Promotion Relegation Semi-Historical QuickStart 1903, 1919, 1949, 1969

[pbar25]

Promotion Relegation Semi-Historical Quick-start

Goal:

Create a historical sim within a promotion/relegation setting (Quasi English Soccer League Style), with no fictional players involved.



History:

Twenty-five years after the formation of the National League in 1876, the American League declared itself a major league on January 28th, 1901. Up until that point it had been a minor league, but AL owners elected not to renew their National Agreement membership in October of 1900.

This led to an ongoing feud between two competing, separate, major leagues. In 1902, the National League went as far to sabotage the American League's Baltimore franchise, via purchasing away their manager & best players.

Through these acts of desperation however, it had become apparent that the monopoly years were over for the National League. Baseball was expanding it's reach, the time had come for the Junior circuit to compete with the Senior Circuit. Some sort of merger was in order.

National & American League representatives sat down together at the negotiation table seeking long-term peace and prosperity during January of 1903. Also invited to this meeting were six owners from the other side of the continent. These men stemmed from the Pacific Coast League, a brand new league scheduled to start on March 26th, 1903. Those plans however, were about to change...

Assumptions:

Experts had predicted a "Series of Champions" (or a "World Series" of sorts) at the conclusion of each season -- pitting league champions within a short playoff. Not surprisingly, those plans were dismissed as providers of inconclusive winners. Instead, the owners agreed upon complete league unification. Champions would be based on total performance over the course of a newly expanded 154 game schedule.

The American League & National League were to become one 16-team league, dubbed: the Premier League.



Only the cream of the crop will seriously compete for the Premier League Championship. Fortunately, league fanatics can expect engaging competition throughout the entire course of the season due to the fact that last place within the Premier League will earn a demoralizing demotion. (Manual promotion/relegation required: each season on the first day of the 1st Division's preseason)

Having never gotten off the ground, the hopeful Pacific Coast League became the Premier League's first acquisition (No figures were released). This 6-team newly formed league was to act as the lower division to the Premier. Premier League owners coined their newly purchased league:
1st Division.



Players/Database:

All players are historical, stemming from a modified version of Spritze's 2009 historical database.
However, the database is modified to allow for both the Premier League & 1st Division to have their own unique random historical amateur drafts (random in that you won't know which players will enter via the Premier League or via 1st Division -- not random by years they enter the league).

Because the Premier League has more teams they will receive a larger draft pool each season. Included within Spritze's database are an assortment of historical Negro League players, as well as early historical Japanese players.

Rosters:

The 1903 Premier League rosters are the real 1903 historical team rosters, along with numerous minor league players.

In 1903, 1st Division begins with an inaugural draft made up of 119 real players stemming from the negro leagues, PCL, & other minor leagues. This provides for roughly 20 players for each initial 1st Division team, which is fine in 1903.

Amateur drafts take place on 6/15 each season.

Settings:

(Obviously change whatever you like)

1-10 ratings
scouts on
injuries classic
trading average
ratings based on AI evaluation
full historical progression (minus retire according to history)

Expansion:

Automatic league expansion is OFF, but manual expansion is recommended at the appropriate time. Schedule an expansion draft within 1st Division when needed.

IMPORTANT DATES:
1961 Expansion: *, **Texas Rangers,
1962 Expansion: New York Mets, Houston Astros
1969 Expansion: Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals
1970 Arbitration Begins
1975 Free Agency Begins
1977 Expansion: ***Toronto Blue Jays
1993 Expansion: Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies
1998 Expansion: Arizona Diamondbacks, Tampa Bay Rays

*In real-life, the Senator franchise moved to Minnesota, becoming the Twins. A new Senator franchise was born in Washington in 1961, later moving to become the Rangers. The Premier owners have a policy that no franchises may relocate. Therefore, the Twins will never exist and the original Senators remain in Washington.
**In real-life, the Angels were also added in 1961, but they are already in the league.
***ditto for the Seattle Mariners, Seattle already has the Rainiers.
&The game only allows even number of teams for expansion, so I usually pair up the Texas Rangers with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1977.

Finances:

financial progression ON
12 year free agency
no arb
no compensation
no minor league free agency
no expanded rosters

Both leagues have the same historical financial settings. What is important is that the Owner decides on the budget each season. This will lead to enormous profits for franchises each season, while placing important caps on team spending.

Rules:

Manually promote & demote on the first day of 1st Division's preseason, then regenerate the 1st Div & Premier schedules.

Break any ties by scheduling additional games the day before the final day of the season if they are possible. Delete them from the schedule if they are not required.

You do not need to move or worry about the minor leagues with regards to promotion/demotion.

League History:

League history has been erased, so everything starts fresh in 1903.
Players were allowed to keep their service time however.
To view a player's stats sorted by league, click on their BNN tab.
To view a team's history by league, view their team history.
1st place is a promotion or Premier Championship, 16th place is relegation.
All you need to remember is which six teams started in 1st Division.

This quick-start will be released in 2 different versions:
1903 Brand New
1980 (1903-1979 simmed)

Graphics:

Uniforms, Logos, & Colors for all Major League teams (Premier+1stDiv), including future expansion teams should you add those listed above.

