Why are historical draft players so awful now?

[malichai11]

Edit by admin: This issue is fixed.

I started a 1977 league and the first thing I noticed was just how bereft of talent the drafts are now. Playing with no scouting so that I can see exactly what the ratings are, not only are there no decent players to draft, once great players are now dreadful when drafted. Here are some notable examples:
Fernando Valenzuela: 29/20 closer, 6th round draft pick in 1978
Cal Ripken: 20/20, 3rd round draft pick in 1977
Kirk Gibson: 20/20 2nd round draft pick in 1977
Darryl Strawberry: 20/20 1979
Eric Davis: 20/21 1979

Is there a setting someplace I can turn on/off so that these players have potential ratings in line with where they have been in the last 7 versions of OOTP?

[tward13]

Ok so it's not just me. Same experience with 1962 draft.

I ran 1961 on auto so I could do the expansion draft for the Mets. Guys who were in the minors in 61- Rose, etc were already in the majors and performing in 62, but the guys available for me to draft pre-62 (Wynn, Staub) have below ML ratings AND talent. I picked by name but no one projects to ML on the 20-80 scale.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by malichai11

I started a 1977 league and the first thing I noticed was just how bereft of talent the drafts are now. Playing with no scouting so that I can see exactly what the ratings are, not only are there no decent players to draft, once great players are now dreadful when drafted. Here are some notable examples:
Fernando Valenzuela: 29/20 closer, 6th round draft pick in 1978
Cal Ripken: 20/20, 3rd round draft pick in 1977
Kirk Gibson: 20/20 2nd round draft pick in 1977
Darryl Strawberry: 20/20 1979
Eric Davis: 20/21 1979

Is there a setting someplace I can turn on/off so that these players have potential ratings in line with where they have been in the last 7 versions of OOTP?

Remember that you're drafting players a few years before their actual debut date now for the first time in OOTP17. They're going to be much more raw. That's what the minor leagues are for: to get them some seasoning and develop their potential.

[Habsfan18]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Remember that you're drafting players a few years before their actual debut date now for the first time in OOTP17. They're going to be much more raw. That's what the minor leagues are for: to get them some seasoning and develop their potential.

But their potential should always be high. There's no reason for those players to have really low potential ratings. Overall, yes. But not potential.

[malichai11]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Remember that you're drafting players a few years before their actual debut date now for the first time in OOTP17. They're going to be much more raw. That's what the minor leagues are for: to get them some seasoning and develop their potential.

But their potential ratings are terrible! In commissioner mode, using the editor, if Darryl Strawberry reaches his OOTP potential his triple slash would be 185/276/351. I'm sorry, but that isn't Strawberry's potential.

It isn't about their bad current ratings, these players will never reach their real life potential because that potential doesn't exist for these players anymore. Assuming you're using the OOTP development engine. For people that do recalc based on real life ratings, then there's no issue. Unfortunately, this is a huge issue for me as I've always used player potential and player development.

Anyway, you can solve the issue in a game you already started by deleting the crappy hall of famers before their actual real life appearance and they will then appear in that draft. I was able to fix all of my example players this way. I also unchecked the box to maintain real minor leagues and I'm hoping that will fix my issue moving forward.

[tward13]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Remember that you're drafting players a few years before their actual debut date now for the first time in OOTP17. They're going to be much more raw. That's what the minor leagues are for: to get them some seasoning and develop their potential.

Current ratings I agree completely. Potential? No, the scouts should be giving us the correct potential for these guys.

I also doesn't explain why top guys who were in the minors the previous year are fully developed and ML ready earlier than they should have.

[risp2out]

Did you select neutralized stats? Neutralized will not work with historical minors, you need to select real stats as the basis for ratings and potential. Discovered this myself the first time I set up a historical game with real minor leagues.

Just a thought.

[actionjackson]

In Game Settings > Global Settings, there is a box that says "All player ratings are displayed relative to:". Usually we fill that box in with "Major League Baseball" or whatever the top level of your league is called. Well, if you do that every snot nosed punk in that draft class is not going to be rated very well are they? They are fresh out of high school or college. If you were to drop them straight into Major League Baseball, I hate to break it to you, but most of them would have 20 potential because they need to go through the minor leagues first. Try setting that to another level of baseball in your game universe and see what happens to their ratings.

EDIT: Also...What risp2out said ^ ^ ^

[sprague]

Another thing the code guys back in Germany could check

When the game with historical minors is on, could the ratings of potential be coming from
a- a player's minor league career only, which would give very low ratings of course

b- maybe recalcing potential over the 3 year period it is looking at with current stats.

Sim the game forward say 3-4 years on RECALC and then see, have the potentials on the players you listed changed or stayed the same.
That may give an indication if it is a potentials problem, or some code linked to minor league years or a short time frame

[malichai11]

Originally Posted by risp2out

Did you select neutralized stats? Neutralized will not work with historical minors, you need to select real stats as the basis for ratings and potential. Discovered this myself the first time I set up a historical game with real minor leagues.

