Absolute Blockbuster of a Trade in my 42 year old Historical Random Debut

[David Watts]

Mid August 1970 now and Ken Griffey Jr. continues his torrid pace hitting .406 with 30+ home runs and 96 RBI. Thing is, due to his early season injury, he still doesn't have enough at bats to qualify for a batting title. This puts Greg Luzinski at the top with a pedestrian .362

Meanwhile, Fort Worth is running away with things. The Mustangs currently have a 13 game lead over the 2nd place Alexandria Aces. The wildcard race is bunched up with the Aces, Birmingham, Mobile and Shreveport all in contention for the 2 available slots.

Van Mungo, went down with a serious injury earlier in the season. It's looking like he may not be back this season. This leaves him sitting on 249 wins.

[David Watts]

Got up this morning and as I always do, squeezed in a few games before heading off to work. Yeah, instead of a hearty breakfast, I start my days with fake baseball. So, I head to Alexandria to watch a series between the Fort Worth Mustangs and the Aces. In the first game, Graig Nettles leaves with an injury suffered running the bases. He's listed as day to day with calf soreness. So, on to the second game. Once again, Nettles leaves the game early due to injury, this time due to a collision while running the bases. He's now day to day with blurred vision. Looks like Nettles needs to simply hit home runs, so he can trot around the bases peacefully.

[G-Force]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Got up this morning and as I always do, squeezed in a few games before heading off to work. Yeah, instead of a hearty breakfast, I start my days with fake baseball. So, I head to Alexandria to watch a series between the Fort Worth Mustangs and the Aces. In the first game, Graig Nettles leaves with an injury suffered running the bases. He's listed as day to day with calf soreness. So, on to the second game. Once again, Nettles leaves the game early due to injury, this time due to a collision while running the bases. He's now day to day with blurred vision. Looks like Nettles needs to simply hit home runs, so he can trot around the bases peacefully.

Funny! My morning coffee was spent wrapping up and writing the entries for the final days of my ABL dynasty's pennant races. Better than watching the news

GH

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by G-Force

Funny! My morning coffee was spent wrapping up and writing the entries for the final days of my ABL dynasty's pennant races. Better than watching the news

GH

Mine instead spent writing up reports of my own random debut league, now in its 18th year, with 1986 set as the permanent historical year that I reset each season. So we understand each other.

by the way Nettles remains one of my favorite players ever, very under-rated. Had he played during the steroid era, he would have hit 40 plus homes a year, and he fielded not much shy of the Brooks Robinson level when in his prime.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Those settings are correct in my league, what does "Use pre-defined draft value for AI" do to the draft? I have never used that setting. Just moved the draft from 15 Dec to 15 Nov because it supposedly can cause other problems with the draft class. I was lucky I am still in my 1914 preseason. My settings are getting closer to my "perfect" random debut league (he says with his fingers crossed). The thing that I am now thinking of is setting all the stats and freezing to a year as you do, undecided but I am trying to think the idea through, too many decisions!!!!!

Sorry I missed this query JaBurns. "Use pre-defined draft value for AI" is a way to ensure the best players go to the teams drafting early in the draft (usually bad teams). The way it does this is that it assigns a value for each player (which you can see in the master.csv file if you wish to look it up), and then the AI drafts the players in the draft in order from the highest (best) value to the lowest (worst) value. Just a way of making the AI a bit smarter when it comes to the draft. I highly recommend unchecking it for all inaugural and expansion drafts because the AI teams will start getting great players who may be past their greatness if you know what I mean. Whether you want to check it for the amateur draft is up to you, but it's good to know what it is when you're trying to decide whether or not to use it.

I hope the November 15th date works for you. I think it's a good date for it because it's right around the time that free agents file. However, I thought I had heard that December 15th was the date to use because funny things happen if you don't. I guess we'll let you be the guinea pig on that one!

[JaBurns]

Okay actionjackson another question; you tie your stats output to 1984 stats, I think I understand why, the how I will figure out, which boxes to check and leave unchecked.

The question is if you were to pick a season other than 1984 which season would that be in history?

My latest idea is in 19 I will start two different random debut leagues in 1901 one with historical stats and financials progression, the other with a frozen year for stats but historical financials. Both will have unaffiliated minors with the MLB teams having the option to purchase players. I will then see which one grabs me the hardest and keep the other as a fall back league because undoubtedly I will change my mind and want to mess with things.....

