of rounds in amateur draft = 5 * the # of levels of minor leagues in your game

For example, you have a parent league with AAA, AA, A, and rookie leagues. That's four levels of minors. 4 x 5 = 20 You should configure your parent league to have 20 rounds in the amateur draft.

I never really understood this part. Is it by level, or by actual number of teams? I have 7 Minor League teams (AAA, AA, A, A, S A, S A, R). That is technically 5 "levels" but 7 "teams". Would I use 25 rounds (5 * 5) or 35 rounds (7 * 5)? For a standard MLB setup, what are you all using for feeder team settings / number of draft rounds?

Halara · 06-13-2013, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ecd1973

I never really understood this part. Is it by level, or by actual number of teams? I have 7 Minor League teams (AAA, AA, A, A, S A, S A, R). That is technically 5 "levels" but 7 "teams". Would I use 25 rounds (5 * 5) or 35 rounds (7 * 5)? For a standard MLB setup, what are you all using for feeder team settings / number of draft rounds?

The way I understand the equation it's based on number of teams each major league team has, so if each team in your league has 7 minor league teams you'd go with (7 * 5).

When I did my feeder league in OOTP 12 and it was a fictional league where each major league team had 4 minor league affiliates, AAA, AA, A, R.

I'm looking to put together a feeder league as well, hopefully using the McNutt NCAA template as a starting ground so I'm looking forward to seeing what people are doing these days as well.

Khan · 06-13-2013, 06:51 PM

I know below is the generally accepted rule, but you might want to rethink it depending on how your feeders are setup and how they interact with your major league. I don't know how others have their feeders setup but for me they are usually a short season, only a couple months.

I say this because right now the game creates new players for your feeder leagues when the draft pool players are released to the draft.

So let's say your in your 1st season of your feeder league consisting of a 18-21 years olds. Feeder league season ends and players are released to the draft, while a new batch of 18 year olds are created.

Unfortunately these new 18 year olds are being added to current crop of 18 year olds already in your feeder. This all depends on how long your feeder season is, but for me I only use short season feeders so the initial guys will have only aged 2-3 months before the new guys were created.

Also if you use a short season feeder, your newly created guys will age quite a bit possibly before they even play a game. ie some of the newly created 18 year olds will be 19 by the time they even play.

Just something to think about and why I asked for more control over feeder league creation of players in the "back to work" thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDevil

For College feeder leagues:

On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 18.
On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 21.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 18.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 18.

This will result in most college players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 22.

akw4572 · 06-26-2013, 10:11 PM

OK, I'm trying feeders for the first time ever. I am setting up a 24 team fictional league. 4 levels of minors (AAA, AA, A, R). Someone tell me what I need to do? All this stuff looks Greek to me. I'm thinking from this thread, it looks like a 20 round draft, then (24 X 6) for the number of feeders? Is that right? That would be 144. IF i input this, will it evenly split the teams between HS and Colllege? Or are there settings for that as well? Do you do all college, or all hs? Or split it up? If a hs player isn't drafted, do they go into the college feeder if you have them as well?

Déjà Bru · 06-26-2013, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akw4572

OK, I'm trying feeders for the first time ever. I am setting up a 24 team fictional league. 4 levels of minors (AAA, AA, A, R). Someone tell me what I need to do? All this stuff looks Greek to me. I'm thinking from this thread, it looks like a 20 round draft, then (24 X 6) for the number of feeders? Is that right? That would be 144. IF i input this, will it evenly split the teams between HS and Colllege? Or are there settings for that as well? Do you do all college, or all hs? Or split it up? If a hs player isn't drafted, do they go into the college feeder if you have them as well?

This might help you. It was compiled from a recent thread here:

akw4572 · 06-26-2013, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

This might help you. It was compiled from a recent thread here:

Thanks, I appreciate it. So, from that .txt, it looks like HS players that are not drafted go into the college feeder? How do you guys split up your HS/College numbers? On one hand, it says they act identical, but it doesn't seem so. I can see not doing this incorrectly can really mess w/numbers. You don't want 75 draft eligible HS seniors, and 300 draft eligible college players, or vice versa.

YanksFan · 06-28-2013, 09:38 PM

So as far as the schedule goes when is the best time/month to have the high school and college seasons end?

Zweiblumen · 07-13-2013, 12:05 PM

In _one_ of the leagues I set up, I have seen undrafted HS players enter college, but in no other league I've ever made. I'm not sure what the difference was or why this happened, but I would like to figure that out so it can happen more...

Zweiblumen · 07-13-2013, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akw4572

Thanks, I appreciate it. So, from that .txt, it looks like HS players that are not drafted go into the college feeder? How do you guys split up your HS/College numbers? On one hand, it says they act identical, but it doesn't seem so. I can see not doing this incorrectly can really mess w/numbers. You don't want 75 draft eligible HS seniors, and 300 draft eligible college players, or vice versa.

