Correct Minor League levels

mankle · 03-03-2013, 06:27 PM

I'm sure someone's written this before, but I'd love to see something in the UI indicate that some A-ball levels and Rookie ball levels are higher than others.

The Florida State League, California League, and Carolina League are all considered "Advanced" or "High" A ball leagues, while the South Atlantic League and Midwest League are considered "Low" A leagues. The major league teams treat them accordingly with their prospects.

The same is true for the "Advanced" Rookie ball leagues - Appalachian and Pioneer, while the complex leagues - Arizona Rookie League and Gulf Coast League are the lowest rookie leagues.

Basically, I know that these differences are reflected in-game, but I think they need to be more obvious, and promoting a player from Low to High A (or rookie) should affect morale in the same way that a promotion for AA to AAA has.

Questdog · 03-03-2013, 06:44 PM

These differences are NOT reflected in the game and as far as I can fathom, will not be for OOTP14, either......

mankle · 03-03-2013, 06:54 PM

well that's a shame.

From experience in online leagues, if everyone treats them this way, the talent will shake out so that they function realistically.

But the fact is that it would be nice for those of us playing ML games to have the minor leagues displayed and have the AI treat them as realistically as possible. After all, the effort is made to include all the players and their stats...

olivertheorem · 03-03-2013, 07:40 PM

Since the Advanced A/Rookie leagues have slightly higher PCMs than the normal A/Rookie leagues, the game treats them as being for players of varying quality (at least, that was Markus' word on the subject). Given that implementation, having the game specify them in the UI as High/Low would be difficult at best.

Questdog · 03-03-2013, 07:51 PM

PCMs in an affiliated minor league only matter when you first create a universe. And they only matter then, if you are not running an initial draft. After that, there are only 5 levels of minors (R, SA, A, AA, AAA) and the AI will treat all leagues at a level identically.

Craig Scarborough · 03-03-2013, 08:34 PM

Wow - I had no idea this was the case. When running my franchise I would make it a point to promote low-A to high-A thinking in doing so it made a difference.

Not what I expected, but thanks for posting this.

Biggio509 · 03-05-2013, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

These differences are NOT reflected in the game and as far as I can fathom, will not be for OOTP14, either......

They have been for quite a while. You just don't see it in an obvious way. Markus has been resistant to adding new labels. How ever the sabrmetric player creation modifiers are different for advanced A and advanced rookie leagues. This means more ready players should and often placed in adv A or advanced rookie. That being said I think the engine still shuffles players a lot like it always has but the parameters that determine if a league is more advanced than another have been different for the high A clubs and advanced rookie for at least 2 versions.

Biggio509 · 03-05-2013, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

PCMs in an affiliated minor league only matter when you first create a universe. And they only matter then, if you are not running an initial draft. After that, there are only 5 levels of minors (R, SA, A, AA, AAA) and the AI will treat all leagues at a level identically.

Yes PCM do but not the sabr PCMs these determine the level of the league. AAA has the highest sabr numbers while rookie has the lowest these numbers are used in the promotion/demotion strategy. Granted that is still a mystery to me and the game does an awful lot of shuffling. To me this is still the weakest part of the code. The movement of minor league players never makes sense to me. For the most part the SABRs will determine where a player ends up. Try adjusting them. Put your rookie sabr numbers above AAA and you will find suddenly the most ready minor league players end up in rookie ball.

The labels mean absolutely nothing. It is the SABRs that determine the level of a league. That being said by defualt the SABRs change when click AAA for instance. So if you do say a fictional league with defualt settings then you will notice the SABRs are higher for the California league compared to the SAL. If you manually set up your league then both will have the same. When you create A ball manually it defaults to low A SABRs. If you choose the major league structure then it does differentiate high and low.

Biggio509 · 03-05-2013, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Scarborough

Wow - I had no idea this was the case. When running my franchise I would make it a point to promote low-A to high-A thinking in doing so it made a difference.

Not what I expected, but thanks for posting this.

It should be I am not sure the difference is what you expect it to be. The AI still has weird allocations in my opinion. For instance, the AI does some weird things you can't do in real life like move aging minor league players or former major league players to rookie ball because their ratings are of newly drafted guys level. This is partly because the rules do not reflect the real rules, a player with too much professional baseball experience can't play in the rookie and SA leagues in RL. OOTP does have this limit.

I also think the AI is not nearly enough aggressive in cutting dead wood that will never make it to the majors. It sometimes prefers a 30 y/o washout over a guy that doesn't project but is young. Your scout may be wrong about the 21 y/o that doesn't look like much or random talent change could make him serviceable. At 30 a random talent bump is unlikely to change his development and your scout is likely dead on by that point.

