Fictional League but with Historical Players?

[Ormondbeachdan]

OK.. I am not a Newbie... but an Oldie (67) so maybe my brain is going soft. I do very well with the game, stadiums, pics etc etc
1. If you "Create a New Game and it is "Fictional" it says in the description you can use fictional, real or historical players. So far I have only been able to do a draft with Fictional players. What am I doing wrong??? If anything..


2. I see it is NOT possible to do "Historical" say 1960, and change the number of divisions etc because it is historical correct?


3. I know I can do say any historical year and then have a draft and do the "use random historicalk players, but that doesn't help me make up different divisions etc... Hope this makes sense.

[David Watts]

The main thing you want to do is uncheck the box for Auto Expansion or Expand according to history. This is important because if you leave it checked(on), all the changes you make are going to revert back to history during the offseason(example, change a team from the Detroit Tigers to the Battle Creek Flakes, if expand according to history is checked, the Flakes will be the Flakes during the season, but revert to the Tigers for the start of the next season) The auto expand is one of the selections you make when using the historical league setup wizard.

Once you have unchecked that box, you can create your league. Once created, you can go to League Settings and select change league structure Here you will be able to delete teams, rename teams, move teams from one division to another, delete and add divsions, delete a Subleague etc etc.

Another thing to remember when doing this is to GENERATE A NEW SCHEDULE. Do this before you proceed to opening day.

I have no clue how any of this works with the new Historical Minor League feature, but I'm guessing it won't. So just don't opt for historical minors and you will be fine.

I guess I should have said this to begin with. This is a way you can use the historical setup wizard to create a historical league, but change the teams to fictional ones.

[kungfupandacam]

I'm not sure if I understand well, but if you want to make a fictional league with some historical players you can use Spritze's DB.

[stl jason]

You can create a fictional league and have it use real players... I posted something on it awhile back. I'll see if I can dig it up (it was for v16, but I wouldn't think the process would be much different on v17).

edit: Found it. Try this....

-create your fictional league (setup league parameters/teams/divisions/etc).

-in the "players" section, change the settings for "generate international amateur free agents" and "generate international established free agents" and "generate free agents from independent leagues" to None. (edit: also change "international scouting discoveries" to None, or your scouting dept will find random fictional players from time to time). One more optional edit also in the players section: set the min/max age range for fictional players high, so maybe 32 min / 34 max. Again, if you don't mind one/two/three seasons or so with those inaugural fictional players, they'll all be old enough that they won't rack up mega stats in the record books and retire after 3-5 years.

-in the "options" section, check off the box for "automatically import real historical rookies"

-optional: also in the "options" section, check off "use random rookies from all eras" (I personally like using this on fictional "historical player" setups so I don't know who will show up in the draft, and I might get Ty Cobb in the same draft with Nolan Ryan).


the inaugural draft pool will be fictional players. Just my preference here again, but I don't mind a single season of fictional players in the stats. Once that first year is done, you can either retire those players and have the game import enough real historical rookies to fill all the rosters again. (after that, adjust the number of rounds/players imported to fewer rounds, so you don''t keep pulling in a ton of new rookies each year); or just let those fictional players live out their careers. If you set the min/max age for fictional players like I mentioned above, they'll retire in a few years anyway.

[Ormondbeachdan]

Thanks!!! I would appreciate it so much !..

[txranger]

Another one I think stl jason might have missed is under League Settings, Rules, Amateur Draft Settings, check Disable Automatic Creation of Free Agents... I think this would apply to your situation...

[joestros]

Ormandbeachdan, did you ever get this to work? I asked the same question in the General Discussion forum and have not been able to get it to work. It seems like this should be easy to do.

[Greek]

Originally Posted by joestros

Ormandbeachdan, did you ever get this to work? I asked the same question in the General Discussion forum and have not been able to get it to work. It seems like this should be easy to do.

Are you trying to get all the minors and have trading or just create a Major League setting using historical teams from different eras (where you want them performing based on real-life stats)?

[joestros]

Hi Greek. I am trying to set up a fictional league (fictional name and structure), but use the real players from the 2015 season.

Things I DO NOT want to happen in the league:
- Fictional players for the inaugural season or any season thereafter created in any manner.
- Minor leagues or feeder leagues. I'd like to manually determine the free agent pool each season.
- Players to develop. I only want the game to use data taken from a player's most recent real-life season (for example, Bryce Harper's 2015 real life stats and ratings, then his real life stats and rating from 2016 after the 2016 real life season is complete).
- Automatic league evolution of any kind. I want to control when and how the league evolves if at all.
- Prefer not to have mini goals, i.e. resign so-and-so, increase attendance, etc.
- A.I trading / GM activities. Other human managers or I will be conducting GM activities.

Things I DO want to happen in the league:
- Customized league / division structures and team names. Not just names, but number of leagues, number of divisions, and number of teams in each division.
- Real life players using their real life stats and ratings based on those stats.
- Want to be able to hold an annual draft where the player pool comes from real players not already assigned to rosters.
- League history maintained. For example, we want to see Jake Arrieta's career stats and how well Albert Pujols performed for the Green River Snakes for in 2015. In other words, I don't want a one-and-done type league.
- The ability to evolve the league manually, i.e. expand, change team / division / league names.
- A reserve roster of a customized size.
- Use real-life stats and ratings, including real life left/right splits.