Any other comments, suggestions, pitfalls to watch for and avoid from either you or Mr. Watts will be gratefully accepted, I have 8 days left to clear up any issues with my experimental league in 18. I am worse than a kid at Christmas waiting for next Monday.

[JaBurns]

Question 2: which database do I point at to have Negro Leaguers import into my draft? I really don't want to import them manually, I tend to really mess that up royally and then have to yell at my computer for an extended period of time.

[Jeff1787]

For what it's worth, I use Spritze's DB for importing Negro League players.

I wonder how finances effect Historical Leagues. I always turn them off.

[JaBurns]

Do you import Negro Leaguers individually or do they appear in your draft classes? I would like them to appear randomly in my draft classes.

[Jeff1787]

I import them individually. Those that never made the big leagues won't appear in your draft class. Like Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Biz Mackey, etc.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Okay actionjackson another question; you tie your stats output to 1984 stats, I think I understand why, the how I will figure out, which boxes to check and leave unchecked.

The question is if you were to pick a season other than 1984 which season would that be in history?

My latest idea is in 19 I will start two different random debut leagues in 1901 one with historical stats and financials progression, the other with a frozen year for stats but historical financials. Both will have unaffiliated minors with the MLB teams having the option to purchase players. I will then see which one grabs me the hardest and keep the other as a fall back league because undoubtedly I will change my mind and want to mess with things.....

Any other comments, suggestions, pitfalls to watch for and avoid from either you or Mr. Watts will be gratefully accepted, I have 8 days left to clear up any issues with my experimental league in 18. I am worse than a kid at Christmas waiting for next Monday.

Tying stats to one season will get a whole lot easier in OOTP19. Apparently, Markus put a setting in there that will allow you to tie stats to the season of your choice in perpetuity. It's a lot more complicated for him to do this with strategy settings so that's not feasible right now. There are two boxes each for stats output (or LTMs) and strategy settings. One is located on the Historical page, and one is located on the Stats & AI page. Same thing for strategy settings. Uncheck both boxes (or all four if you will). Then set the strategy settings to 1984 (when you're setting the game up), and set the league totals to 1984 the day before Opening Day every season. One caveat though. Be sure to check your Financials after you input 1984 into strategy settings and league totals. For some reason, things got a little sticky in OOTP18, and your financials will be dragged into 1984 along with the other two. This did not happen in OOTP16, but it does with OOTP18.

Needless to say, it is not good to play with 1984 financials in 1901, so be sure to check anytime you set the strategy settings to 1984, or you reset the league totals to 1984. It's imperative that if you play with financials on that you allow them to progress historically. I would think not doing so could really mess things up, especially given the fact that stadium sizes have gone from 8,000 to 10,000 on up to 50,000, and now have settled back around 40,000ish.

As for seasons outside of 1984 that work for me, let's look at 1984: 4.26 R/G, with a .260/.323/.385/.708 slash line. I suggest looking at seasons with R/G between 4.20 and 4.30, but that's just my sweet spot. You may prefer more offense, or more pitching and defense than I do, if that's the case you'll have to find your own season of preference. Seasons between 4.20 and 4.30 include 1973, 1975, 2015, 1984, 1990, 1958, 2011, 1980, and 1982. Remember that if you pick a season from the 1980s (and even 1990), you will also get some of the highest stolen base totals of the modern era (say 1920 forward) if you like that sort of thing. There will also be a lot of CS (CS% around 1/3 of the time) in that time which may frustrate you too. See this page for a breakdown of MLB batting totals by year, and choose your favourite.

I think that's it for now. If you have any other questions, fire away.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Question 2: which database do I point at to have Negro Leaguers import into my draft? I really don't want to import them manually, I tend to really mess that up royally and then have to yell at my computer for an extended period of time.

Unfortunately it is (at this point) impossible to have Negro Leaguers come in automagically in the amateur draft when one is playing a historical random debut because you can only use the historical MLB database for random debut games, and none of the Negro Leaguers are in there, as none of them (except the fortunate few that got to play MLB) got to play in The Show. They are either in the historical MiLB database, or the Spritze DB, which unfortunately means manual importing and verbal abuse directed at your computer, while your confused family members/housemates look on in bewilderment.