Actually no, the txt specifically says that this does _not_ happen, though I have seen it in one league I created and do not know why it was able to happen there.

Cinnamon J. Scudworth · 07-13-2013, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zweiblumen

Actually no, the txt specifically says that this does _not_ happen, though I have seen it in one league I created and do not know why it was able to happen there.

Not sure where you read that in the txt, which is mostly language that is duplicated from the feeder league section of the manual. Some undrafted high school players will go to college, some will become free agents. It's mostly random on a player-by-player basis.

In your case, I don't know why it would be happening in one league and not others.

HawkyTom · 03-02-2014, 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khan

I know below is the generally accepted rule, but you might want to rethink it depending on how your feeders are setup and how they interact with your major league. I don't know how others have their feeders setup but for me they are usually a short season, only a couple months.

I say this because right now the game creates new players for your feeder leagues when the draft pool players are released to the draft.

So let's say your in your 1st season of your feeder league consisting of a 18-21 years olds. Feeder league season ends and players are released to the draft, while a new batch of 18 year olds are created.

Unfortunately these new 18 year olds are being added to current crop of 18 year olds already in your feeder. This all depends on how long your feeder season is, but for me I only use short season feeders so the initial guys will have only aged 2-3 months before the new guys were created.

Also if you use a short season feeder, your newly created guys will age quite a bit possibly before they even play a game. ie some of the newly created 18 year olds will be 19 by the time they even play.

Just something to think about and why I asked for more control over feeder league creation of players in the "back to work" thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDevil

For College feeder leagues:

On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 18.
On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 21.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 18.
On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 18.

This will result in most college players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 22.

Sorry to necro an old thread, but I've been trying hard the past couple days to figure out and create the best possible consistent/stable feeder league for my team and have been running into issues.

Mainly having some wild ranging sizes of draft pool sizes from year to year. Reading this post was very insightful and I never really considered/challenged the section he quoted, but what he mentioned seems to be spot on to what might be causing my issues.

Now I need to just figure out how to apply his thoughts into making the feeder system work better!! My first thoughts are having a nearly full season worth of college/hs (even though unrealistic, to avoid the 18yo's only aging 3months)...I'm hoping this helps keep the size of the draft classes from getting larger than expected. Possibly having to hold the draft in the offseason and just run the feeder leagues concurrently with the MLB/minors. (making college/hs almost like just another Minors, but below rookie ball and ending with a draft)

Although it would also help if I could keep the roster sizes under control.

Honorable_Pawn · 03-02-2014, 10:32 AM

Let's see what 15 has to offer in this matter.

06-06-2013, 02:16 PM	#1
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 12,988 Blog Entries: 37	Attempting to take the Feeder plunge (again) My problem is I am veery OCD, and really want a well working NCAA and High School feeder system to work with. I would like to use Nutt's NCAA Feeder template, but obviously it's big, and PCM's would need adjusting...I don't know what numbers would make it look good. I would also like 30% of my drafted players coming from high school, so that means I will need to add about 90 high school teams. Again I don't know what PCMs to use. Is what I am trying to do just utterly ridiculous? Does anybody have any good suggestions for how I can can feeders up and running? Does anyone have any good feeder templates to share? Honestly I have tried to get into feeders before ( and really would like to) but I always scrap it because it just seems so half assed. It's my OCD I'm sure, but that's just the way it is for me.

06-07-2013, 11:05 AM	#2
Déjà Bru Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: United States Posts: 10,456	Heh, all of us have a tinge of OCD or else we would not be here! My very general suggestion would be to look at the PCM's for your rookie league (or your lowest minor league, assuming you have minor leagues; if you don't, start a test league with full minors and observe PCM's there). Then notice the drop-off of this lowest league from the one above it. Work out what the feeder league would be if the same drop-off occurred down to this level. As with anything else of this nature, the best thing to do is to run quick test sims of several seasons or more to see if the results match your expectations. Tweak as necessary and test some more. Only when you are satisfied would you apply the final feeder PCM's to your ongoing game. __________________ - Bru Last edited by Déjà Bru; 06-07-2013 at 11:07 AM.

06-08-2013, 10:02 AM	#3
Cinnamon J. Scudworth All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 1,119	My suggestion is to load a new, fictional test league with feeders. See what the default PCMs are there. Use those. __________________ "Sometimes, this is like going to a grocery store. You’ve got a list until you get to the check-out stand. And then you start reading People magazine, and all this other [stuff] ends up in the basket." -Sandy Alderson on the MLB offseason

06-26-2013, 10:11 PM	#12
akw4572 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Kentucky Posts: 2,601	OK, I'm trying feeders for the first time ever. I am setting up a 24 team fictional league. 4 levels of minors (AAA, AA, A, R). Someone tell me what I need to do? All this stuff looks Greek to me. I'm thinking from this thread, it looks like a 20 round draft, then (24 X 6) for the number of feeders? Is that right? That would be 144. IF i input this, will it evenly split the teams between HS and Colllege? Or are there settings for that as well? Do you do all college, or all hs? Or split it up? If a hs player isn't drafted, do they go into the college feeder if you have them as well? Last edited by akw4572; 06-26-2013 at 10:12 PM.