Craig Scarborough · 03-05-2013, 12:01 PM

FWIW, I was thinking more from a human perspective. Meaning: my prospect is tearing up low-A ball, let's see how he does in high-A. If what you all are telling me is true - then the move from low-A to high-A doesn't tell me anything. I basically just plopped him on an alternate, all-encompassing "A" team.

Is that correct?

-Craig

olivertheorem · 03-05-2013, 08:19 PM

In theory, the move from low to high-A should matter. Whether it does in practice is probably up for debate.

PSUColonel · 03-05-2013, 11:46 PM

I know in my own promotion/demotion transactions, I treat it in such a way that it matters, however I have realized the AI may not. If not, it really should.

Questdog · 03-06-2013, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biggio509

Yes PCM do but not the sabr PCMs these determine the level of the league. AAA has the highest sabr numbers while rookie has the lowest these numbers are used in the promotion/demotion strategy. Granted that is still a mystery to me and the game does an awful lot of shuffling. To me this is still the weakest part of the code. The movement of minor league players never makes sense to me. For the most part the SABRs will determine where a player ends up. Try adjusting them. Put your rookie sabr numbers above AAA and you will find suddenly the most ready minor league players end up in rookie ball.

The labels mean absolutely nothing. It is the SABRs that determine the level of a league. That being said by defualt the SABRs change when click AAA for instance. So if you do say a fictional league with defualt settings then you will notice the SABRs are higher for the California league compared to the SAL. If you manually set up your league then both will have the same. When you create A ball manually it defaults to low A SABRs. If you choose the major league structure then it does differentiate high and low.

This is just plain bad info. The labels mean everything and the PCMs mean nothing, unless you hit the fill the teams with fictional players button. Which, if pressed on a Rookie league with AAA-level PCMs, will fill the team with AAA ready players (which the AI will then proceed to promote to AAA).

P.S. I double checked this via experiment, just to make sure. I created a fictional league and then swapped the PCMs of the AAA league and the A league. After simming half the season and checking, the AAA clubs held all the highest rated (current) players.......

Questdog · 03-06-2013, 02:04 AM

P.S. I then simmed to the next year and created a new AAA league with the default PCMs and set the other AAA to very low PCMs (.600). So each team had 2 AAA clubs, one with high PCMs and one with low. I then simmed a few months and checked to see if the current ratings of the players were higher in the league with the higher PCMs......they were not. And as is the case in any setup where the AI has two teams at the same level, most every player played a significant time at each AAA stop....

What I do to better represent the current minor league setup is to treat the SA level as Low A. Give them a full season schedule. Then the A level teams become the High A. Real-life SA leagues then become rookie leagues, though I never let an AI team have more than one team at any level (So some SA and/or Rookie leagues disappear).

BIG17EASY · 03-06-2013, 02:14 PM

When you go to the transactions menu on a player's page, it will say "Send To ..." rather than "Promote To ..." or "Demote To ..." for teams in the same classification. This suggests OOTP treats all A-level teams and all rookie-level teams the same. Yet I've seen players have morale changes when moving between rookie league or A-level teams, which suggests that the morale system, at the very least, treats those teams differently.

Also, I just hit July 1, 2018 in the world I'm running right now and I got about 8-10 suggestions from the AI for players who deserve to be promoted (not the arrows on transactions page, but the list that shows up on your manager home screen). Anyway, a few of these guys were on the Savannah Sand Gnats, a Low A team in real life. So I moved them to St. Lucie, a High A team in real life. (I try to be as realistic as possible with minor league transactions.) Then I went back to the manager home screen and one of the pitchers I moved to St. Lucie was still listed as deserving to be promoted, while the other players I moved to St. Lucie (a closer and two position guys) were no longer on that list.

If OOTP is treating all A-level teams alike, shouldn't all four players have remained on this list?

Questdog · 03-06-2013, 02:36 PM

The morale thing could have to do with the geography concerned; players like to be closer to home by and large. Or if the team they were on was winning and the team they have been sent to is losing, that would affect morale.....

As far as the promotion advice, I challenge you to show some consistency in that behavior when we are not talking about teams at the same level. If it was consistent, otherwise, then your observation would have some merit, but since there seems to be little anyway, I don't think it means anything. And also, the AI rates players in relative terms according to the league they are in. If a shortstop from a league weak in shortstops is sent to a league laden with good shortstops, the AI will view him in a different light. So if he's the best shortstop in the Midwest League, he could be flagged for promotion. Then, if you send him to the California League, which, though still an A league, he only rates as the 5th or 6th best shortstop, he could be unflagged for promotion....this is speculation, however....

All I know for a fact is that the AI teams do NOT promote and demote with any regard for the difference between two teams at the same level and that teams at different levels are treated according to their label and NOT any PCM settings......

Le Grande Orange · 03-06-2013, 02:42 PM

The problem is that OOTP is hard-coded for only five distinct minor league classification levels. So while you can to a degree make a sixth (or more) by altering the qualities of the league, it is at best an imperfect workaround.

