Using Shortlists...

[Cod]

How do y'all use your shortlists?

Currently, I use shortlist to keep an eye on prospects in my system, prospects throughout the league, and potential FAs w/in the next two years I have my eye on.

I'm looking for ideas to better utilize the feature and keep things more organized because every year I go through spiral notebooks like nobody's business

[Jakeydude18]

In the beginning of a save I had three shortlists for my first year. Then two for every other year.

1: Prospects - This was all the best prospects in my farm system.

2: Drafted 2018 - My top prospects from that draft class

3: Failed Drafted 2018 - My draftees from 2018 I failed to sign

I would do those two draftee shortlists every season then after I ran out of shortlists to create I deleted the oldest ones

[DocHalladay]

I use short lists to track number 1 overall picks and then look back in history to see how they fared. A blooming star that goes onto a Hall of Fame career? A bust who never made it to major league ball? The possibilities are endless.

I also track drafted prospects, or prospects in a daft that look good but never had the chance to draft. I love having the chance to see how they turn out!

[itsmb8]

I'll probably use shortlists for every and any reason. My top prospects, top prospects by year, my drafted and undrafted by year, trade targets, Potential Free Agents, etc.

[NoOne]

Mostly the same. be sure to make some custom views too. i have a custom current ability and potential ability views. includes some extras like pro svc years.

"Default" - use as a temp list to clear out after i'm done... like IAFA on july 2nd or the few players that are worthwhile relative to current draft pick/round etc... mostly remains empty except with specific use. some may move from temp -> a permanent list where it makes sense to include them elsewhere. this is my temp per round draft shortlist too. servers a function, then list is cleared before its next use.

"Locked" - my mil players that are locked and i control their promotions. rotate their forced positions to make sure they are experienced at all qualifying positions based on their defensive abilities, promotiosn/demotions, w/e the task at hand.

"MiL Prospects" - not on my team, but rather future trade targets. elites from draft pools and perusing list all MiL Players (list all mlb players, include mil checkbox, and filter "league level not mlb"). draftees are incredibly inaccurate and often removed within 1 year, while an mil prospect with 1-2 years isn't as accurate as a AAA player, BUT it's significantly more accurate than when they were drafted (age is part of that equation too).

During draft, don't try to shortlist 300 players... piecemeal it per round. I do shortlist the 'elite' ones even if they will not be available to me (mil prospects list from above)

I mostly avoid FA. i wil trade for those guys before they reach the majors. nearly all decisions i make about players is 3-5 years down the road.. plus, you get a longer window of time to play them and you get something back when you trade them -- unlike a 35-40yo FA signing eating up 20-30m of your payroll and giving you average or worse #'s.

snake will eat its own tail once you commit to this strategy. far greater ROI, despite the added costs of trading for an mil player. that's a wash when you trade them at ~30.

you may think timing things is difficult.. but the only concern is that they devleop before the end of the current player's contract.. in fact you want that to happen so you can trade that player instead of just a compensation pick in return. i want tehy guy ready ~2 years before the other contract ends, and that padding covers nearly everything.

the rare instance you need a FA, you likely have ~$50M-$100M free to spend, since 3/4ths of your team is cheap most of the time.
--------------------------------

There's an upcoming free agents report per team too - Front Office. sorting "list all mlb" by years left on contract would help too (with filters for quality of player you are searching for/can afford etc).

instead of writing stuff, you can export to an External browser and save as various player lists too (or write report to disk etc). alt-tab between windows or resize to fit both on same screen.

i'd make use of a spreadsheets over a word processor. can shift and auto-fill things etc etc... easier to work with and manipulate in re-useable ways.

notes have the same problem as word processor, you can't automate the simple/repetitive stuff.

[Orioles1966]

Most of the time if I move a player to a different team,I will put him on a shortlist just to keep track of traded players.

[ederemer]

During the season I use the default shortlist to focus on just particular players I want to take a look at. Then I have a "Replacement" shortlist of free agents and indy league players I would look at in the event of injuries or whatever in the season.

I keep a shortlist of the upcoming draft with all the players I'd consider, makes draft day a lot easier. Then I'll usually have another shortlist or two of players I might consider at the trade deadline and again in the off-season.

[MrMoose]

A lot of great suggestions in this thread! However, I was searching for how to view the current contents of each of the shortlists I have created (new to the game I am!), but have been unable to find a way to do so. Sort of defeats my purposes for them. So, how do I view the contents of a given shortlist? And can I selectively remove players from one? Thanks!

[NoOne]

i play as a gm, so not sure if screen is different in other cases --

your 'gm' name at the top of screen is a menu. player shortlists should be an option.

there's a seperate area for coaching shortlists, it's in that menu too.

once there, you will see "default" shortlist, and a dropdown box allows you to select any other shortlist you have created.

you'll see familiar sorting / filter options as most player lists anywhere else in game.

i think the views are exclusive here? sometimes they travel between lists and other lists have their own exclusive views and filters. i don't recall by rote which is which.