[JaBurns]

Thank you I think 1958 it will be easy to remember for me. Stolen bases will take care of themselves over time I hope....
Just looked at the pitching stats for ‘58 ERA at 3.95 with 202 saves which seems good enough offence but not too much in that year.

[JaBurns]

My family members are not confused they just roll their eyes walk away thinking “He is trying something in his baseball game again...” and leave the room.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Thank you I think 1958 it will be easy to remember for me. Stolen bases will take care of themselves over time I hope.

You won't get many stolen bases using 1958 for your stats settings. They were almost a complete non-factor in baseball back then. More dingers though. Here's a per game comparison of 1984 versus 1958:

1958: R: 4.28, PA: 38.12, AB: 33.94, H: 8.75, 2B: 1.37, 3B: 0.27, HR: 0.91, RBI: 4.03, SB, 0.30, CS: 0.21, BB: 3.29, K: 4.95, TB: 13.38, GDP: 0.83, HBP: 0.20, SH: 0.42, SF: 0.26, IBB: 0.27, .258/.325/.394/.719

1984: R: 4.26, PA: 38.14, AB: 34.16, H: 8.88, 2B: 1.48, 3B: 0.23, HR: 0.77, RBI: 3.99, SB: 0.72, CS: 0.36, BB: 3.16, K: 5.34, TB: 13.14, GDP: 0.76, HBP: 0.16, SH: 0.34, SF: 0.31, IBB: 0.30, .260/.323/.385/.708

[actionjackson]

The other thing is if you tie stats output and strategy settings to 1958, you're gonna render relief pitchers damn near useless. I suppose you could try different years for the two of them. I've never done so, but I don't see why you couldn't.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

My family members are not confused they just roll their eyes walk away thinking “He is trying something in his baseball game again...” and leave the room.

Love your join date by the way. Wonderful memories of the stretch run for a team that seemingly Could. Not. Lose. (2015 Blue Jays: 43-18 over the final 61 games)

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

You won't get many stolen bases using 1958 for your stats settings. They were almost a complete non-factor in baseball back then. More dingers though. Here's a per game comparison of 1984 versus 1958:

1958: R: 4.28, PA: 38.12, AB: 33.94, H: 8.75, 2B: 1.37, 3B: 0.27, HR: 0.91, RBI: 4.03, SB, 0.30, CS: 0.21, BB: 3.29, K: 4.95, TB: 13.38, GDP: 0.83, HBP: 0.20, SH: 0.42, SF: 0.26, IBB: 0.27, .258/.325/.394/.719

1984: R: 4.26, PA: 38.14, AB: 34.16, H: 8.88, 2B: 1.48, 3B: 0.23, HR: 0.77, RBI: 3.99, SB: 0.72, CS: 0.36, BB: 3.16, K: 5.34, TB: 13.14, GDP: 0.76, HBP: 0.16, SH: 0.34, SF: 0.31, IBB: 0.30, .260/.323/.385/.708

As a reference point my league leader in stolen bases for 1958 was Hap Myers with 43. Vada Pinson was next on the list with 29, followed, by Josh Devore with 26, Del Howard with 25 and Fred Snodgrass with 21.

If you look at the year before 1957, Josh Devore led with 49, Hal Chase had 40. It then dropped all the way down to Craig Biggio with 27.

The year after 1959, Hap Myers once again led the league with 45. Josh Devore had 38, followed by Leonys Martin with 35.

So Action is right. Stolen bases are going to be low.

[JaBurns]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

The other thing is if you tie stats output and strategy settings to 1958, you're gonna render relief pitchers damn near useless. I suppose you could try different years for the two of them. I've never done so, but I don't see why you couldn't.

What do mean by tying the stats output to two different years? That could be interesting but I have no idea how to do it....
I will learn over time but do you mean tie the pitchers to say ‘84 and hitters to ‘58?

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

What do mean by tying the stats output to two different years? That could be interesting but I have no idea how to do it....
I will learn over time but do you mean tie the pitchers to say ‘84 and hitters to ‘58?

Sorry. What I meant was tying strategy settings to somewhere from the eighties forward so you make the relievers useful players, and keeping your stats output tied to 1958. Relievers will be pretty much useless if you use 1958 strategy settings as they were barely used at that time in history.