Random Debut - Inaugural Draft

Dukie98 · 05-10-2018, 12:33 AM

After a fair amount of tinkering, I finally started getting my 48-team random debut draft off the ground (thanks to David Watts and actionjackson for their help a few weeks ago). So far, the early results are... a little odd. I'm playing with the "pre-defined value for AI" unchecked, with the league set to 1975 levels.

The biggest oddity is that the AI is ignoring elite position players early in their careers, while taking players in their 30's and/or journeymen instead. A few examples: 21-year old Rickey Henderson was on the board when I drafted with the 23rd pick, and 20-year-old Bryce Harper fell to 29. Both were picked after the likes of 31-year-old Jeff Fassero (19 overall), 31-year-old Jakie May (8th overall), and 27-year-old catcher Don Pavletich (21st overall, and the second catcher off the board).

23-year-old Paul Molitor and 24-year-old Gary Sheffield lasted until the second round (58th and 91st overall, respectively) - after 33-year-old Ryan Raburn, who went late in the first (46th overall) with 37-year-old David Ortiz going with the next pick. Aaron Judge lasted until pick 284 (I figured it would be too much of an exploitation of the AI to take him after he fell past the 2nd round). But 40-year-old Chief Bender -- with a half-star rating for both actual and potential -- went over 200 picks before him, late in the second round.

Overall, 17 of the 48 first round picks were 30 or older - including 7 of the first 20. For what it's worth the top dozen picks in the league are as follows:

1. Allie Reynolds (25)
2. Sandy Koufax (28)
3. Roy Halladay (33)
4. Nomar Garciaparra (26)
5. Jack Chesbro (27)
6. Lefty Grove (34)
7. Bill Freehan (25)
8. Jakie May (31)
9. David Cone (24)
10. Schoolboy Rowe (24)
11. Joey Votto (33)
12. Ray Collins (23)

I realize that five-star pitchers don't grow on trees, but it does seem odd that dozens of teams chose to bypass the likes of Henderson, Harper, and Molitor at the start of their careers. Is it common for players in their 30s -- even with strong ratings -- to go at the top of a random debut draft? Or for young stars to fall?

Thanks.

actionjackson · 05-10-2018, 10:21 AM

Dukie98, first off thanks for the kind words. Secondly, you've just butted up against the reason that I do a dispersal rather than a draft. I know it's more fun (competitive juices and all that) to do a draft, but I'm not sure the AI is capable of handling it. If you use pre-defined draft value it might be even worse because the players with the highest value will go in the highest slots regardless of their age.

For my inaugural draft, I made my own draft values using the RL stats (fWAR, rWAR, 1.8*rWAA) that the player accrued from the age he was brought into the game to the end of his career. You can see the first five rounds here. As you can see, most of the players at the top of the draft are either young amazing players who can be building blocks, or older guys who still had a lot left in the tank and can be major contributors to a team. I had some all-time greats (and very goods) who were of an older vintage go much later in the draft. A 37-year old Bernie F Williams went in the 40th round, 627th overall. A 37-year old Tony Perez went in the 31st round, 488th overall, and was an all-star in 1901, but let's face it, does not have too many productive years left. A 36-year old Lou Gehrig went in the 28th round, 443rd overall, and started out hot, but has since fizzled. Well, he's still good, but he's not Lou freakin' Gehrig good if you get my drift. A 36-year old Chief Bender went 347th overall in the 22nd round.

Where my system falls down a bit (every system does) is in two places: cup of coffee guys and 19th century pitchers. The cup of coffee guys will trend towards the middle of the draft because they barely have any stats to go on, so they would rank ahead of the Mario Mendozas (45th round - 711th overall) and Jerry Morales' (45th round - 719th overall and somehow a 1901 All-Star) of the world. 19th century pitchers are...interesting. Toad Ramsey (14th round - 212th overall) and Phil Knell (41st round - 653rd overall) are two such examples. Their RL numbers are not great, but OOTP ranks them as demi-gods. Both of them slipped to the Milwaukee Brewers who also got Preacher Roe in the 3rd round, to give them three formidable left handed SP at the top of their rotation.