So this problem will most likely persist until such time as OOTP undergoes another core engine rewrite (assuming it does someday).

BIG17EASY · 03-06-2013, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

The morale thing could have to do with the geography concerned; players like to be closer to home by and large. Or if the team they were on was winning and the team they have been sent to is losing, that would affect morale.....

As far as the promotion advice, I challenge you to show some consistency in that behavior when we are not talking about teams at the same level. If it was consistent, otherwise, then your observation would have some merit, but since there seems to be little anyway, I don't think it means anything. And also, the AI rates players in relative terms according to the league they are in. If a shortstop from a league weak in shortstops is sent to a league laden with good shortstops, the AI will view him in a different light. So if he's the best shortstop in the Midwest League, he could be flagged for promotion. Then, if you send him to the California League, which, though still an A league, he only rates as the 5th or 6th best shortstop, he could be unflagged for promotion....this is speculation, however....

All I know for a fact is that the AI teams do NOT promote and demote with any regard for the difference between two teams at the same level and that teams at different levels are treated according to their label and NOT any PCM settings......

I wasn't replying to you or reacting to your posts in my previous post. You have a good point about the morale situation, although in my case, a move from Savannah, Ga. to Port St. Lucie, Fla. would only bring a very small percentage of players closer to home.

As for the promotion thing, I wasn't making an argument one way or the other. I was simply posting my experience and my conclusion that if all teams at the same level are treated equally, then moving a player from one Class A team to another shouldn't satisfy the promotion suggestion from the AI.

However, if what you say about the AI rating players in terms of relativity is correct, then I'd argue that determining readiness for promotion should not be based on that logic. It shouldn't matter if a guy is the best or fifth-best shortstop in his current league. He's either ready to move up or he's not, regardless of how good or bad the rest of the players are at his position.

Biggio509 · 03-06-2013, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

This is just plain bad info. The labels mean everything and the PCMs mean nothing, unless you hit the fill the teams with fictional players button. Which, if pressed on a Rookie league with AAA-level PCMs, will fill the team with AAA ready players (which the AI will then proceed to promote to AAA).

P.S. I double checked this via experiment, just to make sure. I created a fictional league and then swapped the PCMs of the AAA league and the A league. After simming half the season and checking, the AAA clubs held all the highest rated (current) players.......

It isn't bad info at all. It came from the designer years ago and has been tested. This debate has been had several times over the years and each time Markus has said the labels are cosmetic the SABRs matter. Look at default set-up the California league has sabr something like .5 higher. edit: A quick test explained later that both labels and PCMs affect placement. Markus did say and test confirmed you can create a high A and low A by adjusting the SABRs. However, you do not have to use the label A for both. If you call one AA it treats it as a level beyond A regardless of sabrs. That is to say high A could not be called AA but with the same sabrs and it SHOULD work just like it is now. You could not call it short A though or it would always be below A regardless of sabrs. You maybe could also call low A a SA league with higher SABRs than the SA standard and still have it as low A ball. I say maybe and should because labels matter and a different label could change promotion strategy.

Biggio509 · 03-06-2013, 03:50 PM

NM. Two other post explain better.

03-03-2013, 06:27 PM	#1
mankle Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 122	Correct Minor League levels I'm sure someone's written this before, but I'd love to see something in the UI indicate that some A-ball levels and Rookie ball levels are higher than others. The Florida State League, California League, and Carolina League are all considered "Advanced" or "High" A ball leagues, while the South Atlantic League and Midwest League are considered "Low" A leagues. The major league teams treat them accordingly with their prospects. The same is true for the "Advanced" Rookie ball leagues - Appalachian and Pioneer, while the complex leagues - Arizona Rookie League and Gulf Coast League are the lowest rookie leagues. Basically, I know that these differences are reflected in-game, but I think they need to be more obvious, and promoting a player from Low to High A (or rookie) should affect morale in the same way that a promotion for AA to AAA has. __________________ ASBA - Commissioner, GM California Angels

03-03-2013, 06:54 PM	#3
mankle Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 122	well that's a shame. From experience in online leagues, if everyone treats them this way, the talent will shake out so that they function realistically. But the fact is that it would be nice for those of us playing ML games to have the minor leagues displayed and have the AI treat them as realistically as possible. After all, the effort is made to include all the players and their stats... __________________ ASBA - Commissioner, GM California Angels

03-06-2013, 02:04 AM	#14
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	P.S. I then simmed to the next year and created a new AAA league with the default PCMs and set the other AAA to very low PCMs (.600). So each team had 2 AAA clubs, one with high PCMs and one with low. I then simmed a few months and checked to see if the current ratings of the players were higher in the league with the higher PCMs......they were not. And as is the case in any setup where the AI has two teams at the same level, most every player played a significant time at each AAA stop.... What I do to better represent the current minor league setup is to treat the SA level as Low A. Give them a full season schedule. Then the A level teams become the High A. Real-life SA leagues then become rookie leagues, though I never let an AI team have more than one team at any level (So some SA and/or Rookie leagues disappear). Last edited by Questdog; 03-06-2013 at 02:06 AM.

