Military Service etc

Umeboshi · 11-21-2016, 05:04 PM

I was interested in doing an historical game starting in 1919 and running up to the present, so I did a little investigation of what happens when a player went into military service.

I created a Historical League starting in 1944, managing the Cardinals, and before I started the game, I checked the box in historical settings that forces players to miss seasons that they missed in real life, to see what would happen to certain players that I knew entered military service in 1945 (e.g., Stan Musial). Sure enough, I did get a message at the end of the playoffs in 1944 that Stan would be out for the next year (put on the 60-day DLwith a diagnosis of “missed season IRL”), and he did come back to the Cardinals roster at the end of the playoffs in 1945, so that part seems OK, as far as it goes.

However a couple of issues arose that seem weird to me. First, professional service time is increased by a year when the player misses a season in this way. That *might* make sense in the case of military service (I do not know what the real-life rules are onthat issue), but it seems that a player who was out of the game for personal reasons, not for military service, should NOT accrue professional service time (Mike Donlin missed the 1909-1910 seasons to pursue his vaudeville career, for example).

A second issue is that, at the start of 1944, players who were out of baseball due to military service that year (e.g., Ted Williams, JoeDiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese) are listed as free agents, and I was able to offer them contracts. Once I made the contract offers, in some cases I was informed that those players were also negotiating with other teams. Again, I do not know what the real-life rules are on this, but it does seem to me that if the person is in fact in the military, they are not going to be available to play in professional baseball under any circumstances, offer or not. Also, I wonder if teams other than the one the player was on when he left for military service should be allowed to make offers to such players.

Though I realize that this may be a minor issue for leagues starting in the present day, the sheer numbers of players who were in military service during the World Wars made handling such player absences one of the biggest challenges for GMs in those eras, so I think there is an argument that handling military service should be made more realistic for historic league play.

I am guessing that the current game code does something pretty simple such as just looking for years for which the player has no professional stats. And I realize that it might take a LOT of research to handle militaryservice in a more detailed way (e.g., for years that the player was out only *part* of the baseball season due to military service). But I think, at the minimum, it would be less jarring to your GM experience if you couldn’t make contract offers to players who were supposed to be out for military service that year.

actionjackson · 11-21-2016, 10:29 PM

Putting the player on the 60-day DL during his absence must be the way the game handles it. If it is, he's going to accrue service time because players on the DL accrue service time while they're on it. Tough to do it any other way I suppose.

You might have to solve the offering contracts issue by going into commish mode and using the editor tab in the player's card to put the players back on the team they were on when they left. When I played straight historical, I played with neutralized stats and had the "players miss seasons..." box unchecked. Neutralized stats fills in those gaps with typical seasons for the player in question. I realize that may not work for you though depending on how much real life realism you want in your game. Just throwing it out there as a suggestion.

Umeboshi · 11-22-2016, 04:08 AM

Ah, yes, so the main options I was planning on playing with (as far as what I think are the likely relevant ones):

import real minor leagues is ON
base current ratings on: Real Stats
optimize player rating for: Career Play
player development: use talent ratings and OOTP development engine

I’m actually a little vague on the differences between real and neutralized stats, other than what it says in the manual, so I just left it on the default, which is real stats. I’d consider using neutralized stats, but it wouldn’t really help me as far as I can tell: my goal was that the people in military service would actually be out of baseball for the seasons they were supposed to be out for military service, so I’m not as concerned about what their stats would be if they *weren’t* out of baseball for those seasons.

Yes, agree generally with your point that I could use commissioner mode to void any signings of guys who are supposed to be in military service, but in this case I fear it might be impractical. If I start the game in, say, 1944, I see all the guys who were in military service for that year in the free agent list. But, there isn’t really anything in their status, as far as I can see, that tells me that they are in the free agent list as a result of them having a gap year for military service or whatever, as opposed to people who are free agents for other reasons, such as simply getting released and not picked up on waivers. And so I don’t know exactly who the gap year guys are. And since there were reportedly hundreds of players in military service during World War II, it’s not going to easy to monitor all of them.

So, basically, I do understand that a comprehensive solution for handling military service might be costly in development and research time, but I posted this anyway to see how other people might have addressed the issues I mentioned in my initial post.

And, for these guys who are out for the season due to having missed the season in real life, I’m wondering if it might be a reasonable code change to give them a different status from free agent or being on the DL, so that they can’t receive offers and possibly not accrue professional service time.

