How do unaffiliated Minors work when not in independant league?

jarmenia · 06-14-2006, 09:27 AM

Has anyone played with unaffiliated minor league teams when they are not in an independant league? My current setup consists of 16 MLB teams, and 6 levels of minors below that. All the minor league teams are unaffiliated at this point. What I am seeing is that players signed by a minor league team don't ever seem to get "purchased" by a major league club. I do have all free agency turned off to simulate the earl 1900's roster rules. How can I get the cream to rise to the ML level even if the minors are all unaffiliated?

Swimmer · 06-14-2006, 12:24 PM

Do you mean that you have the leagues affiliated but the individual teams affiliation set to "NONE"? Or do you mean that the leagues themselves are unaffiliated?

Here's my experience. If the league is affiliated but a team is unaffiliated, then I get alot of illegal roster errors after a few years of simming. I haven't found a workaround for this other than manually adding players to the affected team's rosters when this happens.

If the leagues themselves are independent, then in order to make the players "bubble up" I have to turn free agency on and set the number of years for FA eligibility low, to like 2 or 1 years. This creates more player turnover in the minor leagues and gives more opportunity for the players to move up through FA signing.

The biggest problem with this is a bug which makes players tend to sign extensions with their current teams without considering the possibility that they could get a better offer from a different league on the FA market. This bug has been reported and has been assigned a TT#, so hopefully it will be fixed in the near future. A workaround for this is to make your minors, particularly your low minors, really strapped for cash, so they don't have as much money to offer extensions.

I hope this info helps. I know that what you really want to do is mimic the days when the reserve clause ruled and there was no free agency. Unfortunately, I have tried but been unable to really mimic that. The game is really built around free agency, and when you take that away, you get very insular computer GMs who tend to stay within their own league. One thing that I have been playing with but haven't got to work well is turning the ammy draft way down or even off for the ML level, and having all of the talent come into the universe at the low minor level. This creates illegal roster errors as well, though, particularly if FA is off and the low minors are holding on to their talent.

jarmenia · 06-14-2006, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swimmer

Do you mean that you have the leagues affiliated but the individual teams affiliation set to "NONE"?

Yes

Quote:

Here's my experience. If the league is affiliated but a team is unaffiliated, then I get alot of illegal roster errors after a few years of simming. I haven't found a workaround for this other than manually adding players to the affected team's rosters when this happens.

My sim is in year 13 and I have not sen this.

Quote:

If the leagues themselves are independent, then in order to make the players "bubble up" I have to turn free agency on and set the number of years for FA eligibility low, to like 2 or 1 years. This creates more player turnover in the minor leagues and gives more opportunity for the players to move up through FA signing.

I was thinking about this, I'll give that a try.

Thanks for the input. Its nice to have a discussion that doesn't revolv around "this game sucks".

Swimmer · 06-14-2006, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jarmenia

My sim is in year 13 and I have not sen this.

It maybe because all of your teams are unaffiliated, and it can handle that better. I have only tried it with a mixed league where most of the teams were affiliated and a few, or one, was set to "none."

Vholes · 06-14-2006, 12:54 PM

Jarmenia,

It sounds like we are trying to set up the same thing. The real problem here is that if you have free agency turned off, your minor leaguers will never leave their unaffiliated teams. (This happens regardless of whether the minor league is affiliated to the major league or not).

Try this for a work-around: set up your major league and your minor league as separate leagues, not affiliated with each other. For the major league, set free agency on to twelve years, and set the days required for one service year to 999. In effect, this means that players signed to your major league will never become free agents.

Next, turn free agency on in the minor league, and set the years required for free agency to the minimum. Set the financials for the minor league so that the teams will be permanently cash-starved, and set the average player salaries so that a superstar in your minor league makes less than the minimum in the major league.

I tried this last night, and the result was that all good players in the minor league would eventually graduate to the major league. This is the best approximation I have been able to find for a fully-functioning independent minor league with no free agency in the major league.

Vholes · 06-14-2006, 01:00 PM

Two things to add: one, you cannot do this method if your minor league is affiliated with the major league, because you cannot set financial rules separately for an affiliated minor league. However, if the minor league is supposed to consist of nothing other than unaffiliated teams, I don't see any reason why you should have to affiliate it with your major league to being with.

Also, be sure to make sure the league rules allow each league to sign and lose free agents from other leagues.

Swimmer · 06-14-2006, 01:05 PM

Vholes,

That sounds like a good plan. Have you tried this with multiple levels of minor leagues?

It seems like it would need some serious financial tweaking if you had, say three levels of minors (AAA, AA, A) and wanted the AAA and AA teams to have enough money to sign the up and coming youngsters, but not enough money to hold on to them for too long.

It would be nice if you could limit the maximum number of contract years as a league setting.

jarmenia · 06-14-2006, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vholes

Two things to add: one, you cannot do this method if your minor league is affiliated with the major league, because you cannot set financial rules separately for an affiliated minor league. However, if the minor league is supposed to consist of nothing other than unaffiliated teams, I don't see any reason why you should have to affiliate it with your major league to being with.

Also, be sure to make sure the league rules allow each league to sign and lose free agents from other leagues.

Hmm. The problem with this is that the teams will eventually become affiliated with the Major League Teams so I need the leagues to start affiliated but the teams not. I think I'll try a mix of your suggestion in that I can turn on Minor League free agency but not major league free agency. That in its self might work better.

Le Grande Orange · 06-14-2006, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vholes

The real problem here is that if you have free agency turned off, your minor leaguers will never leave their unaffiliated teams.

