Fictional League - Setting up a new one

ohiodevil · 04-04-2020, 02:12 PM

I have been a strict real world player, using the standard quickstart and play as my favorite team or expand and take over one of the new teams. I ended up watching the Ken Burns Baseball series this past week and it got me wanting to start a league in the 1940s and go from there, but I want to go the fictional route so I do not have any idea how a player will (or should) turn out. My question is what is the best route to set it up? I know in the past people recommended creating the league 20-25 years before you want to actually start and the sim those years and then delete the history and then start from there, is this still the case?

endgame · 04-04-2020, 02:16 PM

Will you be using the decade’s teams or fictionalizing those as well?

ohiodevil · 04-04-2020, 02:18 PM

I am going to go with a similar set up, two 8 team leagues and use the actual cities but change the nicknames and all fictional players.

Biggio509 · 04-05-2020, 12:19 AM

I really didn't have many problems after the first year in my fictional leagues. The problem with year 1 is really not enough free agents if you need them to fill AAA injuries. After year 1 and a draft it was less of a problem. I just kind of struggle through year 1 and deal with sometimes bad contracts from the initial draft.

Do you want to play reserve clause era rules? Institute the draft early? The game doesn't feel right with just generated free agents for your minors. Financials by the 40's might be ok but from 1901 to at least the 20's I always felt teams had too much money.

So you can do a couple of things.
1. Start historical. Go into commissioner mode and delete everyone. Fill teams with fictional players. Turn off import real rookies. Turn off import minors.

Pro
Automatic league evolution. The game will expand the league when it did historically.

Cons
Finances in the past weren't optimized to reserve clause era.
Historical minor evolution is really only with importing minors

2. Start a fictional league from strarch in 1940 with 2 8 team leagues.
Con
you will have to manually expand historically.
Pro
You can set financials to a different era to get see if it balances a bit better.

Decisions
Minors
I generally set up the minors like today Rookie, Advanced Rookie, Short A, AA, and AAA. You can get the sabermetric stats to differentiate AR and A+ from a modern game. I trim them a little to each team has a R, SA or AR, A, A+, AA, AAA

You can make the minors completely fictional or you can try to set them up like modern day. I prefer fictional because expansion will automatically puts new teams in a league. The easiest is just one league for each level. You can create sub leagues at each level when the teams go up in number.

Draft
I never thought the game played as well with a free for all any new gen who looked promising. Just seemed to easy to outbid everyone else. There is no way to institute historical bonus rules. So I start the draft early.

So there are some decisions to be made in earlier eras. You can get a fun game but you will never match historical rules to a T prior to the free agency period. The game finances work a lot better in free agency in my opinion too. Historical puts expansions on auto pilot. Starting a fictional is a little more work when leagues start expanding.

The 40's aren't near as hard to recreate as the 19th century or even up to about 1930. Still there are some nuance you may want to avoid by using the draft earlier than historical and maybe even free agency.

Try it with reserve clause though. It is a lot of versions back I got to the 40's. The finances are wonky in the deadball era and you need a lot of indy free agents since you don't have controlled minors for a while. So the 30's and on are a little easier.

If you want I have league evolution spreadsheets that also trace roster, trade rules, etc. I can post my spreadsheet if it is helpful. I spent a lot of time trying to create a fictional universe that parallels the real one. I am not sure if the old mod sights are still up but I have found historical unis for the majors for previous periods. There is also an old mod American baseball 1871 to present that had a ton of fictional major and minor league unis and a timeline on the nicknames if you can still find it. It might be on my harddrive extract but I think my old zip file might have become corrupt.

ohiodevil · 04-05-2020, 08:54 AM

This is awesome information! I have not decided yet how I want to set up the minors and draft, but I am leaning to having that be similar to how it we see it today but use the financials from the era and have them progress and then in the 60s introduce free agency. And also use the offensive and pitching numbers from the era too.

I am ok with expanding and relocating manually as I go and may keep it close to how it happened in real life but with some tweaks.

I think I was more concerned with having guys early on hit 900 homers in a career instead of making it more realistic where the records can be broken without seeing 80-90 home run seasons.