Minor leagues are generic.

Installation:

1. Download the 2 winrar files.
2. Extract Premier League 1903.quick folder into C:\Documents and Settings\NAME\My Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 10\quickstart_games
3. Extract the PREMIERDB folder onto C:
4. Open the game\Game\Load Quickstart Game.

Download:

Padre's Fan Website for the quickstart:
http://padresfanmods.net/ 6.7 MB
It's under OOTP/templates
Required Custom database:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zotzmjzwcmg 38 MB


For a file in this format with history 1903 - 1980, please visit this post:
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post2970879

[spleen1015]

This is a cool idea. I'm looking forward to getting a hold of this!

[Dr. P.R. Park III]

Very nice. Can't wait.

[muted79]

piece of adivce re: promotion/relgation... best time to do it is on the first day of pre-season, this way the records for previous seasons are kept in-tact, yet the new season is set-up before anything happens. I also recommend setting up some kind of play-off system for promotion/relegation, in case of ties etc. maybe have the 2nd last team in the premier division face the 2nd team in league 1 in a series, with the winner being in the premier league, the loser in division 1?

[pbar25]

thanks a lot for the interest

Originally Posted by muted79

piece of adivce re: promotion/relgation... best time to do it is on the first day of pre-season, this way the records for previous seasons are kept in-tact, yet the new season is set-up before anything happens. I also recommend setting up some kind of play-off system for promotion/relegation, in case of ties etc. maybe have the 2nd last team in the premier division face the 2nd team in league 1 in a series, with the winner being in the premier league, the loser in division 1?

definitely, you must wait until the first day of 1st Division's preseason when using my quick-start for promotion/relegation (Premier's is on an earlier date).
Otherwise the final standings within league history will not be correct.

I create a one game playoff at the end of each season in the case of ties. Head to head determines home field advantage.

The only situation that I'm not quite sure what happens with is a 3-way (or more) tie. I'm hoping you can schedule multiple games on the end of the season and the game does not declare a champion before all games are complete.


I'm putting up the 1903 fresh quickstart that doesn't have any history.
For those like some history within a quick-start, I'm going to sim until 1919 completely hands off and then put that up when complete. I have already run multiple tests and saw some exciting results.

Just make sure you keep 'Show League Leaders' box checked, otherwise meaningless wild-card standings are displayed.

[pbar25]

I hit a snag in a tie-breaker situation during my sim to 1919.
In the past and all of my tests, every time I had scheduled a one-game playoff the winner had always been crowned the champion. Apparently I was just getting lucky, because I'm not sure what tie-breakers are used, or whether or not you are allowed to schedule any additional games with playoffs disabled.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...-disabled.html

Once I figure out tie-breakers I'll restart the history file.

That idea about the 2nd last vs 2nd place is very interesting, thanks.
It creates the cool scenario of 2 teams possibly moving up in a season.
Might try and figure out a way to include that.

[PadresFan]

Adding this to my website tonight.

[jtb]

Great work!

[Tom the Fish]

I'm giving this a try, although I have not much of an idea of how a Promotion Relegation league would work. Two questions:

Tiebreakers. Are you scheduling them only when they are necessary for first/last place? Or do you want no team to finish tied?

"All you need to remember is which six teams started in 1st Division."

Thanks for this. Should be fun. Aside from the fun of a short playoff series, I've always found it silly to think the best team could be decided that way..

Why?

Tom

[muted79]

the 2nd vs 2nd last playoff also solves the issue about tiebreakers because if first and 2nd are tied, ootp will run a playoff to determine which of the two are the champions because it needs to figure which of the two go into the playoff. This is how I figure it anyway, though have never had a tie between two teams in this position to see if it does work that way.

[kingofdmv]

I keep getting the error message: Cannot find historical database. I have set the path to Spritze's Modified Database in my OOTPX folder, separate from the game's default .csv files. Do I need the Historical Database odb file too or should I just point the game to the master .csv file? Do I not even need to worry about it as this league starts fresh in 1903? Thanks!

[Tom the Fish]

First thing first:

pbar25: Thanks for this set-up. It is extremely fun!!! Your hard work is very appreciated!

Anyway, I've simmed up to 1942 so far. I plan on simming up to 1980 and taking over whatever team gets demoted that year.

Some interesting things:

There have been no dynasties. No team has won the pennant 2 years in a row. One team won 2 out of 3 consecutive years.

This seems a bit weird, but I have no experience with Promotion Regulation leagues, even as a fan: 9 times, a team got promoted and won the Pennant within 2 years. 3 teams even did this the very next year.

The last team to escape Division 1 was the Sacramento Blues in 1917.

In 1928, Detroit was demoted despite having Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth! I checked on Detroit often after this, and Ruth was often wasn't in the starting lineup, usually playing less than 110 games a year. He's still the current Home Run champ with 489. 1929 they dominated the 1st Division, tho.

Tom

[Tom the Fish]

Originally Posted by kingofdmv

I keep getting the error message: Cannot find historical database. I have set the path to Spritze's Modified Database in my OOTPX folder, separate from the game's default .csv files. Do I need the Historical Database odb file too or should I just point the game to the master .csv file? Do I not even need to worry about it as this league starts fresh in 1903? Thanks!