Just a thought.

I think that's only relevant when using Relalc player ratings after each year, not starting ratings. IE< there's not even an option to use real stats vs neutralized stats unless you turn on Relalc. That is the only place I even see that option in my league settings, and it is currently greyed out, but the greyed out setting is currently on Real stats, not neutralized stats.

[malichai11]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

In Game Settings > Global Settings, there is a box that says "All player ratings are displayed relative to:". Usually we fill that box in with "Major League Baseball" or whatever the top level of your league is called. Well, if you do that every snot nosed punk in that draft class is not going to be rated very well are they? They are fresh out of high school or college. If you were to drop them straight into Major League Baseball, I hate to break it to you, but most of them would have 20 potential because they need to go through the minor leagues first. Try setting that to another level of baseball in your game universe and see what happens to their ratings.

This isn't relevant to the issue at hand. This has nothing to do with scouting as I don't have scouting even turned on. This has to do with their ACTUAL potential. Using the commissioner mode and checking the editor, these players aren't good. Again, Darryl Strawberry's actual potential, according to the game's editor, has his maxed out triple slash at 185/276/351. That is not Darryl Strawberry's real life baseball potential.

[tward13]

Originally Posted by malichai11

This isn't relevant to the issue at hand. This has nothing to do with scouting as I don't have scouting even turned on. This has to do with their ACTUAL potential. Using the commissioner mode and checking the editor, these players aren't good.

Exactly. Potential is potential. When scouts go to minor league ir high school games they don't rate them based on how the kids as an 18 year old would do in the majors NOW. It's potential.

And I also have scouting off.

[sprague]

See my post above, might be the answer

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by malichai11

This isn't relevant to the issue at hand. This has nothing to do with scouting as I don't have scouting even turned on. This has to do with their ACTUAL potential. Using the commissioner mode and checking the editor, these players aren't good.

...And I'm saying their actual potential relative to a major leaguer is not very high at this point. Try checking their actual potential relative to their future fellow rookie leaguers and see what you get by using this setting.

[malichai11]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

...And I'm saying their actual potential relative to a major leaguer is not very high at this point. Try checking their actual potential relative to their future fellow rookie leaguers and see what you get by using this setting.

I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. with you You're talking about scouting and I'm talking about using the editor to see what their actual ratings are and they are crap. Anyway, I'm just turning off the maintain minor league setting and deleting these players and the issue is fixed. The players now have their real potential when they show up in their draft.

[malichai11]

Originally Posted by sprague

Another thing the code guys back in Germany could check

When the game with historical minors is on, could the ratings of potential be coming from
a- a player's minor league career only, which would give very low ratings of course

b- maybe recalcing potential over the 3 year period it is looking at with current stats.

Sim the game forward say 3-4 years on RECALC and then see, have the potentials on the players you listed changed or stayed the same.
That may give an indication if it is a potentials problem, or some code linked to minor league years or a short time frame

I'm almost positive that WILL fix the issue, because if you just delete the player they will show up with their real ratings when you draft them in the year they actually appeared in the MLB. But, I don't play RECAL leagues, so that wouldn't fix my issue, even if it fixes these players.

Anyway, I'm going to be away from my computer for the next 5 hours so I'll be able to argue about this issue, but I won't be able to poke around with it anymore. Again, I've already fixed the problem and to my satisfaction as I can make the game work like it has worked in the previous 7 versions of OOTP, and that is all I really cared about. It means sacrificing all of these awesome minor leagues, but that's not a huge deal for me.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by malichai11

I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. with you You're talking about scouting and I'm talking about using the editor to see what their actual ratings are and they are crap. Anyway, I'm just turning off the maintain minor league setting and deleting these players and the issue is fixed. The players now have their real potential when they show up in their draft.

I am not talking about playing with scouting. I never do. I am talking about that specific setting. If you take a high schooler and compare him against big leaguers right away, which is what that setting does, he will look like dogpoop. Whereas if you change that setting to "Rookie League Level (R)" or whatever it is (temporarily), they will look much better because now you are comparing them moreso against their peers.

[malichai11]

So if anyone else doesn't want to deal with this issue, go to League Settings -> Historical, and uncheck Import and Maintain real minor leagues. Darryl Strawberry no longer appears in the 1979 draft as a crappy player with crappy potential. I'm assuming he'll now show up in the 1982 draft with the right ratings. I deleted Fernando Valenzuela, unchecked Import and Maintain real minor leagues, and he now shows up in the 1979 draft as his normal, awesome potential self.

[tward13]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

...And I'm saying their actual potential relative to a major leaguer is not very high at this point. Try checking their actual potential relative to their future fellow rookie leaguers and see what you get by using this setting.

That's not how it works in real life and not how it should work here.

A high school kid with average contact and great power POTENTIAL should have 30 and 40 for current and 50 and 70 for potential. If it doesn't something's wrong.

[tward13]

And for what it's worth I know I'm in beta and this is the kind of stuff that should be noted and fixed/explained.

Same as my other question on historical minors/reserve lists