It may not be the perfect system (there isn't one), but I think it does a pretty good job at helping to create some balance in my league. I'll use it for the amateur drafts as well (which thankfully will only be 82 players, instead of 720 [I add in 16 Spritze guys to the inaugural, and 2 Spritze guys to each amateur draft just to keep things interesting - you never know who's going to show up]. The trick is to find a system that works, because this is not working in an ideal fashion. That's not a criticism of the game, but an acknowledgement of how difficult it is to program a really strong AI.

Dukie98 · 05-11-2018, 12:47 AM

Thanks - so it sounds like there isn't really a way to get a better dispersal of young talent across the league without manually picking for every team.

With 48 teams in my league, every team has significant holes (by design). I drafted for New Orleans at 23, but plan to take a hands-off approach going forward, and their lineup looks more balanced than most- there are some teams that have 5 solid starting pitchers, but have the likes of Butch Wynegar batting third. Here's the post-draft projected lineup:

CF Rickey Henderson (21)
RF Jack Smith (32)
SS Zoilo Versalles (26)
C Ed Bailey (22)
1B Todd Zeile (38)
3B Ken Caminiti (23)
2B Hod Ford (26)
DH Joe Riggert (24)
LF Moose McCormick (24)

SP1 Gary Nolan (21)
SP2 Dave Hillman (22)
SP3 Nick Blackburn (28)
SP4 John Cerutti (29)
SP5 JR Richard (23) - only 1/2 star currently, but 4 star potential.
CL Rick Aguilera (28)

Dukie98 · 05-11-2018, 01:14 AM

OK, I'm officially confused now...

After completing the initial draft, I stepped down and went into commissioner mode. I started to advance to the next month -- and immediately started getting all sorts of messages about free agent signings. It turns out that there are about 1,344 free agents (approximately the same number as in the original draft) -- including some duplicates of players who were already drafted.

Any idea why this happened? Or how to reverse it? Thanks.

actionjackson · 05-11-2018, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dukie98

OK, I'm officially confused now...

After completing the initial draft, I stepped down and went into commissioner mode. I started to advance to the next month -- and immediately started getting all sorts of messages about free agent signings. It turns out that there are about 1,344 free agents (approximately the same number as in the original draft) -- including some duplicates of players who were already drafted.

Any idea why this happened? Or how to reverse it? Thanks.

Do you use minor leagues? There seems to be an issue where if you do use minor leagues with random debut, the game will create a bunch of free agents. I have no idea why this happens. I just know that it doesn't happen when you use reserve rosters, and it does happen when you use minor leagues.

I would've thought your inaugural draft would've had 2,112 players in it (48 teams * 44 players per team). If your draft was 27 rounds as it is set to by default, that would leave 816 players as free agents (48 teams * 17 players per team undrafted), but not 1,344 so some guys (528 to be exact, or 11 players per team if you will) who were not in the original inaugural draft pool must've entered your game. Ugh.

Dukie98 · 05-11-2018, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Do you use minor leagues? There seems to be an issue where if you do use minor leagues with random debut, the game will create a bunch of free agents. I have no idea why this happens. I just know that it doesn't happen when you use reserve rosters, and it does happen when you use minor leagues.

I would've thought your inaugural draft would've had 2,112 players in it (48 teams * 44 players per team). If your draft was 27 rounds as it is set to by default, that would leave 816 players as free agents (48 teams * 17 players per team undrafted), but not 1,344 so some guys (528 to be exact, or 11 players per team if you will) who were not in the original inaugural draft pool must've entered your game. Ugh.

Nope, no minors.

In order to get the actual MLB players, I had to create the league with a real 30-team setup. As per David Watts's suggestion from a few weeks ago, I used the initial 30 team historic setup (think it was from 2011) with 44 players per team, creating a pool of about 1,320 players. I then tweaked the league setup to make 48 franchises instead of 30, which mathematically comes out to about 27 players per team. Obviously, none of the new free agents were in the player pool for the draft (and certainly not the duplicates of the same player).

One thing that I recall from the setup that *may* affect this -- somehow, I originally ended up with 2 parallel leagues - the original 30 team setup and a separate league with the 48 teams. I deleted the 30 team league before starting the inaugural draft. Thoughts?

actionjackson · 05-11-2018, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dukie98

Nope, no minors.

