19th Century Issues, to date

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Kelric

I've only played up through the 1875 season, but here are some thoughts on historical play so far....

1) The schedules need to be corrected. Lumping all of the 30 or so games together in one month prevents the ability to just use one pitcher the entire time without the poor man's arm falling off after three or four starts in a row. Some of these starts require 200+ pitches (as it should be), so something has to give. The game plays the ball games well, so it should be the schedule that changes.

2) Not sure what can be done about this one, but with so many pitchers being imported into the league, a 1-man rotation doesn't cut it. Some of the best starters of the early years of baseball get shuttled off to the bullpen and never see action. Every season I have to go and re-adjust the rotation size to at least 2 men in the game setup, then go to each team and have the AI re-adjust the organization so there are the proper number of SPs. In 1874 I actually had to up this to 3 man rotations, which is extremely unrealistic. Poor Al Spalding and Tommy Bond get 10 starts a year now.

3) After four seasons of play, all of the players are still on rookie contracts since they've only accumulated one full current season of games. OOTP doesn't realize that these seasons are only 30 games long.

4) Why does the original Philadelphia Athletics franchise go inactive only to be replaced by... the Philadelphia Athletics? I was/am running the Athletics and had to submit a protection list, but am also drafting in the expansion draft with no players being listed for my organization. If I search for my old players, they show up as being listed on the.... Philadelphia Athletics. Yet, I no longer control any team and those players aren't in the free agent pool. So these guys that I just played four seasons with get sent off to nowhere and I have no organization and the dynasty I was building is lost? That's a horrible way to run things, I think.

Also with #4, the Cincy Reds are replaced by the Cincy Reds and the STL Brown Stockings by the STL Brown Stockings. Why bother replacing those franchises if they are going to continue with the same name? And why are all of their players apparently lost for ever?

There were three versions of the Philadelphia Athletics.

The original Athletics originated in 1860 in the National Association. They left the failing N.A. and were one of the original National League franchises in 1876. They were expelled from N.L the after the 1876 season and became defunct.

The second version of the Philadelphia Athletics was a charter memeber of the American Association in 1882 and became defunct when the league folded in 1891.

The third version (the modern A's) was a charter member of the American League in 1901.

The quickstart in OOTP does not accurately reflect team movement nor the true league structures of the National Association, National League and American Association during the 1800's.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

One is the schedules, as both of you mentioned.

I haven't forgotten about this, but it's just that the last month or so, well, let's put it this way, has not been conducive to getting as much done on the 19th century schedules as I would have liked.

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

The quickstart in OOTP does not accurately reflect team movement nor the true league structures of the National Association, National League and American Association during the 1800's.

The latter is of necessity due to the current limitations in that area in the game in regards to historical leagues; the former is due to the choices that Garlon made in terms of connecting the 1901 teams to prior seasons.

Hopefully for next year OOTP will at least be able to handle the contraction of teams and leagues when running a historical league. Those two changes would allow a much closer recreating of actual 19th century baseball history.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

I haven't forgotten about this, but it's just that the last month or so, well, let's put it this way, has not been conducive to getting as much done on the 19th century schedules as I would have liked.

The latter is of necessity due to the current limitations in that area in the game in regards to historical leagues; the former is due to the choices that Garlon made in terms of connecting the 1901 teams to prior seasons.

Hopefully for next year OOTP will at least be able to handle the contraction of teams and leagues when running a historical league. Those two changes would allow a much closer recreating of actual 19th century baseball history.

For me what I have done is manually configure my leagues for 19th century play. This requires more effort from a users perspective but, I have found this is the only way to go if you want to reflect actual 19th century lay as much as possible.

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

There were three versions of the Philadelphia Athletics.

The original Athletics originated in 1860 in the National Association. They left the failing N.A. and were one of the original National League franchises in 1876. They were expelled from N.L the after the 1876 season and became defunct.

The second version of the Philadelphia Athletics was a charter memeber of the American Association in 1882 and became defunct when the league folded in 1891.

The third version (the modern A's) was a charter member of the American League in 1901.

The quickstart in OOTP does not accurately reflect team movement nor the true league structures of the National Association, National League and American Association during the 1800's.