I think you missed some steps in the installation notes. See step 3.

1. Download the 2 winrar files.
2. Extract Premier League 1903.quick folder into C:\Documents and Settings\NAME\My Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 10\quickstart_games
3. Extract the PREMIERDB folder onto C:
4. Open the game\Game\Load Quickstart Game.

Tom

[kingofdmv]

Originally Posted by Tom the Fish

I think you missed some steps in the installation notes. See step 3.

1. Download the 2 winrar files.
2. Extract Premier League 1903.quick folder into C:\Documents and Settings\NAME\My Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 10\quickstart_games
3. Extract the PREMIERDB folder onto C:
4. Open the game\Game\Load Quickstart Game.

Tom

Tom,

Sorry for not being clearer. I have done all the above and did start a game in the above fashion. All the players are there on the right teams with ratings. I only get that error message when I restart the game and load the Premier League saved game. The league plays fine which leads me to believe I don't need the Historical Datatabase.odb file to play. Would there be a problem with me extracting the PREMIERDB into my OOTPX folder? Does it need to be separate from the other default files?

[pbar25]

Originally Posted by kingofdmv

Tom,

Sorry for not being clearer. I have done all the above and did start a game in the above fashion. All the players are there on the right teams with ratings. I only get that error message when I restart the game and load the Premier League saved game. The league plays fine which leads me to believe I don't need the Historical Datatabase.odb file to play. Would there be a problem with me extracting the PREMIERDB into my OOTPX folder? Does it need to be separate from the other default files?

the way I set up the file was for the PREMIERDB to be extracted onto your C: drive, just straight onto it away from your OOTP folder. then you don't need to adjust anything.

If you placed the PREMIERDB somewhere else, you just need to go into the setup for both leagues (Premier & 1st Division) and change the path of the database for each league to the correct path (wherever you put it).

[muted79]

Originally Posted by Tom the Fish

There have been no dynasties. No team has won the pennant 2 years in a row. One team won 2 out of 3 consecutive years.

This seems a bit weird, but I have no experience with Promotion Regulation leagues, even as a fan: 9 times, a team got promoted and won the Pennant within 2 years. 3 teams even did this the very next year.

I have found both these things with promotion/relegation leagues too. Am still trying to find a way to combat it.

[kingofdmv]

Originally Posted by pbar25

the way I set up the file was for the PREMIERDB to be extracted onto your C: drive, just straight onto it away from your OOTP folder. then you don't need to adjust anything.

If you placed the PREMIERDB somewhere else, you just need to go into the setup for both leagues (Premier & 1st Division) and change the path of the database for each league to the correct path (wherever you put it).

Damn, I figured it out. I forgot to change the database path setup for the 1st division league. I guess that's what it was looking for. All is well, now on to some serious playing. Thanks!

[Tom the Fish]

Well, I screwed the pooch big time by missing a regenerate schedule in 1949 and having a team that played no games and not noticing until year-end. I'm trying to figure out how to salvage it... I'd hate to do this all over again (ToT)

Tom

[pbar25]

thanks a lot for the feedback, I love hearing about results.

That's surprising that there haven't been any dynasties for both of you. Plus, no back to back titles is shocking, but it depends how far you have gone.
No back to back 1903-1949 would be shocking, in probably 50 tests I never saw that happen. But in this type of league, repeating is certainly much more difficult.

Ways to allow for more dynasties I suppose, would be to just eliminate free agency altogether, and turn trading down to very low.

Originally Posted by Tom the Fish

Well, I screwed the pooch big time by missing a regenerate schedule in 1949 and having a team that played no games and not noticing until year-end. I'm trying to figure out how to salvage it... I'd hate to do this all over again (ToT)

Tom

I have definitely goofed up quite a few files by doing something like that, either not regenerating or forgetting promotion all together.

[Tom the Fish]

Well, I just decided to keep going and treat 1949 as a year something weird happened and the Braves were all quarantined or something.

I'm up to 1974 now. Ted Williams is the Home Run champ with 620. There have been only 2 300 game winners, Chief Bender (368!) and Ray Collins (344). Rogers Hornsby is the all-time hits leader with 3942.

We had a dynasty in the 50s, with the Cardinals winning 4 out of 5 consecutive world series. The 1949-1950 was the first back-to-back, then they did it again in 52-53. The A's had only the 2nd back-to-back in 73-74.

The game will only let you add an even number of expansion teams at a time, so i decided to save Texas until 1977 to go alongside Toronto. The first expansion team to rise to the Premier league was the Mets in 1972. No other expansion has been promoted yet.

The last of the original teams to get demoted was the Braves in 1949. Only 2 original teams haven't won the pennant so far: The Red Sox and the White Sox.

I'll probably get to 1984 today, where I think I'll take over whatever team gets demoted and play out the games, so things will slow down considerably.

Thanks for this great set-up. I'm having quite a bit of fun!!

I decided to turn the DH on in 1975. Not sure why since I hate the DH.

Tom