Deadball era

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by David Watts

What about giving the reserve clause a try? That might make it so you have to fully depend on trades and the draft.

I am leaning toward this answer, but...

Originally Posted by David Watts

Or what, about a modified free agency in which players don't become free agents until they have played 10-12 years, heck 15 years?

I am afraid that I end up in the same place eventually, although I would be less inclined to bid on the older free agents. I have to think about this idea some more.

It could be that some form of delayed arbitration (say at 6-10 years of service) and free agency after 10 years would be more entertaining than the straight reserve clause without upsetting the competitive balance as much. Even the players that enter the league at a really young age (like Cobb at 19) would be 29 before they could file, so there would be a lot of 31-35 year olds in the pool instead of 27-31 year olds with a 6-year requirement. A 31-year old pitcher is not as attractive to me, so I might be more inclined to pass even though I can afford it.

I wonder about the typical contract extension length also. I can tinker with that prior to starting the league. I had set it to 5 years last time and most teams ended up offering no more than 3-year deals. Do you suppose they would only do 3 years even if the allowed term were longer, or would they be more inclined to offer 5 years if the maximum were 8 or 10 years?

[realstar]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I knew about the high number of errors in the small glove era, but it is still a little unnerving to have a third baseman with 62 errors. Maybe I need to improve my defense there. He had twice as many as my shortstop, but my shortstop (Bobby Wallace) is one of the best in the league. Still, you would think I could find someone else to hit .250 with half that many errors.

There's a lot more going on with fielders than errors & fielding percentage: My main beef with OOTP & fielding stats in general. (shouldn't blame OOTP) Although I understand that has been improving.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/m...-fielding.html

https://sabr.org/research/measuring-...ing-statistics

During the 'dead ball era' (also called the 'inside game' if I'm not mistaken) left side infielders were a different animal, no? My guess is you have to use your imagination to some extent b/c OOTP is oriented for the current era. This would, ostensibly come out in the Play by Play, would it not? Consequently, OOTP users who don't manage on the field aren't gonna find out about some of the finer details of the played game. If I was a developer interested in/assigned to enhance Historical play, I would focus on stuff like that.

[realstar]

Originally Posted by Orcin

... (subject: minor leagues)

Edit: I am also thinking about using fictional players to populate these minor league teams. If I have the color barrier enabled, will that also prevent Hispanic and Asian players from being created for these leagues?

Maybe it's been too long since this post but..

Far as I can tell, the color barrier does not stop Latino & black players from playing in minor leagues. As apparently those leagues include the Latin leagues, the Negro League and the apparent fact that colored players were allowed into other minor league teams. (?)

On OOTP18, I tried out the color barrier enabled for realism on a 1910s Historical & it (happily) didn't keep several IRL Latinos & at least one black infielder, Dick Lundy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Lundy_(baseball) from coming in, who I used in a needed shortstop slot on my ML team & he turned out solid at that position. The game did not keep me from promoting him. Maybe the reason being that I'm using reserve: no minors? Same thing with Cuban Baseball Hall of Famer Manuel Cueto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Cueto Maybe the color barrier only keeps players out of the majors on AI at the beginning of seasons, then allows the user to place freely during the season?

Edit: Cueto played 3 seasons for the ML Cincinnati Reds. Looking further we see that more Latinos played major league ball before Jackie Robinson & the Wake-Up Call. Then there's mulatto. One wonders what the pre-1947 Brooklyn Dodgers would have been without mulattos. It's an odd subject considering how Caribbean peoples have African heritage. I guess it came down to how deep the pigment was: how well you could fake looking white. Note: I'm obviously not highly educated on baseball history & the subject of the civil rights movement pre-1960s. Hence, one of the reasons why I play OOTP Historical: maybe learn a few things. Another funny thing is how my colored recruits play on the same team as Ty Cobb with no morale adjustment necessary. Nice.. but maybe not so realistic at that. Ultimately we need a racism barrier: Players have to pass a written test... Cobb fails

Speaking of blacks, isn't there a version with Negro League? OOTP19?

[Orcin]

I chose no draft and free agency after 9 years. I just reached my first offseason and the free agent class is (naturally) much weaker than it was with the 6 year cutoff. I can't find anyone that would improve my team, which finished in second place (90-50) 2 games behind the Pirates. The best news is that the Pirates aren't losing anyone of note, so the competition for next season should be great again.