[MrMoose]

Thanks to "NoOne"...and, boy, do I feel stupid for not finding them...right where he said they would be. There is sooooo much to this game it can be overwhelming at first...especially when I'm getting my lunch handed to me just in the game play. LOL!

[OldFatGuy]

I feel like I need to better utilize the feature too... because I have the same pen and paper problem the OP has. lol.

What I try to keep an eye though on is mostly the same as everyone above I guess... I tend to shortlist the number one pick of every team in the league and check up on them year by year. And before the draft I usually shortlist the top 25 (in MY opinion based on MY scouts.. not the AI's) to give me an idea of how well my scouting is going... I have a 32 team league (16 AL, 16 NL) so I always figure my scouts had better have 20 of those 25 be drafted in the first round... as a way of seeing if I'm spending enough on that part of scouting or if I need to fire my scout.

The "main" thing I use it for though is free agents. If I see a free agent that looks interesting but for whatever reason now is not a good time to sign him... I'll bookmark him and keep a close eye on him. Very often I end up going back and signing them at some point. And very often I'm disappointed. lol

But anyway... reading this thread with interest too as I too would like to cut down on the number of trees I'm destroying playing this great game.

[MrDov]

Every preseason at the same time I organize my entire organization and put together rough opening day rosters for each full season MiLB level, I shortlist every single prospect I think has MLB potential to easier track them throughout the season. I'd love if OOTP added the ability to customize how shortlisted players appear, because for now I have to wipe the shortlist every year so prospects from previous years that have flamed out don't clutter guys that are currently prospects. I'd definitely expand my use of shortlists with that feature added but for now I just keep the one annual shortlist.

[NoOne]

just name the lists with the "Year"... or 1,2,3.... etc

draft list 1975
draft list 1976
prospect list (main one)
locked players in your minors list
FA, and whatever else you do or don't do - trying to keep this open-ended

when it comes time to delete it, move any names off to another non-temporary list that is appropriate. then when you delete list it takes care of all the names you would have removed. (or select them all and do additional manipulations before you delete etc)

you can always add same person to multiple lists, no biggie if yo uwant some piecemealed but a full list elsewhere.

if you ever remove names, you can remove from all shortlists then delete it or whatever... maybe only need 2 temp lists to cycle between 2 yeears of drafts? maybe 3? after 3 seasons (2.5, technically) from draft date, it should be known who's good or not - at the least most inaccuracies will have been tempered or fixed by this point.

[MrDov]

Sorry I should have been more specific. I don't mean cluttering the list itself. I use shortlists for my prospects to bold their names on all the roster and transaction pages to keep track of them easier. So keeping those old prospect lists would keep more names bold that I don't necessarily want bolded and would more or less ruin the reason I use my shortlist in the first place. That's why I'd like a way to customize the affect shortlists have on player names. If I could disable the bolding for certain lists, that would be great.

[malor]

Since the game does not provide a way to get a Rule 5 player list automatically, I create a short list for it. Real painful to have to find all of the players and place them in the short list. My lists usually have about 100+ players.

It's actually funny because I use the # tag to know they are Rule 5 eligible so the game already knows the players that should be in it, there is just no report to that can be generated.

The widget on the managers screen is useless because it is not large enough and does not have sortable/filterable columns to provide the required information.

A Rule 5 report has been on my request of additions since I first purchased OOTP16.

Malor

[Bunktown Ballers]

Originally Posted by Cod

How do y'all use your shortlists?

Currently, I use shortlist to keep an eye on prospects in my system, prospects throughout the league, and potential FAs w/in the next two years I have my eye on.

I'm looking for ideas to better utilize the feature and keep things more organized because every year I go through spiral notebooks like nobody's business

I prolly use the shortlist too much. I use it for just about every acquisition, trade, FA pick up, International Find. It's just my way of keeping up with past players, new acquisitions for a year or two then I'll remove them for newer players comings & goings. Just my way of doing things

BB

[Ktulu]

This is what I currently have.

- My former draft picks
- Players I might want to trade for
- Free Agent Targets (each off-season)
- Federal League (interesting players that are in a secondary league)
- Interesting Players (any players I find interesting, former #1 picks, great players, knuckleballers, unique players etc.)
- HOF Candidates (all the top hall of fame candidates and current HOFers). Usually use this to double check who I want on my ballot. Also tracks active players.
- My best international prospects
- Players I need to trade (pending FAs usually)
- TEMP (a temporary shortlist, usually use this in the amateur draft to temporarily track targets and make them stand out on the draft list page)
- Any players that I lose in the Rule 5 draft, so I can keep tabs on where they are.

Adding the ability to have a custom color for shortlists is on my wishlist

[Déjà Bru]

I have nothing to add but I did bestow upon Cod my thanks for bringing this topic up from which I have gotten several good ideas. This a good example of how forum attendance (if not participation) yields greater game playing satisfaction.