Is there a way to improve the draft pool?

[beatle]

Is there a way to improve the draft pool? I was wondering if there was a setting to increase the talent in the draft pool. I started playing in V20, 1st season, only 2, 5-star players. This seemed low to me.

[NoOne]

i don't think the draft class export includes the ratings? but if it does, you could set up some automated random increase of things using a spreadsheet and automate the whole process for the most part.

you could also mess with PCM - player creation modifiers - which will shift the entire distribution curve of the various ratings. A rising tide, but should still retain some assemblance of stratification, if it gets whacky large increase, maybe not.

whether created for feeder leagues or directly for your draft, those PCM should improve quality. if everyone is within 5% of max, that's going to level things out too much, so avoid that type of situation. the more you increase the PCM, the more bunched up the players get at the top. in some contexts, this might actually reduce 'peak' numbers for various stats of the "best" players.

devil's advocate -- shift perspective.. .stop worrying that a "2" star doesn't look good. while correlated, overall is not very clear except at the extremes. barring inaccuracy, superstars and duds are quite easy to identify by overall. the middle is not the same.

also, the overalls/potentials at draft time are increadibly inaccurate scouting data, unless 100% accuracy is enabled. The AI Eval hasn't kicked in to augment it, either. those values are incredibly unuseful for anything. doubly so due to context of the draft.

if he's a 2-star but has insanely high contact, he might be a 5-star by the time he's an MLB player. if he's got okay contact and insane power? same thing, different routes to improved AI eval overal and potential ratings..

don't worry about things that aren't causal in nature -- like overall and potential.

[beatle]

What is PCM? Thanks for responding.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by beatle

Is there a way to improve the draft pool? I was wondering if there was a setting to increase the talent in the draft pool. I started playing in V20, 1st season, only 2, 5-star players. This seemed low to me.

I have often wondered if I should just play OOTPB as it is designed... but I never have done this... it just might be the best way to play the game... Markus and the Gang know a tad bit more about the game than EC.

I don't think many people play OOTPB like I do... I'm quirky and a control freak... I never use the default settings... never use financials... never use the minor leagues... not interested in the financial aspects of the game... don't want to be general manager or manager... I just create the league and watch it play out.

Surely the minor league stats are better than 10-15 years ago... they were not very true-to-life back then... so I have never used the minor leagues... I just play at the Major League Level with Reserved Rosters.

In "Free Agents" I create my own free agents... create mainly 70% Average players, 20% Good players, 5% Star players, 4.5% Bench players and 0.5% Legend players,

I just put the Bench players in for the sake of variety, knowing they will never make it to the Majors... I consider that the team made a bad draft choice when they select a Bench player...I just randomly assign players in the Commissioner mode, based on each teams' needed, determined by the Positional Rankings (see Reports and Info).

The Free Agents Draft just clutters up the rosters with a lot of lousy players... I have seen them just sit in my Reserve Rosters for 10 years and never make it to the Major Leagues.

I just try to create players that have the talent to play in the Majors.

It works well for me.

[Zedwardson]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I don't think many people play OOTPB like I do... I'm quirky and a control freak... I never use the default settings... never use financials... never use the minor leagues... not interested in the financial aspects of the game... don't want to be general manager or manager... I just create the league and watch it play out..

Most of the time I just create a league and let it play out, at most I might prod some expansion or perhaps some realignment if it expands enough, but I do have the minors and drafts and let the financials happen as I love to see how sometimes top draft picks never make it to the majors, and some kid drafted late in the draft suddenly figures baseball out at age 23 and becomes a all star.

[RedSoxJack]

I thought that there was a place in the Global/League Settings where you were able to change the quality of a draft pool, but I can't find it. I looked through all the pages and couldn't find anything... I would double check there though and look through all the settings pages, if it is possible to do, it would be there.

Other than that, the only option would be to edit specific players, but that's cheating!

I have had a low draft pick for quite a while now in my league, so I sometimes edit a couple guys that will (hopefully) become superstars for the worst teams, but I usually like to just ride it out and see what happens with a lesser quality draft class.

For International Amateur FA's there are sometimes some really poor groups of players, so I'll edit a couple to make their potential better. I then turn their greed level up to the max so that anyone (including myself) will have to pay extra for their excellence.

[WIUPIKE]

If you have relative ratings on the amount of players with potential 4.5 to 5 star players should only be limited to a couple. It's not a matter of the quality of the players but there relative ranking to your league.

[Ruwisc]

Does changing the size of the draft pool affect the number of quality players created, or does the game create draft pools from "top to bottom" so to speak, with the same number of quality players no matter how big the pool is?

I'm actually trying to lower the quality of my league's draft pool a bit and thought cutting some rounds' worth of players might do the trick.

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by Ruwisc

Does changing the size of the draft pool affect the number of quality players created, or does the game create draft pools from "top to bottom" so to speak, with the same number of quality players no matter how big the pool is?

I'm actually trying to lower the quality of my league's draft pool a bit and thought cutting some rounds' worth of players might do the trick.

Yes. In my 10-team, 15-round draft league a 4* non-reliever is considered a strong candidate, if not the favorite, to go first overall, for example.

[Curve Ball Dave]

This topic comes a lot here.

Guys who start as five star prospects don't necessarily stay five star prospects. By the same token, guys who don't come out of the draft as five star guys can develop into one.