Thanks for the idea, David.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by realstar

Maybe it's been too long since this post but..

Far as I can tell, the color barrier does not stop Latino & black players from playing in minor leagues. As apparently those leagues include the Latin leagues, the Negro League and the apparent fact that colored players were allowed into other minor league teams. (?)

On OOTP18, I tried out the color barrier enabled for realism on a 1910s Historical & it (happily) didn't keep several IRL Latinos & at least one black infielder, Dick Lundy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Lundy_(baseball) from coming in, who I used in a needed shortstop slot on my ML team & he turned out solid at that position. The game did not keep me from promoting him. Maybe the reason being that I'm using reserve: no minors? Same thing with Cuban Baseball Hall of Famer Manuel Cueto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Cueto Maybe the color barrier only keeps players out of the majors on AI at the beginning of seasons, then allows the user to place freely during the season?

Edit: Cueto played 3 seasons for the ML Cincinnati Reds. Looking further we see that more Latinos played major league ball before Jackie Robinson & the Wake-Up Call. Then there's mulatto. One wonders what the pre-1947 Brooklyn Dodgers would have been without mulattos. It's an odd subject considering how Caribbean peoples have African heritage. I guess it came down to how deep the pigment was: how well you could fake looking white. Note: I'm obviously not highly educated on baseball history & the subject of the civil rights movement pre-1960s. Hence, one of the reasons why I play OOTP Historical: maybe learn a few things. Another funny thing is how my colored recruits play on the same team as Ty Cobb with no morale adjustment necessary. Nice.. but maybe not so realistic at that. Ultimately we need a racism barrier: Players have to pass a written test... Cobb fails

Speaking of blacks, isn't there a version with Negro League? OOTP19?

FWIW the color bar never really barred white Latinos, who were generally considered to be essentially European... well, at least after Dolf Luque broke the softer Latino barrier in 1914. Luque wound up winning almost 200 games in his career, mostly for Reds and Dodgers teams that weren't all that good (one exception being the 1919 Reds team, best known as the clean side in that year's World Series). I believe he held the record for most wins by a Latino pitcher that Juan Marichal broke.

[Orcin]

Free agency after 9 years seems to be working very well. The free agent pool after my second season still contains only star players on the downside of 30. They would be great for filling a hole or giving a weaker team a decent player for a couple of years, but they don't upset the power structure at all. For the second consecutive offseason, I won't sign a free agent. I prefer the arbitration process to the auto renewal of the reserve clause, even though there are a lot of players to review between 3 and 9 years of service, because it seems that the salaries end up to be more realistic and reasonable.

The 1902 season was very competitive. My Cardinals trailed the Pirates by 5 games with 15 to play. We swept the Pirates in a key series and pulled into a tie on the final day. I had been using a 3-man rotation of Deacon Phillippe, Jack Powell, and Chappie McFarland - all 20-game winners. They were tired and I went to fourth starter Jack Harper for the one-game playoff. Harper threw a shutout.

We played the Orioles in the series. It came down to a seventh game. The Orioles had seen Phillippe (my 25-game winner) twice, splitting the two games. Harper had yet to pitch in the series but he had that little fire emblem beside his name. On a wild hunch, Harper started game seven. He pitched a shutout.

[Orcin]

June 25, 1903:



That's two of my four-man rotation, my starting first baseman, and my entire starting outfield. Ouch!

The really amazing thing is that I have yet to make a deal and I am still in second place only four game back of the Pirates. If I can hang in until Harper and McGann come back, I may still have a shot.

[Orcin]

I finished second to the Pirates in 1903. In the offseason, I signed John McGraw to play third base and bat leadoff, and traded CF Homer Smoot and a prospect to Cincinnati for SP Noodles Hahn. The team was remarkably healthy in 1904 and we won 108 games. The rotation was spectacular. These four guys pitched 133 complete games! The rest of the staff threw 53 innings combined. By the way, I simmed this season a week at a time (Challenge Mode).

[Orcin]

We won again in 1905, but in 1906 we finished second to the Pirates and the dominant pitching staff was no longer going to carry us. Pirates SS Honus Wagner became a free agent after winning five MVP awards. I won the bidding war for his services by signing him to the most expensive contract ever ($7K per year for three years) starting with his age 33 season. Wagner won the MVP award in three of the next four seasons and the Cardinals won the pennant all four years (three championships). Wagner got another three-year, $21K contract after the 1909 season with the third year being a team option.

