is it better to start with a fictional league as a new player?

[Antmf]

Being almost brand new to the game although not baseball all of these stats have my head spinning lol. I am a Yankee fan I know I know they blew it playing Boston lol. So my question to you guys is do I start with a fictional league or play as the Yankees or perhaps another team? And I do not have a real clue on how to handle the draft being new and all. What are your suggestions?
P.S. Any particular settings I should choose as a beginner?

[NoOne]

settings -- keep it simple (stupid)... kiss principle.. follow it at least initially, and then anytime you try to implement something sophisticated or different.

deviate when you understand things better all you want. anytime you try something new, maybe test it out on a throw-away league - can use a restored backup to clone existing league if necessary.

one suggestion -- use 100% accuracy for a season or 3. learn what the ratings mean before clouding the picture. easy to think something only to be fooled by a bad scouting value.. then it takes longer to learn you were wrong initially, etc etc...

find threads that discuss League totals and Modifers in depth. understand it callibrates your league. in some contexts you may need to 'autocalculate modifiers' occasionally. more often you're better off just adjusting "1" and going from there. (e.g. you want 10% more home runs, you add 10% to the LTM for HR)

general reasons: change in historic era, transitioning from real 2018 players to fictionalyl generated players for draft, transition from 'seed' league players to fictioanlyl created players for draft.. etc... get the idea?

something like league expansion would qualify too, but there's reasons not to with expansion too.. maybe you want to see if it dilutes or exagerrates things wihtout changing the "physics" of the game. (no physics engine here, lol, mean that loosely)

change in player/ratings distribution, you likely want to autocalculate the modifiers, unless the resulting change is how you want to cause a shift in the league stats etc... (ie on purpose).

stats do fluctuate with an unchangingn set of modifiers, now worries... even so you don't want to click this autocalculate button every year... that would cause extrememly flet results... in the reasons i gave above, after a 'transition' you don't have to worry anymore either...

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i'd say the easiest way to start is with real players 2018 or simple historical without much worry about setup/setitngs, but it's splitting hairs at best.

if you don't get hung up on 'names', the familiarity with players will allow you to see through any scouting inaccuracies and similar contexts.

you could find all sorts of draft guides in forums... it's similar to real life.

good SP is basically gone in a 30T league by end of round 2-5 depending on depth and luck. the most promising talent will be gone within 10-20 picks. more likely TCR-related if HoF quality after that, but on occasion 30 teams can scout 1 player poorly... that's not as common obviously.

if you don't pick 1-5, don't expect to find a mike trout or max sherzer. best talent available is always the best way to draft in baseball. draft what you can, fill the rest with FA. never draft on need... unless all choices are equivalent.

tcr - talent change randomness. setting - game/global settings? players/face gen? thereabouts. (believe it is the latter)

batters are fairly straightforward as far as expected production and the ratings you see. i would look at them as "2" differetn types... obp qualities vs those with slugging qualities. sluggers, like sp, are off the board far earlier and with greater demand.


pitching is complicated. focus on quality of individual pitches, not overall stuff. sometimes seemingly similar quality player will have drastically different hr/9, k/9, bb/9 etc... but there is a reason even if difficult to root out.

movement -- as long as low hr/9 or opponents slugging against et al., it's low enough... i place a higher priority on movement for an RP than an SP, but still important to both. i think 3 pitches help or something in that dynamic that is different between sp and rp roles in ootp.

conlrol -- some minimum for either role... again some differences. i'm willing to sacrifice a bit more control for an RP than an SP. you can get away with a slightly sub-half scale control for an inning or two, but over 6-7 and the inevitable degrading of it due to fatigue is a different matter.

*a ~1/2 scale control SP is capable of multiple cy youngs, don't get me wrong, but it would be a very special player -- elite stuff/move/gb% etc. to overcome a higher bb/9.

due to numerous factors involved, you may see varying bb/9 relative to control... other things contribute, that's why. so, try to see what is different anytime that deviates from expectation -- pitches throw, quality of each, gb% etc etc... find a trend? avoid it or seek it out as appropriate.

understanding when you can dip a bit lower in this rating or that for apitcher can help you dig up gems in the draft that others cannot see even with 100% scouting accuracy.

overall/potential -- useful for sorting only, don't put much weight into it during draft... focus on each individual ratings and what it provides (more complicated for pitching. if you think a 21/80 sp is better than a 40/80sp, i'd suggest going with the "21".

ugh more pitching tidbit... any 20 and under is more likely to gain velocity after you draft them.. .obviously 18 more often than 20 will gain velocity too (more time, younger). so, stuff *can* change dramatically compared to what you see. high risk, high reward context.

once i can't see any SP that i like, i filter <21 and look for good movement and control... and if they get a velo bump could be great stuff too. due to rish, i obviously search for these guys after i can't find what i know to be a better bet. (leaving that vague on purpose -- each to their own without data mining as proof).
.

[Antmf]

Wow thank you so much...

[BirdWatcher]

I'm in love with OOTP Fictional play but when I first started playing I found it easiest to pick up a team and a time I knew well. Which in my case meant taking over the Rockies in their inaugural season to see if I could get them to the promised land quicker then, well, whenever that might finally happen IRL.

I don't think you can go wrong whatever you choose to do, but as NoOne indicated above, start basic and add on as you get more experience with the game.

One advantage with going the fictional route is that you can't rely on your preconceived notions about the players. It adds to the challenge but can also decrease some of the frustration and internal bias.

[Antmf]

So say I go with a fictional league how do i determine who hits first send third etc? Especially with no prior stats?

