My wish list for OOTP 15. . .

[OBSL Commish]

1) Some sort of indexing service that will either download players' updated ratings from OOTP developments or download updated real life minor league stats. My league uses the real minor leagues and the real amateur drafts each year, and it is a pain in the a** to edit all the players with their updated ratings with each version. The ratings don't automatically update when you import a league from one version to the next so it would be nice if this process could be simplified or sped up in some way.

2) Be able to have a true salary cap. Sometimes, I'd like to not see media revenue and current scouting expenses and all that other financial data that sometimes seems not to add up, especially when the data says you have X amount of money but you can't sign a FA because the game says you have -X amount of money. Just having the option to have a true salary cap would get rid of all the confusion. Nothing but players' salaries and any money received or given in trades are taken into account in the expenses report. And coaches' salaries if they are being used.

[OBSL Commish]

3) New rating for pitchers: Repeatable Delivery. It could be shortened to just Delivery. If a pitcher has the same delivery for his offspeed pitches as he does for his fastball, then that makes him much more effective and more dominant. If a batter can't distinguish a pitcher's pitches from differences in their deliveries, then the batter will have a much harder time getting hits because he'll get fooled more often.

[blasek0]

All of these are excellent ideas, I think.

[OBSL Commish]

4) The ability to ask your scout who he thinks you should sign during free agency. It would make you, as GM, consider your options more carefully when signing a scouting director. This could also go hand-in-hand with. . .

5) A personal strategy page, where you outline what your plans are for certain prospects and players. For example, you have an All-Star 3B who is getting older and you have a young IF prospect who you think could do just as well at that position. So, you check a box that says, "Shop 3B to the league" to collect offers for your All-Star. Your scouting director could also have some feedback about who to trade him to by giving you lists of top prospects from other teams who have a need at 3B.

[OBSL Commish]

6) When selecting All-Stars, we and the AI should be able to select the starters and then the reserves, just like they are announced in MLB.

[OBSL Commish]

7) New ratings for prospects to help determine the likelihood that they will reach their potentials. Baseball America gives prospects ratings like "Risky", "Safe", "Extreme", etc., plus numerical ratings as their way of rating the likelihood that a prospect will reach his ceiling.

8) New hitting rating that could help add to the "fog of war" and help separate hitters from each other: how likely a player will learn to hit a breaking ball. I don't know what to call this, but it would help to know a batter's aptitude for this when trying to choose between hitters in the later rounds of drafts.

[OBSL Commish]

9) Let us have the option to instruct a pitcher to learn a new pitch. Too many two pitch-types with high stamina in the drafts who only seem to develop into bullpen arms/emergency starters. In real life, players work on new pitches all the time, and if one "tweener" pitcher is successful at developing another pitch, then it would add another dimension to finding that "diamond in the rough" (a la Tim Wakefield, Brett Myers, etc.)

[DrSatan]

Originally Posted by OBSL Commish

9) Let us have the option to instruct a pitcher to learn a new pitch. Too many two pitch-types with high stamina in the drafts who only seem to develop into bullpen arms/emergency starters. In real life, players work on new pitches all the time, and if one "tweener" pitcher is successful at developing another pitch, then it would add another dimension to finding that "diamond in the rough" (a la Tim Wakefield, Brett Myers, etc.)

I like this idea, and its been brought up before. Now that we're signing 16yr olds into our international complexes; it makes sense that this would be an option. The results could be included in the Development Report with a simple blurb "Attempting to learn a new pitch" followed by "It's not working" or "He's progressing" in future reports. It just seems unlikely that I would sign a stud 16yr old who already knows 5 pitches. Same goes for HS pitchers. Most of these guys should only know a couple pitches coming out of HS. That's really where Work Ethic and Intelligence needs to be a bigger part of the game.

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by DrSatan

I like this idea, and its been brought up before. Now that we're signing 16yr olds into our international complexes; it makes sense that this would be an option. The results could be included in the Development Report with a simple blurb "Attempting to learn a new pitch" followed by "It's not working" or "He's progressing" in future reports. It just seems unlikely that I would sign a stud 16yr old who already knows 5 pitches. Same goes for HS pitchers. Most of these guys should only know a couple pitches coming out of HS. That's really where Work Ethic and Intelligence needs to be a bigger part of the game.

Thanks for adding that aspect to my suggestion.