03-02-2014, 10:32 AM	#20
Honorable_Pawn Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Tampa Bay Posts: 6,407	Let's see what 15 has to offer in this matter. __________________ PBA Quickstart for OOTP Background Images Collection All PBA games broadcast live on Steam. Last edited by Honorable_Pawn; 03-02-2014 at 10:33 AM.

06-08-2013, 11:43 AM	#4
Biggio509 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2,027	It has been a long while since I used feeders. However, in the past the PCMs haven't been the problem. The problem is too many feeders give to too much talent. What you would need to do is alter the distribution in terms the percent of each level of talent. Lowering PCMs just means all players will be weaker. In the end this is somewhat cosmetic. Even if you have a bunch of top rated guys, the league modifiers will keep the league at a normal stat level. What happens is players become more equal in ratings in your league not everyone is hitting 70 HRs a season and batting .400. If you lower the PCMs you still will be flooded with the top talent for that PCM because of all the feeders. Instead everyone has slightly above average or average ratings instead of being scouted as stars. I don't think there is a way to lower the percentiles of top players, eg. only .5% of players will achieve the highest ratings per you PCMs instead of say 2%. What you would want is to make more players come out lower on the scale. Essentially skew the distribution. Make the low end tail fatter, shift the middle of the "bell" curve left and make the high end tail lower.

06-12-2013, 09:11 PM	#6
Andriko Minors (Single A) Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: London, UK Posts: 50	There is a rule of thumb i saw somewhere that explains how many feeder teams you need to fdill the league based on how many minor league teams you have. I can't remember what the ruleof thumb is. However, it worked fine for me with no modifiers adjusted, produced the right kind of drafts, ie, a handful of top talent then sharp drop off after first few rounds. Hopefully someone remembers this damn rule of thumb though.

06-13-2013, 12:45 PM	#7
SunDevil Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 373	Out of the Park Baseball Manual How Many Feeder Leagues Should I Create? The number of feeder leagues you create is completely up to you. However, most people who use feeder leagues prefer to set them up in such a way such that your parent league's first-year player draft will be completely populated with feeder league players. Because there are so many ways to configure your game, there isn't an easy formula for precisely how many feeder leagues you must create to accomplish this. However, here are some guidelines on how to decide about feeder leagues: First, decide how many draft rounds you will need in your first-year player draft. The rule of thumb is that you will need five new players for each level of minors to replace players who retire, have long-term injuries, etc. Therefore: *# of rounds in amateur draft = 5 the # of levels of minor leagues in your game For example, you have a parent league with AAA, AA, A, and rookie leagues. That's four levels of minors. 4 x 5 = 20 You should configure your parent league to have 20 rounds in the amateur draft. Next, decide on the number of feeder teams you will need to populate this draft. Each feeder team produces 6 to 9 players for the draft per year. Taking the number of players needed for the draft and dividing by 6 gives you the minimum number of feeders you need. The guideline here is: # of feeder teams needed = (number of teams in parent league x number of draft rounds)/6** So, using the example from above, let's say your parent league has 16 teams. (16 x 20)/6 = 53.3 I need around 53 feeder league teams to completely feed my draft with feeder league players. The configuration of teams in your feeder leagues does not matter, as long as you have 53 teams or so. Many people increase this number, resulting in more players than there are draft slots. Players that go undrafted will become free agents. If you create a configuration that doesn't generate enough feeder league players, OOTP will generate fictional players for the draft pool to cover the difference. Increasing Feeder League Realism While feeder leagues are intended primarily just as a source of players to be drafted, some people want the feeder leagues to behave as close to real life as possible. Some members of the OOTP community have recommended the following settings for feeder leagues: For High School feeder leagues: On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 14. On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 17. On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 14. On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 14. This will result in most high school players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 18. For College feeder leagues: On the Rules screen, set the Age Minimum to 18. On the Rules screen, set the Age Maximum to 21. On the Options screen, set the Create Age Min. to 18. On the Options screen, set the Create Age Max. to 18. This will result in most college players playing for four years and entering the draft at age 22.

06-28-2013, 09:38 PM	#15
YanksFan Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 110	So as far as the schedule goes when is the best time/month to have the high school and college seasons end?

07-13-2013, 12:05 PM	#16
Zweiblumen Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 326	In _one_ of the leagues I set up, I have seen undrafted HS players enter college, but in no other league I've ever made. I'm not sure what the difference was or why this happened, but I would like to figure that out so it can happen more...