11-21-2016, 05:04 PM	#1
Umeboshi Bat Boy Join Date: Nov 2016 Posts: 8	Military Service etc I was interested in doing an historical game starting in 1919 and running up to the present, so I did a little investigation of what happens when a player went into military service. I created a Historical League starting in 1944, managing the Cardinals, and before I started the game, I checked the box in historical settings that forces players to miss seasons that they missed in real life, to see what would happen to certain players that I knew entered military service in 1945 (e.g., Stan Musial). Sure enough, I did get a message at the end of the playoffs in 1944 that Stan would be out for the next year (put on the 60-day DLwith a diagnosis of “missed season IRL”), and he did come back to the Cardinals roster at the end of the playoffs in 1945, so that part seems OK, as far as it goes. However a couple of issues arose that seem weird to me. First, professional service time is increased by a year when the player misses a season in this way. That might make sense in the case of military service (I do not know what the real-life rules are onthat issue), but it seems that a player who was out of the game for personal reasons, not for military service, should NOT accrue professional service time (Mike Donlin missed the 1909-1910 seasons to pursue his vaudeville career, for example). A second issue is that, at the start of 1944, players who were out of baseball due to military service that year (e.g., Ted Williams, JoeDiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese) are listed as free agents, and I was able to offer them contracts. Once I made the contract offers, in some cases I was informed that those players were also negotiating with other teams. Again, I do not know what the real-life rules are on this, but it does seem to me that if the person is in fact in the military, they are not going to be available to play in professional baseball under any circumstances, offer or not. Also, I wonder if teams other than the one the player was on when he left for military service should be allowed to make offers to such players. Though I realize that this may be a minor issue for leagues starting in the present day, the sheer numbers of players who were in military service during the World Wars made handling such player absences one of the biggest challenges for GMs in those eras, so I think there is an argument that handling military service should be made more realistic for historic league play. I am guessing that the current game code does something pretty simple such as just looking for years for which the player has no professional stats. And I realize that it might take a LOT of research to handle militaryservice in a more detailed way (e.g., for years that the player was out only part of the baseball season due to military service). But I think, at the minimum, it would be less jarring to your GM experience if you couldn’t make contract offers to players who were supposed to be out for military service that year. Last edited by Umeboshi; 11-21-2016 at 05:10 PM. Reason: typos

11-22-2016, 04:08 AM	#3
Umeboshi Bat Boy Join Date: Nov 2016 Posts: 8	Ah, yes, so the main options I was planning on playing with (as far as what I think are the likely relevant ones): import real minor leagues is ON base current ratings on: Real Stats optimize player rating for: Career Play player development: use talent ratings and OOTP development engine I’m actually a little vague on the differences between real and neutralized stats, other than what it says in the manual, so I just left it on the default, which is real stats. I’d consider using neutralized stats, but it wouldn’t really help me as far as I can tell: my goal was that the people in military service would actually be out of baseball for the seasons they were supposed to be out for military service, so I’m not as concerned about what their stats would be if they weren’t out of baseball for those seasons. Yes, agree generally with your point that I could use commissioner mode to void any signings of guys who are supposed to be in military service, but in this case I fear it might be impractical. If I start the game in, say, 1944, I see all the guys who were in military service for that year in the free agent list. But, there isn’t really anything in their status, as far as I can see, that tells me that they are in the free agent list as a result of them having a gap year for military service or whatever, as opposed to people who are free agents for other reasons, such as simply getting released and not picked up on waivers. And so I don’t know exactly who the gap year guys are. And since there were reportedly hundreds of players in military service during World War II, it’s not going to easy to monitor all of them. So, basically, I do understand that a comprehensive solution for handling military service might be costly in development and research time, but I posted this anyway to see how other people might have addressed the issues I mentioned in my initial post. And, for these guys who are out for the season due to having missed the season in real life, I’m wondering if it might be a reasonable code change to give them a different status from free agent or being on the DL, so that they can’t receive offers and possibly not accrue professional service time. Last edited by Umeboshi; 11-22-2016 at 01:12 PM. Reason: typos

11-21-2016, 10:29 PM	#2
actionjackson Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Toronto, ON Posts: 6,123	Putting the player on the 60-day DL during his absence must be the way the game handles it. If it is, he's going to accrue service time because players on the DL accrue service time while they're on it. Tough to do it any other way I suppose. You might have to solve the offering contracts issue by going into commish mode and using the editor tab in the player's card to put the players back on the team they were on when they left. When I played straight historical, I played with neutralized stats and had the "players miss seasons..." box unchecked. Neutralized stats fills in those gaps with typical seasons for the player in question. I realize that may not work for you though depending on how much real life realism you want in your game. Just throwing it out there as a suggestion.