If you think about it from the game's point of view, this makes sense. Free agency is the primary vehicle by which players move from one team to another. Without free agency the only mechanism is being traded (or, in the earlier days of the minors, the player being sold to the major league club).

If the idea of players being sold for cash by profit-seeking unaffiliated minor league clubs could be incorporated, then you would see more player movement.

The Baltimore Orioles of the International League during the early 1920s is a great example of a minor league club that made very tidy profits from developing promising talent and then selling it to major league clubs.

Cornelius McGillicuddy · 06-14-2006, 03:21 PM

Well I think this is something that should be addressed in a future patch. Otherwise recreating an early universe the way it was would be impossible. There should be a way of buying contracts of minor leaguers and a way for players to play their way up the ladder in the minor leagues when there are only unaffiliated teams and leagues.

The way the game is now, it tries to impose today's rules on an era where those rules didn't exist. There should be separate rules for each era.

Le Grande Orange · 06-14-2006, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rich12545

The way the game is now, it tries to impose today's rules on an era where those rules didn't exist. There should be separate rules for each era.

Agreed. I've long campaigned for the inclusion of more historical rules.

The game's first bias though is towards the modern-day game, so that has to be factored into the equation. Hopefully though more past rules and procedures can gradually make their way into the game.

06-14-2006, 09:27 AM	#1
jarmenia Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Tampa, FL USA Posts: 4,503	How do unaffiliated Minors work when not in independant league? Has anyone played with unaffiliated minor league teams when they are not in an independant league? My current setup consists of 16 MLB teams, and 6 levels of minors below that. All the minor league teams are unaffiliated at this point. What I am seeing is that players signed by a minor league team don't ever seem to get "purchased" by a major league club. I do have all free agency turned off to simulate the earl 1900's roster rules. How can I get the cream to rise to the ML level even if the minors are all unaffiliated? __________________ When is good enough, good enough?

06-14-2006, 12:24 PM	#2
Swimmer Minors (Double A) Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Castle Rock, Colorado Posts: 165	Do you mean that you have the leagues affiliated but the individual teams affiliation set to "NONE"? Or do you mean that the leagues themselves are unaffiliated? Here's my experience. If the league is affiliated but a team is unaffiliated, then I get alot of illegal roster errors after a few years of simming. I haven't found a workaround for this other than manually adding players to the affected team's rosters when this happens. If the leagues themselves are independent, then in order to make the players "bubble up" I have to turn free agency on and set the number of years for FA eligibility low, to like 2 or 1 years. This creates more player turnover in the minor leagues and gives more opportunity for the players to move up through FA signing. The biggest problem with this is a bug which makes players tend to sign extensions with their current teams without considering the possibility that they could get a better offer from a different league on the FA market. This bug has been reported and has been assigned a TT#, so hopefully it will be fixed in the near future. A workaround for this is to make your minors, particularly your low minors, really strapped for cash, so they don't have as much money to offer extensions. I hope this info helps. I know that what you really want to do is mimic the days when the reserve clause ruled and there was no free agency. Unfortunately, I have tried but been unable to really mimic that. The game is really built around free agency, and when you take that away, you get very insular computer GMs who tend to stay within their own league. One thing that I have been playing with but haven't got to work well is turning the ammy draft way down or even off for the ML level, and having all of the talent come into the universe at the low minor level. This creates illegal roster errors as well, though, particularly if FA is off and the low minors are holding on to their talent.

06-14-2006, 12:54 PM	#5
Vholes Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 28	Jarmenia, It sounds like we are trying to set up the same thing. The real problem here is that if you have free agency turned off, your minor leaguers will never leave their unaffiliated teams. (This happens regardless of whether the minor league is affiliated to the major league or not). Try this for a work-around: set up your major league and your minor league as separate leagues, not affiliated with each other. For the major league, set free agency on to twelve years, and set the days required for one service year to 999. In effect, this means that players signed to your major league will never become free agents. Next, turn free agency on in the minor league, and set the years required for free agency to the minimum. Set the financials for the minor league so that the teams will be permanently cash-starved, and set the average player salaries so that a superstar in your minor league makes less than the minimum in the major league. I tried this last night, and the result was that all good players in the minor league would eventually graduate to the major league. This is the best approximation I have been able to find for a fully-functioning independent minor league with no free agency in the major league.

06-14-2006, 01:00 PM	#6
Vholes Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 28	Two things to add: one, you cannot do this method if your minor league is affiliated with the major league, because you cannot set financial rules separately for an affiliated minor league. However, if the minor league is supposed to consist of nothing other than unaffiliated teams, I don't see any reason why you should have to affiliate it with your major league to being with. Also, be sure to make sure the league rules allow each league to sign and lose free agents from other leagues.

06-14-2006, 01:05 PM	#7
Swimmer Minors (Double A) Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Castle Rock, Colorado Posts: 165	Vholes, That sounds like a good plan. Have you tried this with multiple levels of minor leagues? It seems like it would need some serious financial tweaking if you had, say three levels of minors (AAA, AA, A) and wanted the AAA and AA teams to have enough money to sign the up and coming youngsters, but not enough money to hold on to them for too long. It would be nice if you could limit the maximum number of contract years as a league setting.

06-14-2006, 03:21 PM	#10
Cornelius McGillicuddy Banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Playing the inside game Posts: 763 Infractions: 0/1 (4)	Well I think this is something that should be addressed in a future patch. Otherwise recreating an early universe the way it was would be impossible. There should be a way of buying contracts of minor leaguers and a way for players to play their way up the ladder in the minor leagues when there are only unaffiliated teams and leagues. The way the game is now, it tries to impose today's rules on an era where those rules didn't exist. There should be separate rules for each era.