What the heck?!? Is historical minors even playable?

[thehef]

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

had a free couple of hours this evening, created a new Test League and loaded your CSV file (used 1922 thru 1925).... seems about half the teams loaded with minors and half didn't - even though in the csv file they all had associations.

Not sure what you mean by loaded with minors. Did every MLB team have an affiliate, but only some of the minor-league teams had players? Not sure if this speaks directly to what you experienced, but I have no idea how this experiment affects first-year player imports. For example, the 1922 Sacramento Solons were unaffiliated. In a non-test league, first-year players that were on the Solons in real life would import to Sacramento. In the test, 1922 Sacramento is affiliated with Brooklyn. I don't know if the 1922 Solons players will a) import to Sacramento, b) import to the Brooklyn organization, c) import as free agents, or d) not import at all. Spritze or some other tinkerer may know, but the best way might be to run a control test - using original files - and document the 1922 Solons players. Then run the test with the tinkered-with csv's and see where those same players end up.

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

Tinkered with the default file (did save the original under new name) ... and pretty much the same thing ..... however, when i went to the Teams/affiliation settings in the game and added a team to the PLC or Texas League

By adding minor-league teams you might've "broken" the connection for OOTP to use historical minors. Not sure though.

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

But when i saved the data and quit the game, nothing changed in the CSV file (maybe it doesn't save there ????,)

Nope, any changes you make - such as adding minor-league teams or leagues or changing/adding affiliations - wouldn't show up in the csv file. OOTP pulls data from the csv files, but doesn't push data to them. AFAIK.

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

so i don't know how long the associations would work. i moved ahead into 1925 and the ones i changed in game were still active. Hmmmmm......

These affiliations that you setup within OOTP - rather than OOTP having read them from the csv file - would remain in place until you change them. Pretty sure, anyway.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Spritze

Getting back to the "where did they go" question IRL the Pirates loaned out 22 players (those who eventually made the majors with them) in 1931. They all played with Independent teams that year. 13 different ones. Since those players came back to the Pirates I have to assume they were funded by the Pirates even though they played elsewhere.

Either that, or they were sold to various minor leagues clubs with the proviso that the Pirates had first rights to buying them back.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by thehef

Not sure what you mean by loaded with minors. Did every MLB team have an affiliate, but only some of the minor-league teams had players? ...............
Nope, any changes you make - such as adding minor-league teams or leagues or changing/adding affiliations - wouldn't show up in the csv file. OOTP pulls data from the csv files, but doesn't push data to them. AFAIK.

These affiliations that you setup within OOTP - rather than OOTP having read them from the csv file - would remain in place until you change them. Pretty sure, anyway.

sorry. wasn't clear. No minors loaded i meant not every team had an affiliate. It seems the ones that didn't load were PCL, but i can't be 100% the Texas League loaded fine. i deleted that league and tried a couple other things that didn't seem to work. Since those were also test leagues, i deleted them when i ran out of time.

by adding a team to Texas League, i meant added an affiliate, not another team. Was getting late and WOW, i wasn't very clear, obviously. Sorry.

thanks for the clarification on csv ... i reread Spritze note after seeing your response here and realized i was totally wrong in thinking it could rewrite csv.

And good to know if i set up an affiliate in OOTP game itself, they remain there (probably). That helps clear up a bit of the fog between my ears. Appreciate your help. Still need to do more tinkering before i go into changing too many settings in my current game, which hasn't reached 1919 quite yet.

Again, thanks.

[David Watts]

In the OP's example he states he ran the Pirates until 1930 and everything was fine until the Pirates dropped their affiliation with I'm guessing Wichita and he lost all the players he had playing at that level in the process.

What exactly is the reasoning behind the players getting released? I.m guessing since the OP started his sim in 1919, the Wichita roster had quite a few players on it that weren't on it in real life. Players I'm guessing that weren't ever Pirates. Some in fact that maybe never even played in the National League. So why in the name of affiliation movement/dropping does he lose all his players?.....remember OOTP is a career sim....in fact, being a career sim is exactly what separates it from all others. Also remember that OOTP doesn't offer real transactions when using historical minors. So, once a league is created and the user starts hitting the space bar, other than the incredible accuracy of the stat output, OOTP becomes a world of its own. With this in mind, why in the name of reality should we have to lose or loan players out? Just put these players on the reserve roster. Or create a generic low level minor league that operates through out history as a buffer for non affiliation that players can be transferred to when needed.

I was so excited when I heard about historical minors being added to the game. In the end, I probably would have enjoyed it more if Spritze's high school database was added instead

Another question, in regards to this. When the Negro Leagues get added, will we be able to disband the league altogether and allow the player to be drafted by the MLB, or will reality force us to adhere to realities mistake?