I knew the name of the Philadelphia Athletics kicked around for a while, it just didn't make any sense to me in OOTP that it was being replaced by an organization of the same exact name right away. Now I understand that it was just a database issue.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Kelric

I knew the name of the Philadelphia Athletics kicked around for a while, it just didn't make any sense to me in OOTP that it was being replaced by an organization of the same exact name right away. Now I understand that it was just a database issue.

Yes. Also the same applies for the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The first Cincinnati team was expelled I believe after the 1880 season. The second Red Stocking team began in the American Association in 1882, then eventually moved over to the NL and became the Reds.

OOTP is not capable of reflecting these changes as stated before. Hopefully this will be implemented in forthcoming versions.

[Garlon]

If you use the DB that comes with OOTP, either the real-life stats or he neutralized stats, that teams.csv file does all of the work for you regarding expansion and cotnraction. From 1871-1881 there are 8 teams, and from 1882-1901 there are 16 teams. IRL there were over 100 franchises in the 180's that went defunct. This file works around that issue by linking franchises with tams that were there pedecessors or in some places just by filling som gaps. For example the Cubs are linked with the Chicago White Stockings of the National Association of 1871-1875, however that franchise went on a world tour in 1872-1873 so I just filled in the gap in th team's recod fo the sake of continuity. By using this file no franchises ever go defunct and there is no need for contraction, and 1882 is the only expansion year between 1871-1960.

Here's how the file is set up and how the franchises are linked together:

National League

Cubs (franchiseID CHC)
1876-1901: teamID CHN
1872-1875: teamID CH2
1871: teamID CH1

Braves (franchiseID ATL)
1876-1901: teamID BSN
1871-1875: teamID BS1

Reds (franchiseID CIN)
1890-1901: teamID CIN
1881-1889: teamID CN2
1871-1880: teamID CN1

Dodgers (franchise ID LAD)
1890-1901: teamID BRO
1876-1889: teamID BR3
1871-1875: teamID BR2

Giants (franchiseID SFG)
1882-1901: teamID NY1

Pirates (franchiseID PIT)
1887-1901: teamID PIT
1882-1886: teamID PT1

Phillies (franchiseID PHI)
1882-1901: teamID PHI

Cardinals (franchiseID STL)
1892-1901: teamID SLN
1882-1891: teamID SL4


American League

Indians (franchiseID CLE)
1900-1901: teamID CLE
1889-1899: teamID CL4
1885-1888: teamID CL3
1873-1884: teamID CL2
1871-1872: teamID CL1

Athletics (franchiseID OAK)
1891-1901: teamID PHA
1877-1890: teamID PH4
1876: teamID PHN
1871-1875: teamID PH1

Orioles (franchise ID BAL)
1900-1901: teamID MLA
1892-1899: teamID LS3
1882-1891: teamID LS2
1876-1881: teamID SL3
1871-1875: teamID SL2

Yankees (franchise ID NYY)
1900-1901: teamID BLA
1892-1899: teamID BLN
1890-1891: teamID BL3
1875-1889: teamID BL2
1871-1874: teamID BL1

Twins (franchiseID MIN)
1900-1901: teamID WS1
1892-1899: teamID WSN
1890-1891: teamID WS9
1882-1889: teamID WS8

Tigers (franchiseID DET)
1889-1901: teamID DET
1882-1888: teamID DTN

Red Sox (franchiseID BOS)
1882-1901: teamID BOS

White Sox (franchiseID CHW)
1882-1901: teamID CHA


1871-1881 League Structure by franchise

NL
Cubs
Braves
Reds
Dodgers

AL
Indians
Athletics
Orioles
Yankees


1882-1901 League Structure will be the same as the 1901 league structure.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Garlon

If you use the DB that comes with OOTP, either the real-life stats or he neutralized stats, that teams.csv file does all of the work for you regarding expansion and cotnraction. From 1871-1881 there are 8 teams, and from 1882-1901 there are 16 teams. IRL there were over 100 franchises in the 180's that went defunct. This file works around that issue by linking franchises with tams that were there pedecessors or in some places just by filling som gaps.

Thanks for the clarification and layout.