[OBSL Commish]

10) A la OOTP's Inside The Park game and MLB The Show's Road to the Show mode, give us an option to create a player and guide his baseball career path by playing out his games/at bats and negotiating his contracts, endorsement deals, etc. Have specific storylines tailored to our player by letting us fill out biographical information on him. One such example is that a charity he endorses is charged with embezzlement and fraud, and his popularity drops as more details come to light and his performance on the field suffers because he may face charges as well.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by OBSL Commish

10) A la OOTP's Inside The Park game and MLB The Show's Road to the Show mode, give us an option to create a player and guide his baseball career path by playing out his games/at bats and negotiating his contracts, endorsement deals, etc. Have specific storylines tailored to our player by letting us fill out biographical information on him. One such example is that a charity he endorses is charged with embezzlement and fraud, and his popularity drops as more details come to light and his performance on the field suffers because he may face charges as well.

The only issue I see here is that it would be fairly difficult and time-consuming to implement, as it'd effectively be a game within a game. But if they could find a way to do it and not have the managerial aspects of the game be ignored, I'd love it.

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

The only issue I see here is that it would be fairly difficult and time-consuming to implement, as it'd effectively be a game within a game. But if they could find a way to do it and not have the managerial aspects of the game be ignored, I'd love it.

Yeah I can see it being a pain. But if it can be implemented as a mode like a quickstart or a historical game, then it should be easier to program because it could have its own set of programming code like the other modes. Then it'd be nice if we could select what years/era to play in as well.

[OBSL Commish]

11) For online league free agent signings: Let the commish set a minimum bid amount and a time limit for bidding on free agents, either collectively or individually. Then let teams bid on them until someone wins them. It would help continuity in player histories and save work for the commishes so they won't have to edit player histories to reflect the signings as they are done now, when a commish edits the player onto a team's roster.

[tdmsu]

May I suggest:

12) Online face to face play? It would be so cool to play the world series games live against a human! Imagine the tension and strategy involved in the late innings - does my ace have another inning in him? Should I bring in the closer who has been shaky recently? Perhaps other league members could watch a gamecast, and be allowed to comment with cheers or jeers?

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by tdmsu

May I suggest:

12) Online face to face play? It would be so cool to play the world series games live against a human! Imagine the tension and strategy involved in the late innings - does my ace have another inning in him? Should I bring in the closer who has been shaky recently? Perhaps other league members could watch a gamecast, and be allowed to comment with cheers or jeers?

That's a good one. It's been requested quite a few times, and a lot of us are hoping it makes it into the game soon.

[OBSL Commish]

13) Give us the option to label certain players as Opening Day starters in spring training. That could give them a boost to their morale which may cause them to play better. Or, if they have a low work ethic, that could cause them to slack off, since they know they're assured of a job, which could cause them to be traded off and ignite a storyline in which the player and the GM or owner get into a shouting match at a press conference or in the locker room after a game. The AI could also use this info to create storylines about position battles in spring training, which could be posted in the preseason predictions section.

[nyy26wc]

Originally Posted by OBSL Commish

7) New ratings for prospects to help determine the likelihood that they will reach their potentials. Baseball America gives prospects ratings like "Risky", "Safe", "Extreme", etc., plus numerical ratings as their way of rating the likelihood that a prospect will reach his ceiling.

I really like that one.

[OBSL Commish]

14) In the offseason, when established international free agents are created, please add their ages in the email notifying us of these new IFAs. I never sign anyone over 27 years of age so it's kind of a pain to go through each one individually and see whether or not they're worth signing to me.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by OBSL Commish

3) New rating for pitchers: Repeatable Delivery. It could be shortened to just Delivery. If a pitcher has the same delivery for his offspeed pitches as he does for his fastball, then that makes him much more effective and more dominant. If a batter can't distinguish a pitcher's pitches from differences in their deliveries, then the batter will have a much harder time getting hits because he'll get fooled more often.

That should already be factored into a pitcher's ratings for his off-spead pitches. If he's tipping off his off-spead pitch, then it won't be as effective. No need to devise an entirely new rating for something that's already factored into the existing ratings.

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

That should already be factored into a pitcher's ratings for his off-spead pitches. If he's tipping off his off-spead pitch, then it won't be as effective. No need to devise an entirely new rating for something that's already factored into the existing ratings.

Yeah probably. But there should be something within the scouting reports about a pitcher's delivery and how effective it should be with certain pitches, etc.