Also please free the beast! Allow those of us that don't want the constraint of the actual historical minors shell, to use the minor league player database with generic OOTP created minor leagues. Allow us to start a league in say 1912 and play forward with the minor league player database kicking in 1919, but without any rewriting of the player stats lines. If Junior Bridgewater gets drafted by the Braves in 1913, but never plays a game for them in OOTP land and later reimports as stud minor league player, please don't overwrite his stat line with reality stats making it look like he played for the Braves, when he actually didn't in OOTP land. Allow us to start a league in 1921 erase all history and play forward using the minor league player database.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by David Watts

..... I was so excited when I heard about historical minors being added to the game. In the end, I probably would have enjoyed it more if Spritze's high school database was added instead

Another question, in regards to this. When the Negro Leagues get added, will we be able to disband the league altogether and allow the player to be drafted by the MLB, or will reality force us to adhere to realities mistake?

Also please free the beast! Allow those of us that don't want the constraint of the actual historical minors shell, to use the minor league player database with generic OOTP created minor leagues......

i agree. i hear they are working on making minors better, so i guess all we can do is wait and see exactly what transpires. i was just looking for a work around until 18 comes out.

[jpeters1734]

well put. I'm fine with losing my affiliation. but I should have had some control over my players, just as the Pirates did way back when.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

i agree. i hear they are working on making minors better, so i guess all we can do is wait and see exactly what transpires.

Actively looking for ideas to make the minor leagues more fun. There is a thread in Suggestions that has a few but I don't see that those raise the fun quotient very much. They just lower the annoyance quotient. Maybe that is enough?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by David Watts

In the OP's example he states he ran the Pirates until 1930 and everything was fine until the Pirates dropped their affiliation with I'm guessing Wichita and he lost all the players he had playing at that level in the process.

This makes historical minors unplayable for me. I can think of a few ways to easily fix this. David's ideas for an extra (fictional?) minor league level or (better IMO) reserve roster that will hold players in an organization when affiliates change is a great solution. This "reserve roster" could just be the designated for assignment list, thus prompting the player to assign the orphaned players or order the AI to do it. Players assigned to an independent team should still be "owned" by their historical parent organization.

I also agree that the historical minors database should be open to import players to their correct organizations or for a draft/free agent pool, if it can be done without creating duplicate players and still using the correct data for recalculating ratings each year using real stats.

The important thing here is to make the game fun. Historically correct AND fun is even better, but we have compromises in a lot of areas. This could be another. As David points out, historically correct goes out the window as soon as the AI trades Joe DiMaggio to the Red Sox.

[David Watts]

Think about stuff like this. If access was given to use the minor league players database without the historical teams/leagues, we could do things like create fictional leagues(using real players) that differ completely from reality. You could start a league in 1930 that resembles MLB in the 70's. Start in 1947 with a modern day setup and still have players available for minor leagues. Sure the level of talent would be bizarre, but hey "what if' is the best part of playing historical.

Another thing that would be incredible is if we could use the minor league player database completely separate from the MLB database. For example, 1921, I could start a fictional league using players from the Texas League and Pacific Coast leagues.

What about random debut using minor league players?

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by Orcin

(better IMO) reserve roster that will hold players in an organization when affiliates change is a great solution. This "reserve roster" could just be the designated for assignment list, thus prompting the player to assign the orphaned players or order the AI to do it. Players assigned to an independent team should still be "owned" by their historical parent organization.This is supposed to already work like this, any mlb team without milb teams is supposed to have an unlimited reserve roster.

I also agree that the historical minors database should be open to import players to their correct organizations or for a draft/free agent pool, if it can be done without creating duplicate players and still using the correct data for recalculating ratings each year using real stats. This is already supposed to work like this.

The important thing here is to make the game fun. Historically correct AND fun is even better, but we have compromises in a lot of areas. This could be another.

If the things above do not work properly perhaps they might be fixed in ootp 18 beta? For ootp 17 the milb beta team consisted of nobody at all, maybe this year it will have at least one member?

[Le Grande Orange]

The problem here is that OOTP essentially operates under the modern-day concept of the minor leagues at its heart, and that modern-day arrangement is quite at odds with how the minors operated at various times earlier in its history—it is difficult to fit the present into the past satisfactorily.

So, it comes down to what sort of compromises do OOTP users want to try and get around this?

There are undoubtedly a variety of answers to that question.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Spritze

Actively looking for ideas to make the minor leagues more fun. There is a thread in Suggestions that has a few but I don't see that those raise the fun quotient very much. They just lower the annoyance quotient. Maybe that is enough?