In order to get the actual MLB players, I had to create the league with a real 30-team setup. As per David Watts's suggestion from a few weeks ago, I used the initial 30 team historic setup (think it was from 2011) with 44 players per team, creating a pool of about 1,320 players. I then tweaked the league setup to make 48 franchises instead of 30, which mathematically comes out to about 27 players per team. Obviously, none of the new free agents were in the player pool for the draft (and certainly not the duplicates of the same player).

One thing that I recall from the setup that *may* affect this -- somehow, I originally ended up with 2 parallel leagues - the original 30 team setup and a separate league with the 48 teams. I deleted the 30 team league before starting the inaugural draft. Thoughts?

1320 players for 48 teams = 27.5 players per team. A 27 round draft (default amount) would leave 24 players as free agents. And you said you had 1,344 players in the free agent crop. Therefore, the game added 1,320 players as free agents. For some reason it gave you 1,320 players twice. Maybe because of the parallel universe 30 team league that was left behind along with the 48 team league that you originally wanted. That's just my wild stab at it, but I think there's something to it because the numbers are bang on.

Somewhere in there, there's a step you made that resulted in the double leagues. I would PM David Watts and go over exactly how you set the game up step-by-step and see if it matches up with what he told you to do, or go over any instructions he gave you, if you still have them. The answer is somewhere in there, and maybe he can help you unlock it. I wonder why the 30 team league hung around after the creation of the 48 team league. I think that's what I would focus on. That's where the answer is. I don't know what the answer is because I just play with a vanilla MLB setup from 1901 with 16 teams that expands as it did IRL. I know...Boring right?

David Watts · 05-11-2018, 02:12 PM

Dukie, did you add 18 teams to get to 48, or did you create 48 new teams?

actionjackson · 05-11-2018, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Watts

Dukie, did you add 18 teams to get to 48, or did you create 48 new teams?

You might be on to something there (even though I know nothing about this type of setup). It sounds reasonable for the game to have thought it needed players for both leagues and to create another 1,320 free agents (30 teams * 44 players per team) to go with the 24 free agents that were left over after the 27 round inaugural draft was done. Probably adding 18 teams and editing the other 30 to the team names you want them to have is the best way to go.

So you've got two choices Dukie98: Blow up the league and start over again, and do it the way David Watts recommends, or keep it and accept its flaws. I know neither is very appetizing, but I guess it's part of the huge learning curve that comes with this game.

That is unless you did add 18 teams, and change the other 30 team names. Then, I don't know what to do.

Dukie98 · 05-11-2018, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Watts

Dukie, did you add 18 teams to get to 48, or did you create 48 new teams?

To be honest, I don't specifically recall one way or the other. I *thought* I was modifying and adding onto the existing teams (i.e. adding 18, rather than creating a new 48 team league), but I can't explain why there was a second league, which I didn't realize until right before I was going to start drafting.

If I delete all the free agents, will this problem recur in future offseasons?

Thanks.

David Watts · 05-11-2018, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dukie98

To be honest, I don't specifically recall one way or the other. I *thought* I was modifying and adding onto the existing teams (i.e. adding 18, rather than creating a new 48 team league), but I can't explain why there was a second league, which I didn't realize until right before I was going to start drafting.

If I delete all the free agents, will this problem recur in future offseasons?

Thanks.

I'm going to do some testing to make sure I'm not leading you down a dead end. Will let you know soon.

Dukie98 · 05-11-2018, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Watts

I'm going to do some testing to make sure I'm not leading you down a dead end. Will let you know soon.

Many thanks for going above and beyond.

David Watts · 05-11-2018, 06:50 PM

Okay, I can't answer you question about deleting the free agents. But, I just created 2011. I then added 18 teams to the already existing 2011 teams. Set things up so each league, AL and NL had 3 eight team divisions. Before going to inaugural draft, I set the amateur draft to 17 rounds with enough players for 17 rounds.

The inaugural draft had the expected 1320 players enough for 27.5 rounds. I ran the draft and each team in the league drafted 27 players. There were 24 players left over. I then simmed the season and on to the first amateur draft. 816(17 rounds) players imported for the amateur draft.