04-04-2020, 02:12 PM	#1
ohiodevil OOTP Roster Team Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Rocky River, Ohio Posts: 2,392	Fictional League - Setting up a new one I have been a strict real world player, using the standard quickstart and play as my favorite team or expand and take over one of the new teams. I ended up watching the Ken Burns Baseball series this past week and it got me wanting to start a league in the 1940s and go from there, but I want to go the fictional route so I do not have any idea how a player will (or should) turn out. My question is what is the best route to set it up? I know in the past people recommended creating the league 20-25 years before you want to actually start and the sim those years and then delete the history and then start from there, is this still the case?

04-04-2020, 02:16 PM	#2
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,843	Will you be using the decade’s teams or fictionalizing those as well? __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

04-04-2020, 02:18 PM	#3
ohiodevil OOTP Roster Team Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Rocky River, Ohio Posts: 2,392	I am going to go with a similar set up, two 8 team leagues and use the actual cities but change the nicknames and all fictional players.

04-05-2020, 12:19 AM	#4
Biggio509 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2,027	I really didn't have many problems after the first year in my fictional leagues. The problem with year 1 is really not enough free agents if you need them to fill AAA injuries. After year 1 and a draft it was less of a problem. I just kind of struggle through year 1 and deal with sometimes bad contracts from the initial draft. Do you want to play reserve clause era rules? Institute the draft early? The game doesn't feel right with just generated free agents for your minors. Financials by the 40's might be ok but from 1901 to at least the 20's I always felt teams had too much money. So you can do a couple of things. 1. Start historical. Go into commissioner mode and delete everyone. Fill teams with fictional players. Turn off import real rookies. Turn off import minors. Pro Automatic league evolution. The game will expand the league when it did historically. Cons Finances in the past weren't optimized to reserve clause era. Historical minor evolution is really only with importing minors 2. Start a fictional league from strarch in 1940 with 2 8 team leagues. Con you will have to manually expand historically. Pro You can set financials to a different era to get see if it balances a bit better. Decisions Minors I generally set up the minors like today Rookie, Advanced Rookie, Short A, AA, and AAA. You can get the sabermetric stats to differentiate AR and A+ from a modern game. I trim them a little to each team has a R, SA or AR, A, A+, AA, AAA You can make the minors completely fictional or you can try to set them up like modern day. I prefer fictional because expansion will automatically puts new teams in a league. The easiest is just one league for each level. You can create sub leagues at each level when the teams go up in number. Draft I never thought the game played as well with a free for all any new gen who looked promising. Just seemed to easy to outbid everyone else. There is no way to institute historical bonus rules. So I start the draft early. So there are some decisions to be made in earlier eras. You can get a fun game but you will never match historical rules to a T prior to the free agency period. The game finances work a lot better in free agency in my opinion too. Historical puts expansions on auto pilot. Starting a fictional is a little more work when leagues start expanding. The 40's aren't near as hard to recreate as the 19th century or even up to about 1930. Still there are some nuance you may want to avoid by using the draft earlier than historical and maybe even free agency. Try it with reserve clause though. It is a lot of versions back I got to the 40's. The finances are wonky in the deadball era and you need a lot of indy free agents since you don't have controlled minors for a while. So the 30's and on are a little easier. If you want I have league evolution spreadsheets that also trace roster, trade rules, etc. I can post my spreadsheet if it is helpful. I spent a lot of time trying to create a fictional universe that parallels the real one. I am not sure if the old mod sights are still up but I have found historical unis for the majors for previous periods. There is also an old mod American baseball 1871 to present that had a ton of fictional major and minor league unis and a timeline on the nicknames if you can still find it. It might be on my harddrive extract but I think my old zip file might have become corrupt.

04-05-2020, 08:54 AM	#5
ohiodevil OOTP Roster Team Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Rocky River, Ohio Posts: 2,392	This is awesome information! I have not decided yet how I want to set up the minors and draft, but I am leaning to having that be similar to how it we see it today but use the financials from the era and have them progress and then in the 60s introduce free agency. And also use the offensive and pitching numbers from the era too. I am ok with expanding and relocating manually as I go and may keep it close to how it happened in real life but with some tweaks. I think I was more concerned with having guys early on hit 900 homers in a career instead of making it more realistic where the records can be broken without seeing 80-90 home run seasons.