To each his own, but I think the suggestion here - http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...et-better.html - which would enable gamers to go full-historical, would go a long way to making historical minors more fun As it is right now, the only things historical about historical minors is that the structure is historically accurate (to the degree that affiliated leagues & teams are included), and some historical minors players are included. So you can have the structure of historical, but a) can only use that structure in a very limited setup, b) cannot use that structure with fictionals, and c) cannot have historical player movement.

Additional options & functionality, like - for example - the ability to access all of those players who may have spent the bulk of their careers in/with independent leagues/teams, the ability to add teams & leagues to the csv files without having to somehow come up with league & team calculations with definitions that are nebulous at best - that would be awesome. Much more fun!!

That said, historical minors in OOTP is in its infancy. I recall several versions ago that forum chatter about shortcomings in historical majors, workarounds, suggestions, etc., was quite common. Now, OOTP is so far advanced in this area that most posts in the historical sub-forum are dynasty-oriented. There simply isn't much to complain about anymore! So I'm sure historical minors in OOTP will get there.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Spritze

If the things above do not work properly...

According to the OP and the post by David Watts earlier in this thread, they do not work properly.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Orcin

According to the OP and the post by David Watts earlier in this thread, they do not work properly.

The teams that don't have affiliations do have reserve rosters. The problem comes when a team that has an affiliate drops that affiliate. In this case, the game releases all those players. So, in the case of the OP, the Pirates had 35 players on the Wichita roster, they would lose all those players It's my opinion that those players should simply transfer to the Pirates reserve roster.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by David Watts

It's my opinion that those players should simply transfer to the Pirates reserve roster.

This what is supposed to happen by design. Since it does not it is a bug.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Spritze

This what is supposed to happen by design. Since it does not it is a bug.

Been thinking about this. I wonder if the problem is that when a team has an affiliate, they don't have a reserve roster. Kind of a chicken and the egg type deal. The team has an affiliate, so no reserve roster. The reserve roster isn't available until they lose the affiliate. So if the affiliate loss takes place, there's no place for the players to go, because the team doesn't have a reserve roster until the affiliate is dissolved.
All my life's a circle sunrise and sundown

I just simmed past the 1933 season. In 1933 the Pirates had the Tulsa Oilers as their only affiliate. Following 1933 they dropped Tulsa and added Little Rock, McKeesport and Springfield. Now as far as I could tell, the players on Tulsa remained in the Pirates system.

[Le Grande Orange]

To follow-up on the comments about how the minor league system operated in earlier times I made back in post #28, here's a couple of items I found some years back in the 8th edition of Total Baseball.

[In the early 20th century]

Working agreements became quite common during this period. The major league club furnished the minor league club with its surplus players—youngsters in need of more experience or veterans past their prime who could still strengthen a minor league club—and/or cash. In return the major league club could obtain promising players from the minor league club.

During this era, working agreements between major and minor league clubs were usually of short duration—a year or two at most—suggesting that major league clubs targeted certain minor league clubs that had two or three players they might be interested in, and established a working agreement in order to get first claim on those players which developed satisfactorily.

Note that these early 20th century major-minor arrangements (along with similar ones in the 19th century) are not considered part of the "affiliated" minor league club era, even though the function was in some ways comparable. Thus you usually won't find these sorts of de facto affiliations between the major and minor league club listed in reference sources (though I would argue perhaps they should).

Early in 1929, major league clubs owned or controlled 27 minor league clubs.

During the 1920s, when the St. Louis Cardinals were discovering, signing, and developing players at little expense, the other major league clubs were essentially operating as they always had—signing some players out of the amateur ranks, optioning them out for seasoning; and buying top prospects from minor league clubs, even though the new draft rules were driving the prices of such players to unprecedented levels.

[sprague]

Actually i way prefer the spritze db.
First am free to any set up i want.

More importantly players have full careers.
Take joe Baumann for example. He is in HiST minors db. But only some years in 1940's when he was in Braves system. In the 1950's he did his famous damage in a non affiliate league so his famed years don,t appear in hist minors, but all his years are there in sptz db.
That fact along for me seals my user choice.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by Spritze

If the things above do not work properly perhaps they might be fixed in ootp 18 beta? For ootp 17 the milb beta team consisted of nobody at all, maybe this year it will have at least one member?

no one for the debut year? that's incredible! what's it take to be a beta tester, as far as computer knowledge, knowledge of what one knows about the game and what interactions affect others and personal time needed?

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

no one for the debut year? that's incredible! IMO it is a less than optimal allocation of beta resources for sure.what's it take to be a beta tester, as far as computer knowledge, knowledge of what one knows about the game and what interactions affect others and personal time needed?

Contact LukasBerger to apply?