It is now the 1910-11 offseason and I have been trying to transition to a younger team. I have quality young starters at three or four positions and a relatively young pitching staff. Wagner will be 37 next year and his contact and eye ratings have slipped just a tad. He is still one of the best players in the league but realistically he only has a year or two of top performance left.

I can trade Wagner, my starting catcher, and three very good prospects for a 24-year old Ty Cobb. I have replacements for Wagner at short and the catcher, although Cobb actually replaces Wagner from the standpoint of best player on the team. The three prospects are valuable but two of them are blocked by other young players. It feels like a fair trade to me in that Wagner should give his new team a couple of star years and Cobb will be a free agent after three years. The other four players in the deal will all be starters or the top prospects for their new team.

Cobb is a superstar here just like real life, and should be one of the best players in my league for the next decade. He has won two MVP awards in the A.L. and has averaged 8-9 WAR over his six seasons. He won a Gold Glove in CF before Speaker came into the league. I have the best attendance and biggest budget in the league so I can afford to retain Cobb at any cost when his current three-year contract expires. The fan interest hit from trading Wagner will be offset by acquiring Cobb. My money will actually be improved by the deal and I can sign a couple of free agents to fill any gaps in my depth chart created by the trade.

I write all this because I am still thinking about the deal. Is it too much to give up? Am I better off by keeping Wagner and trading the lesser pieces in the deal for one or two more young starters or pitchers to round out the team? Cobb might become a free agent in three years and I could sign him just like I did Wagner, but maybe his current team will retain him.

Is it really mandatory to have a MVP-caliber player in order to have a dynasty? If so, this might be my best chance. I offered the same deal for Speaker and Shoeless Joe Jackson, and I was laughed out of the room by the opposing GM.

[scott1964]

Go for it. I had a similar situation to either draft Jesse Burkett or Cy Young.

[Orcin]

I decided against the trade because I thought it would be a huge setback for my youth movement to give up four prospects. One of the prospects was a pitcher, Hippo Vaughn, that I project to break into my rotation this year. The deal wouldn't go without him involved.

During the last week of spring training, Honus Wagner broke a bone in his elbow and will be out for seven months.

[Orcin]

The 1911 Cardinals won the pennant at 103-49 without Wagner but lost the World Series to the Athletics in five games. The eleven league championships have been split between three teams: Cardinals 6, Pirates 3, and Athletics 2. The Cardinals and Athletics have played the last three World Series, and the Athletics show no signs of going away with Eddie Collins, Joe Jackson, Frank Baker, and Jack Barry - all under 25 years old and with 4-5 years of control remaining. Their pitching is mostly young and quite good too.

Wagner is set to return for a final season in St. Louis at age 37. He is still projected to be a 5-star player although his injury rating is now "fragile". I have three other star players over age 34, and I desperately need to accelerate my rebuilding project by bringing in a young superstar. There is no such thing in the free agent market with a nine-year service requirement, so I went back to the trade market. Naturally, I checked on Cobb again, who is now 25 years old and was just signed to a reasonable two-year extension after hitting .388 last season.

The price has changed a bit. They still want Wagner and the catcher Jay Clarke, who is no longer my starter after having lost his job to the NL ROY Ivey Wingo. But they now will take three veteran players instead of three prospects, making the deal almost a no-brainer. The four players including Clarke generated 7 WAR last year and Wagner should conservatively add 6. Even accounting for some decline among the players they acquire, the trade is still pretty even if you compare it to Cobb's 9 WAR and 4 more (1 each) for the replacement players on my squad. No player in the deal is signed or controlled for more than two years, but I have the resources to keep Cobb in St. Louis for the rest of his career.

So Ty Cobb is now joining the Cardinals for the 1912 season, and I am off to pursue Joe Tinker in the free agent market as the replacement for Wagner. I still have three aging veterans in key roles but I can't fix everything in one offseason and they should be good for at least one more year.

[Orcin]

I was unable to sign Tinker, but I did manage to trade for Jack Barry and signed Johnny Evers to play second base. The improved defense up the middle lend to a championship in 1912 and a loss to the Athletics in the 1913 World Series.

The 1913-14 offseason began with a bang when I pulled off this trade:




Has anyone tried using Ruth as a two-way player starting at the beginning of his career? I probably need the pitcher and the outfielder, so I am going to give it a go. I was wondering how it will work in OOTP 19, since the game seems to handle Otani so well..