03-06-2013, 02:14 PM	#15
BIG17EASY Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 3,291	When you go to the transactions menu on a player's page, it will say "Send To ..." rather than "Promote To ..." or "Demote To ..." for teams in the same classification. This suggests OOTP treats all A-level teams and all rookie-level teams the same. Yet I've seen players have morale changes when moving between rookie league or A-level teams, which suggests that the morale system, at the very least, treats those teams differently. Also, I just hit July 1, 2018 in the world I'm running right now and I got about 8-10 suggestions from the AI for players who deserve to be promoted (not the arrows on transactions page, but the list that shows up on your manager home screen). Anyway, a few of these guys were on the Savannah Sand Gnats, a Low A team in real life. So I moved them to St. Lucie, a High A team in real life. (I try to be as realistic as possible with minor league transactions.) Then I went back to the manager home screen and one of the pitchers I moved to St. Lucie was still listed as deserving to be promoted, while the other players I moved to St. Lucie (a closer and two position guys) were no longer on that list. If OOTP is treating all A-level teams alike, shouldn't all four players have remained on this list? Last edited by BIG17EASY; 03-06-2013 at 02:17 PM.

03-06-2013, 02:36 PM	#16
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	The morale thing could have to do with the geography concerned; players like to be closer to home by and large. Or if the team they were on was winning and the team they have been sent to is losing, that would affect morale..... As far as the promotion advice, I challenge you to show some consistency in that behavior when we are not talking about teams at the same level. If it was consistent, otherwise, then your observation would have some merit, but since there seems to be little anyway, I don't think it means anything. And also, the AI rates players in relative terms according to the league they are in. If a shortstop from a league weak in shortstops is sent to a league laden with good shortstops, the AI will view him in a different light. So if he's the best shortstop in the Midwest League, he could be flagged for promotion. Then, if you send him to the California League, which, though still an A league, he only rates as the 5th or 6th best shortstop, he could be unflagged for promotion....this is speculation, however.... All I know for a fact is that the AI teams do NOT promote and demote with any regard for the difference between two teams at the same level and that teams at different levels are treated according to their label and NOT any PCM settings...... Last edited by Questdog; 03-06-2013 at 02:42 PM.

03-03-2013, 06:44 PM	#2
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	These differences are NOT reflected in the game and as far as I can fathom, will not be for OOTP14, either......

03-03-2013, 07:40 PM	#4
olivertheorem All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 1,919	Since the Advanced A/Rookie leagues have slightly higher PCMs than the normal A/Rookie leagues, the game treats them as being for players of varying quality (at least, that was Markus' word on the subject). Given that implementation, having the game specify them in the UI as High/Low would be difficult at best.

03-03-2013, 07:51 PM	#5
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	PCMs in an affiliated minor league only matter when you first create a universe. And they only matter then, if you are not running an initial draft. After that, there are only 5 levels of minors (R, SA, A, AA, AAA) and the AI will treat all leagues at a level identically.

03-03-2013, 08:34 PM	#6
Craig Scarborough All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 551	Wow - I had no idea this was the case. When running my franchise I would make it a point to promote low-A to high-A thinking in doing so it made a difference. Not what I expected, but thanks for posting this.

03-05-2013, 12:01 PM	#10
Craig Scarborough All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 551	FWIW, I was thinking more from a human perspective. Meaning: my prospect is tearing up low-A ball, let's see how he does in high-A. If what you all are telling me is true - then the move from low-A to high-A doesn't tell me anything. I basically just plopped him on an alternate, all-encompassing "A" team. Is that correct? -Craig

03-05-2013, 08:19 PM	#11
olivertheorem All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 1,919	In theory, the move from low to high-A should matter. Whether it does in practice is probably up for debate.

03-05-2013, 11:46 PM	#12
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 12,990 Blog Entries: 37	I know in my own promotion/demotion transactions, I treat it in such a way that it matters, however I have realized the AI may not. If not, it really should.

03-06-2013, 02:42 PM	#17
Le Grande Orange Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Up There Posts: 15,413	The problem is that OOTP is hard-coded for only five distinct minor league classification levels. So while you can to a degree make a sixth (or more) by altering the qualities of the league, it is at best an imperfect workaround. So this problem will most likely persist until such time as OOTP undergoes another core engine rewrite (assuming it does someday).

03-06-2013, 03:50 PM	#20
Biggio509 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2,027	NM. Two other post explain better. Last edited by Biggio509; 03-06-2013 at 04:21 PM.