[BirdWatcher]

I know there are some pretty good discussions about batting order around here somewhere though I can't point you to them right now. I'd try searching a bit (google?) to see if you can find those.

But essentially you are going to do this, to start with anyway, based upon ratings. As NoOne (IIRC) likes to say, stats follow ratings. Beyond that a lot of it has to do with your own batting order philosophy (and, obviously, the makeup of your team.)
Most indications are that batting order is not terribly significant in the long run. If you have good players up and down your lineup it doesn't really matter where they bat (it does, just not that much) and if you have bad players (well, bad hitters) then same thing.

I believe the general consensus is get your best OBP guys up near the top and your worst down near the bottom. (OBP mostly meaning combination of high EYE rating and good contact and if good Avoid K rating even better.) A lot of folks say have your best hitter hit second in the order and your next best hitter in the third slot. Most power, fourth (cleanup) generally. Speed at the top or great OBP? If you have someone who combines both (Ricky Henderson, Tim Raines), great. No brainer. Most would probably say get a guy with a great OBP and not horrible speed (not a base clogger) hitting first.

Those are just a few trends in terms of the ideas here and elsewhere that I have gleaned. But I say try stuff and have fun and don't be afraid to fail and learn from your mistakes.

And, obviously, as things progress you can adjust based upon actual stats, in case there are obvious discrepancies between ratings and on-field performance. Just don't over-react to small sample sizes as, assuming scouting is good, eventually most will perform as their ratings indicate.

[Antmf]

Do you guys recommend playing as GM or Manager or maybe both as a new player? Although I know baseball I just don’t know drafts and trades very well. Please let me know. Thanks.


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[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Antmf

Do you guys recommend playing as GM or Manager or maybe both as a new player? Although I know baseball I just don’t know drafts and trades very well. Please let me know. Thanks.


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Such a matter of personal preference this.
Me- I prefer to play as both GM and manager as I have a hard time giving up control over much. (Though I don't micro-manage in-game but rather let the AI do so with my strategy settings, lineups, and starting pitching selections.)
But I think you have to be willing to make mistakes at first and not worry about that too much. And I'm speaking right now particularly in the areas of drafting and trading (and contracts,etc). Have fun with it. See what happens. If it gets too out of hand burn it down to the ground and start again. Learn from your mistakes. Fail better. And so on. That's a huge part of the fun. (I think.)

[Hitsch]

And if you want, you can assign in the manager options some tasks (such as minor league personnel management) to the AI .

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Hitsch

And if you want, you can assign in the manager options some tasks (such as minor league personnel management) to the AI .

Yes, I second this and highly recommend that you do, especially at first.

[Antmf]

Is this for batters / fielders, pitchers or all of the above. I know I look at OBP for batters for trying to determine the lineup what do you look at for pitchers to determine rotation and last but not least what is WAR lol. Thank you.

[Cactusguy21]

Originally Posted by Antmf

Is this for batters / fielders, pitchers or all of the above. I know I look at OBP for batters for trying to determine the lineup what do you look at for pitchers to determine rotation and last but not least what is WAR lol. Thank you.

WAR is useful for batters, because it takes into account defense. However, be wary of it. It is not a great catch-all. rWAR is very useful for pitchers. Sadly the WAR value displayed by the engine for pitchers is some useless FIP-based WAR, you have to go to "extended pitching stats 2" to find rWAR, which is more of a runs-allowed WAR. FIP-based stats completely ignore ground-ball pitchers.

[NoOne]

war is trash half-kidding.

it correlates.. weaker-medium strength, i'd guess. has merits... but as with overall and potential, it's not going to tell you much. any all-in-one stat cannot be used to say definitively that one player is better than another simply by a small margin of that all-in-one stat -- that's based on some things that are inevitably going to be found erroneous or at least out of proportion etc etc.

i'm biased against war and the like... comparing to 'replacement' just boggles my mind. why would that be the choice for callibration? ops+ has teh same problem, but with a suitable sample it's more accurate for batters, imo.

focus on individual attributes in conjunction with what you see in war, rwar and ops+ type stats. bb-rate, so-rate, BA/OBP, power numbers(rates, never count) etc...

a leadoff hitter is sompletely different than a hitter expected to drive in runs. war and ops+ et al.. do not account for this. so, they get even more useless and inaccurate. think of them as an e-peen and reason to give 1 player the MVP or cy young over another for relatively small and arbitrary differences

delegate all the nitty gritty you want -- do control a few 'high quality' prospects that you care about -- future use or trade bait. make shortlist. "lock" them to current level and the AI will never move them. (right-click and "set game strategy"). you will want to control those prospects' promotions. you will be better than the AI even with zero experience .

i'd browse over those prospects anytime you get a scouting update. review ratings / stats, and promote as necessary. keep the list short or long... up to how much time you want to invest.

at this point, i like just being a GM... but i still controll the coach. probably cannot do this in challenge mode, lol. i make the coach a mini-me. I, II, III, IV etc...iterations as they retire. i set coach strategey sliders -- again can't do that in chellenge mode i'm sure.

gm-legacy mode [sic], so i have total control over depth charts even if i have a controlling coach with great success that won't let me, typically. if you ever go gm-only, you likely will appreciate the gm-legacy mode option (game settings).

i'd like to point out that any 2018 league with real players is at least a half "fictional league"... real players, fictional as in it hasn't happened (hadn't*).

play whichever you like more -- real players, or not.. historical or not. not sure? try all 3 types and in any combination feasible.