[Greek]

Originally Posted by joestros

Hi Greek. I am trying to set up a fictional league (fictional name and structure), but use the real players from the 2015 season.

Things I DO NOT want to happen in the league:
- Fictional players for the inaugural season or any season thereafter created in any manner.
- Minor leagues or feeder leagues. I'd like to manually determine the free agent pool each season.
- Players to develop. I only want the game to use data taken from a player's most recent real-life season (for example, Bryce Harper's 2015 real life stats and ratings, then his real life stats and rating from 2016 after the 2016 real life season is complete).
- Automatic league evolution of any kind. I want to control when and how the league evolves if at all.
- Prefer not to have mini goals, i.e. resign so-and-so, increase attendance, etc.
- A.I trading / GM activities. Other human managers or I will be conducting GM activities.

Things I DO want to happen in the league:
- Customized league / division structures and team names. Not just names, but number of leagues, number of divisions, and number of teams in each division.
- Real life players using their real life stats and ratings based on those stats.
- Want to be able to hold an annual draft where the player pool comes from real players not already assigned to rosters.
- League history maintained. For example, we want to see Jake Arrieta's career stats and how well Albert Pujols performed for the Green River Snakes for in 2015. In other words, I don't want a one-and-done type league.
- The ability to evolve the league manually, i.e. expand, change team / division / league names.
- A reserve roster of a customized size.
- Use real-life stats and ratings, including real life left/right splits.

Ouch, very creative. I have to admit I have not been this creative myself, pretty much limiting it to real teams from different eras playing against each other in leagues with no minor league or trading. You've stumped me here. Very sorry.

[Ormondbeachdan]

Originally Posted by joestros

Ormandbeachdan, did you ever get this to work? I asked the same question in the General Discussion forum and have not been able to get it to work. It seems like this should be easy to do.

The only thing I have had trouble with is doing 'Playoffs? World Series etc etc.. somehow I'm not setting that part up correctly..

[ZepTepi]

With all the possibilities OOTP17 allows for could I create a fictional league and pick a particular year in the past such as the year I really began following MLB(1979) and have the fictional leagues teams draft only players who were on MLB teams in 1979 then have subsequent years draft pools contain only real players who came into MLB during that next year? In my mind this would be the perfect mix of real players from my years as a MLB fan and the "fantasy" of a league I design.

Is this possible?

[Harryherky]

Has anyone had any luck running a fictional league using historical players?
I am very interested in such a venture but would love to hear from someone who has been successful.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by Harryherky

Has anyone had any luck running a fictional league using historical players?
I am very interested in such a venture but would love to hear from someone who has been successful.

yes.

when the league is created, if you want only historical players, you need to delete all the fictional player right after you create the leagues. (i don't, as i WANT a mix of historical and fictional players).

what i did was download Spritze database, just because i like the way it's set-up.

a link is on this page:
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...195144&page=50

i then take the CSV file (a download for it is in the same thread ....
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...195144&page=51
and copy players from each individual year into a text file, making certain i add a comma, space and year for the player after every player in the list... an idea how o do this is here:
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...postcount=1018
i import the entire year to either FA or draft pool, depending on how and where you want those players. That way i have the historical players in my game. it's time consuming, especially getting the players from the CSV file and adding the correct year after them, but it does work.

Tiger fan has a create write up (a sticky on historicals) on how he does a similar thing ... you might want to take a look at that.
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=276256
lots of people really liked his method.


hope this helps.

[Curve Ball Dave]

Create a custom league of four teams. Go to "edit league structure" and delete the teams, then delete the players (they're in the free agent screen).

You now have a blank slate. You can go back to the league structure and import historical teams, create teams and name them what you want, go to the free agent screen and import historical players, or do all of the above. You can also rename the historical teams as you choose.

It's not that hard.

[Harryherky]

How do I import the historical players to the league once I have deleted the fictional players?

[Curve Ball Dave]

Originally Posted by Harryherky

How do I import the historical players to the league once I have deleted the fictional players?

As I stated, go the free agent screen. There's a button that says "Import Historical Players" under Available Actions.

Quoting the on line manual"

Importing Historical Players
Commissioners have the ability to import individual historical players from the Free Agents, Draft Pool, and Show All Players pages. To import historical players, click on the Import Historical Player action button at the bottom of the page. Choose the database you wish to use. (By default, use the file historical_database.odb found in the datastats directory in your User Data location.) Then, you then go through a process very similar to that used to import an entire historical league, as described in Adding Historical Leagues.

The main difference between this screen and importing an entire historical league is that you must know the player's unique ID, as used in the historical database. Enter this value in the first field, and then select the other options, which are described in detail in Adding Historical Leagues.

Note: One 'trick' to finding the player's ID is to visit BaseballReference.com. Look up the player you wish to import, and then check the URL string. The player's unique ID is the portion of the file name before .shtml.

Once you are done, click Import Player to bring the player into your game. He will appear on the Free Agent screen immediately.

A note about player IDs, say you wanted to import Steve Garvey (first name that popped into my head), go to BaseballReference.com as was suggested above, do a search for Garvey, and his player ID right before .shtml is garvest01. You can import multiple players by putting their IDs on a text (txt) file. If you do it this way you'll need the player ID and the year. So if you want Garvey from 1974 you put on the text file garvest01,1974. Once you're at the Import screen you'll see where you can select the text file. It's faster than doing players one at a time.

I recommend that once you import the teams and players you go to the League Settings page and run a re-scout.