Ratings fluctuate. Development is not a smooth straight line, there are peaks and valleys along the way, and there is no instant gratification. If any draft pick develops into a productive every day big leaguer it's a success story.

[Zedwardson]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

This topic comes a lot here.

Guys who start as five star prospects don't necessarily stay five star prospects. By the same token, guys who don't come out of the draft as five star guys can develop into one.

Ratings fluctuate. Development is not a smooth straight line, there are peaks and valleys along the way, and there is no instant gratification. If any draft pick develops into a productive every day big leaguer it's a success story.

All my first round draft picks that never make the majors and the 1001st pick in the inaugural draft that ended up as a 13 time pitcher of the year is testament to that fact.

[Rain King]

You could adjust the Sabermetric Creation Modifiers. I'd be careful with that though, the game is designed to create draft classes that will keep your league balanced from a talent standpoint already.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

This topic comes a lot here.

Guys who start as five star prospects don't necessarily stay five star prospects. By the same token, guys who don't come out of the draft as five star guys can develop into one.

Ratings fluctuate. Development is not a smooth straight line, there are peaks and valleys along the way, and there is no instant gratification. If any draft pick develops into a productive every day big leaguer it's a success story.

And this is why I use default settings as Markus and Matt have tested this more than i ever can or will. They see more test games in one version than I have played in my on going league stared with v4 in 2002.

I have a 25 year old, two time Cy Young award winner on my roster that was a late 6th round pick. I don't use stars but I can assure you he was a 20/80 when I took him in the draft. I took him because he was durable, not a head case, could throw in the high 90's, keeps the ball down, and had the three pitches to be a potential starter. I draft a lot of these guys with traits I like and sit back and hope. Most of the time they wither in the minors but.. on occasion I get a guy like this

It's great OOTP is so flexible letting us tinker at will but... I think far too many get caught up in the over-alls or stars and make adjustments that don't need to be made My 2 cents, FWIW

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by beatle

What is PCM? Thanks for responding.

quick glance didn't see if somoene answered.

player creation modifiers under league settings -> players? maybe options? 1 left of stats and ai.

what rain king mentions is on the same settings page too. double check manual. verbage used may indicate what those impact. i'm pretty sure it's more than just creation? e.g. in minors i think it impacts upper/lower levels of development at that level. at the very least it impacts the 'fill' function? anyway, read up on this stuff before dinking around with it.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Ruwisc

Does changing the size of the draft pool affect the number of quality players created, or does the game create draft pools from "top to bottom" so to speak, with the same number of quality players no matter how big the pool is?

I'm actually trying to lower the quality of my league's draft pool a bit and thought cutting some rounds' worth of players might do the trick.

no, increasing rounds will not improve quality much. you have a larger quantity which mean more TCR-caused mlb players.

a larger top-level league improves depth of draft.

i cannot speak to a feeder system. i'd assume it creates players for hs/college under similar logic/rules as for the draft.

simply do a test... if you have a good familiarity of low, average, high drafts for your settings, go add 20 rounds. the talent will fall off at the same points, then you just have 3x the filler players that may or may not make it beyond A-ball, let alone to AAA.

[PSUColonel]

Here's my question: I use the MLB setup but I do implement minor league roster rules.

AAA 25
AA. 25
A+. 25 no more than 6 years of service
A. 25 no more than 5 years service time
A- 35. no more than 4 years
R. 35 no more than 3 years
DSL. 35. no more than 4 years


so my question is...with these rules enabled how many players do I need to generate to keep a healthy amount of players? Secondly how will this affect the balance of talent in the league?

I use a 40 round draft, and generate players for 45 rounds....however I am getting concerned that may not be anywhere near enough....and if not, do I need to generate say 80 rounds worth of players? If I do that, what will happen to the talent distribution in the league?

[sabrtoothtiger]

Is there anyway to delete minor leagues in challenge mode? i'd love to be able to manually get rid of 4-5 leagues like will likely happen in real life - however this is not possible in challenge mode. Is there anyway to get around this?

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Here's my question: I use the MLB setup but I do implement minor league roster rules.

AAA 25
AA. 25
A+. 25 no more than 6 years of service
A. 25 no more than 5 years service time
A- 35. no more than 4 years
R. 35 no more than 3 years
DSL. 35. no more than 4 years


so my question is...with these rules enabled how many players do I need to generate to keep a healthy amount of players? Secondly how will this affect the balance of talent in the league?

I use a 40 round draft, and generate players for 45 rounds....however I am getting concerned that may not be anywhere near enough....and if not, do I need to generate say 80 rounds worth of players? If I do that, what will happen to the talent distribution in the league?

I have similar roster sizes for rules and use a 35-round draft with players generated for 40 rounds and it's plenty. I think the only way it wouldn't be plenty is if you had international players turned off. And even then, I think you'd be OK because (at least for me) very few international discoveries ever get out of my development complex.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

I have similar roster sizes for rules and use a 35-round draft with players generated for 40 rounds and it's plenty. I think the only way it wouldn't be plenty is if you had international players turned off. And even then, I think you'd be OK because (at least for me) very few international discoveries ever get out of my development complex.

Do you have the service time limits?

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Do you have the service time limits?

Yes, not exactly like yours, but very similar.