[BaseballMan]

It would be a lot easier if you could rearrange the schedule from within the game. So you could have different day off for different teams instead of every team off on the same day.
Anyways i deceided to start in 1871 and sim till 1876. Then erase league history and career stats and redraft. That way i can have all the players who debuted bewtween 1871-1875 and played in the National League. It was always the players i wanted to use from the National Association and not really replay the hisatory of that league since im not so sure it was a pro league at least by todays standards. I probably wont have pitchers with as many career wins because it is either have a 1-2 man rotation in a 70 game schedule or use 3 and not have a pitcher with 70 game starts in a season and no chance for any modern era player to top it. Wish you could erase the leaderboard so that you could have a leaderboard for the 19th century and one for the modern era.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

It would be a lot easier if you could rearrange the schedule from within the game. So you could have different day off for different teams instead of every team off on the same day.

Yeah, proper historical schedules are needed to accurately reflect 19th century pitching stats. At this time there are no proper 19th century schedules out there. You will have to create them manually at this time.

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Wish you could erase the leaderboard so that you could have a leaderboard for the 19th century and one for the modern era.

My work around has been to create the National League as a stand alone in 1876 and American League in 1900. The AL begins as a minor league (as was the case in 1900). In 1901, I create the MLB with the AL and NL. I then transfer teams from the original leagues along with players into the newly created MLB into the respective leagues. I then do a export and re-import of the stats file to transfer player stats over to the new league. Works fine for me.

[BaseballMan]

What i did since i may have a different set of teams than the real leagues is that i made my schedule from april to oct regardless of amount of teams & pitchers. So that ment that in 1871 with a 30 game schedule it may be a week between games. Slowly it would decrease as the # of games in the schedule increased. I have had injuries and fatigue on avg and never lost a pitcher for too long. Position players filled in for a few games but hey it hapened in real life.

[BaseballMan]

I think Garlon's work is best for newcomers to the 19th century play. But for me i like the chaos of the 19th century with teams folding and the league expanding.
But i try to have the same amount of teams as they did each year using the American Association as well as the NL.

For protection lists i take the amount of players before expansion and always make sure the current teams have the same # or 1 more than the expansion. Otherwise if i just set it at 12 in the early years i would have too many for current teams and later too many for expansion teams.

For exmple in 1872 i have 6 current teams and expand by 4. Before the draft i have 88 players. So i set the protection list to 9. 6x9=54. Leaves 34 players for expansion. So 34/4= at least 8 players for expansion teams. Now with the draft each team should have enough players. And later i dont have teams stockpiling pitchers because the roster size should remain balanced between current teams and expansion teams.

[BaseballMan]

To keep the expansion teams from getting all the pitchers in the draft i set expansion teams to draft last. This way existing teams who lost pitchers due to retirement can have a chance of getting a pitcher. Otherwise the expansion would hog the pitchers from both drafts. Then i reverse the order for the remaining rounds. This will help expansion teams be competitive. Since they cant really take a chance on lower players if they will be folding in a couple of years. Would it make much difference to set all expansion teams that will have less than 3 years of existence to win now?

[BaseballMan]

Have to let expansion teams draft first after the first year because there are only 5 rookie pitchers and the the first expansion team pick would be #7. By then all 5 pitchers would be taken.

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

What i did since i may have a different set of teams than the real leagues is that i made my schedule from april to oct regardless of amount of teams & pitchers. So that ment that in 1871 with a 30 game schedule it may be a week between games. Slowly it would decrease as the # of games in the schedule increased. I have had injuries and fatigue on avg and never lost a pitcher for too long. Position players filled in for a few games but hey it hapened in real life.

I ended up releasing the as-played schedules for 1871-1875 sometime last fall. Of course, you need to have the exact number of teams that there were in real life. They're somewhere in the Mods->Schedules forum, and I think I uploaded them at AllSimBaseball.

You also have to realize that the schedule teams actually played is heavily influence by the instability of the times. For example, it wasn't uncommon for teams to play only the first half of their schedule and then fold in the middle of the season.

EDIT: Here's the link: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...schedules.html

[scott07]

The way stolen bases worked in the 19th century is also annoying in the game when playing historical replays. Pre 1898 the stolen base was slightly different and is not reflected in the game.