I did not see any duplicate players during a quick look through.

So when you create your league I suggest you add 18 teams. Edit existing teams to fit you team locations and team names.

actionjackson · 05-11-2018, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dukie98

To be honest, I don't specifically recall one way or the other. I *thought* I was modifying and adding onto the existing teams (i.e. adding 18, rather than creating a new 48 team league), but I can't explain why there was a second league, which I didn't realize until right before I was going to start drafting.

If I delete all the free agents, will this problem recur in future offseasons?

Thanks.

It shouldn't recur provided you use reserve rosters. If you use minor leagues it will according to crawdad5000.

Dukie98 · 05-11-2018, 10:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionjackson

It shouldn't recur provided you use reserve rosters. If you use minor leagues it will according to crawdad5000.

Thanks. Seems to me that the easiest solution then would be just to delete the free agents and proceed (as I have reserve rosters on).

David Watts · 05-11-2018, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dukie98

Thanks. Seems to me that the easiest solution then would be just to delete the free agents and proceed (as I have reserve rosters on).

Not sure, but when you bring up duplicate players, a red flag waves saying run away, run away.

05-10-2018, 12:33 AM	#1
Dukie98 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2016 Posts: 902	Random Debut - Inaugural Draft After a fair amount of tinkering, I finally started getting my 48-team random debut draft off the ground (thanks to David Watts and actionjackson for their help a few weeks ago). So far, the early results are... a little odd. I'm playing with the "pre-defined value for AI" unchecked, with the league set to 1975 levels. The biggest oddity is that the AI is ignoring elite position players early in their careers, while taking players in their 30's and/or journeymen instead. A few examples: 21-year old Rickey Henderson was on the board when I drafted with the 23rd pick, and 20-year-old Bryce Harper fell to 29. Both were picked after the likes of 31-year-old Jeff Fassero (19 overall), 31-year-old Jakie May (8th overall), and 27-year-old catcher Don Pavletich (21st overall, and the second catcher off the board). 23-year-old Paul Molitor and 24-year-old Gary Sheffield lasted until the second round (58th and 91st overall, respectively) - after 33-year-old Ryan Raburn, who went late in the first (46th overall) with 37-year-old David Ortiz going with the next pick. Aaron Judge lasted until pick 284 (I figured it would be too much of an exploitation of the AI to take him after he fell past the 2nd round). But 40-year-old Chief Bender -- with a half-star rating for both actual and potential -- went over 200 picks before him, late in the second round. Overall, 17 of the 48 first round picks were 30 or older - including 7 of the first 20. For what it's worth the top dozen picks in the league are as follows: 1. Allie Reynolds (25) 2. Sandy Koufax (28) 3. Roy Halladay (33) 4. Nomar Garciaparra (26) 5. Jack Chesbro (27) 6. Lefty Grove (34) 7. Bill Freehan (25) 8. Jakie May (31) 9. David Cone (24) 10. Schoolboy Rowe (24) 11. Joey Votto (33) 12. Ray Collins (23) I realize that five-star pitchers don't grow on trees, but it does seem odd that dozens of teams chose to bypass the likes of Henderson, Harper, and Molitor at the start of their careers. Is it common for players in their 30s -- even with strong ratings -- to go at the top of a random debut draft? Or for young stars to fall? Thanks.

05-10-2018, 10:21 AM	#2
actionjackson Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Toronto, ON Posts: 6,123	Dukie98, first off thanks for the kind words. Secondly, you've just butted up against the reason that I do a dispersal rather than a draft. I know it's more fun (competitive juices and all that) to do a draft, but I'm not sure the AI is capable of handling it. If you use pre-defined draft value it might be even worse because the players with the highest value will go in the highest slots regardless of their age. For my inaugural draft, I made my own draft values using the RL stats (fWAR, rWAR, 1.8rWAA) that the player accrued from the age he was brought into the game to the end of his career. You can see the first five rounds here. As you can see, most of the players at the top of the draft are either young amazing players who can be building blocks, or older guys who still had a lot left in the tank and can be major contributors to a team. I had some all-time greats (and very goods) who were of an older vintage go much later in the draft. A 37-year old Bernie F Williams went in the 40th round, 627th overall. A 37-year old Tony Perez went in the 31st round, 488th overall, and was an all-star in 1901, but let's face it, does not have too many productive years left. A 36-year old Lou Gehrig went in the 28th round, 443rd overall, and started out hot, but has since fizzled. Well, he's still good, but he's not Lou freakin' Gehrig* good if you get my drift. A 36-year old Chief Bender went 347th overall in the 22nd round. Where my system falls down a bit (every system does) is in two places: cup of coffee guys and 19th century pitchers. The cup of coffee guys will trend towards the middle of the draft because they barely have any stats to go on, so they would rank ahead of the Mario Mendozas (45th round - 711th overall) and Jerry Morales' (45th round - 719th overall and somehow a 1901 All-Star) of the world. 19th century pitchers are...interesting. Toad Ramsey (14th round - 212th overall) and Phil Knell (41st round - 653rd overall) are two such examples. Their RL numbers are not great, but OOTP ranks them as demi-gods. Both of them slipped to the Milwaukee Brewers who also got Preacher Roe in the 3rd round, to give them three formidable left handed SP at the top of their rotation. It may not be the perfect system (there isn't one), but I think it does a pretty good job at helping to create some balance in my league. I'll use it for the amateur drafts as well (which thankfully will only be 82 players, instead of 720 [I add in 16 Spritze guys to the inaugural, and 2 Spritze guys to each amateur draft just to keep things interesting - you never know who's going to show up]. The trick is to find a system that works, because this is not working in an ideal fashion. That's not a criticism of the game, but an acknowledgement of how difficult it is to program a really strong AI. Last edited by actionjackson; 05-10-2018 at 10:25 AM.

05-11-2018, 12:47 AM	#3
Dukie98 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2016 Posts: 902	Thanks - so it sounds like there isn't really a way to get a better dispersal of young talent across the league without manually picking for every team. With 48 teams in my league, every team has significant holes (by design). I drafted for New Orleans at 23, but plan to take a hands-off approach going forward, and their lineup looks more balanced than most- there are some teams that have 5 solid starting pitchers, but have the likes of Butch Wynegar batting third. Here's the post-draft projected lineup: CF Rickey Henderson (21) RF Jack Smith (32) SS Zoilo Versalles (26) C Ed Bailey (22) 1B Todd Zeile (38) 3B Ken Caminiti (23) 2B Hod Ford (26) DH Joe Riggert (24) LF Moose McCormick (24) SP1 Gary Nolan (21) SP2 Dave Hillman (22) SP3 Nick Blackburn (28) SP4 John Cerutti (29) SP5 JR Richard (23) - only 1/2 star currently, but 4 star potential. CL Rick Aguilera (28)

05-11-2018, 01:14 AM	#4
Dukie98 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2016 Posts: 902	OK, I'm officially confused now... After completing the initial draft, I stepped down and went into commissioner mode. I started to advance to the next month -- and immediately started getting all sorts of messages about free agent signings. It turns out that there are about 1,344 free agents (approximately the same number as in the original draft) -- including some duplicates of players who were already drafted. Any idea why this happened? Or how to reverse it? Thanks.

05-11-2018, 02:12 PM	#8
David Watts Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Looking for a place called Leehofooks Posts: 8,870	Dukie, did you add 18 teams to get to 48, or did you create 48 new teams?

05-11-2018, 06:50 PM	#13
David Watts Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Looking for a place called Leehofooks Posts: 8,870	Okay, I can't answer you question about deleting the free agents. But, I just created 2011. I then added 18 teams to the already existing 2011 teams. Set things up so each league, AL and NL had 3 eight team divisions. Before going to inaugural draft, I set the amateur draft to 17 rounds with enough players for 17 rounds. The inaugural draft had the expected 1320 players enough for 27.5 rounds. I ran the draft and each team in the league drafted 27 players. There were 24 players left over. I then simmed the season and on to the first amateur draft. 816(17 rounds) players imported for the amateur draft. I did not see any duplicate players during a quick look through. So when you create your league I suggest you add 18 teams. Edit existing teams to fit you team locations and team names.