Historical league/fictional minors

[David Watts]

Have any of you ever tried something similar to the following?

I will create a historical league starting in 1975. I will create 3 levels of minor leagues, AAA, AA and A. I will use the require full minor league rosters feature. Since this league will be a mixture of real MLB players and OOTP created fictional players, I will use the OOTP development engine and turn off recalc.

So, if I don't want an amateur draft and simply want MLB players to debut on their real teams, how will OOTP go about ensuring all teams have full minors? I know the game will randomly create fictional players to fill the 1975 minor league rosters. What I'm curious about is what happens in future years? I don't want a draft, because I want to see guys like Thompson, Kemp, Parrish, Trammell, Morris and Whitaker debut with the Tigers. But, I'm curious, how the game goes about ensuring the minor league rosters are full when the teams are only getting the debut players added to their systems each year, which probably ends up being 6-8 players or thereabouts.

Have any of you tried this?

[Questdog]

I have not tried what you have said, but the game will NOT make sure the minor leagues are filled with players. You will have to make sure of that manually or set the ghost player option on.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Questdog

I have not tried what you have said, but the game will NOT make sure the minor leagues are filled with players. You will have to make sure of that manually or set the ghost player option on.

So that part of the wizard is just for the initial setup of the league? Ugh, read the require full minors deal wrong then. Wonder if I would be better off going with only AAA and AA then?

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by David Watts

So that part of the wizard is just for the initial setup of the league? Ugh, read the require full minors deal wrong then. Wonder if I would be better off going with only AAA and AA then?

Are the real players joining the league when they were drafted or when the debuted in the Majors?

If they are joining when they debuted in the Majors, then there is no reason to have more than AAA and unless you are wanting fictional players to make the Majors, then there is no reason to use them at all and just use ghost players.

[Tiger Fan]

Or you could just create a couple hundred fictional players each season and dump them into the free agent pool. I believe you can control the age and skill level of them in creation each year so you can make most of them very low quality if you like. I have not tried this with a mix of historical and fictional players but I would think the AI controlled teams would sign players to ensure they have a full minor league roster at each level.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Tiger Fan

Or you could just create a couple hundred fictional players each season and dump them into the free agent pool. I believe you can control the age and skill level of them in creation each year so you can make most of them very low quality if you like. I have not tried this with a mix of historical and fictional players but I would think the AI controlled teams would sign players to ensure they have a full minor league roster at each level.

You would be wrong...

The A.I. will keep their rosters full, usually, but not always with the proper mix of players. Not enough pitchers causes big issues with the stats. Not enough hitters causes problems, too, but not as bad as not having enough pitchers. You will end up with teams with 3 starting pitchers pitching 50 games each or some such...

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Are the real players joining the league when they were drafted or when the debuted in the Majors?

If they are joining when they debuted in the Majors, then there is no reason to have more than AAA and unless you are wanting fictional players to make the Majors, then there is no reason to use them at all and just use ghost players.

I want enough players to be able to use at least the normal injury setting or better yet the high(modern day setting). I don't mind ghost players, but the last time I used them, i started getting news stories about Jim Unknown striking out 16 batter or Jim unknow hitting 3 home runs. That I can't stomach. I'm also goofy about guys playing out of position, so I can't have 2 Oriole catchers get hurt and see Al Bumbry playing 30 games behind the plate.

I currently have a league like this started, but it's 1947, I think I will finish out the season and see what occurs in regards to the 1948 season. Just thought I would ask in case anyone else played this way. Injuries have always been a stumbling block for me in regards to historical play. In the end, it's probably why I play so much random debut. With random debut I can reconfigure leagues making them smaller and by doing so, I have enough players to support injuries.

[David Watts]

Maybe I should just use ghost players after the initial setup. I could simply stop all popup news stories and in doing so, I wouldn't see any Jim Unknown achievements. The league would simply bring in real players from the first season on.

[quillenl]

I did something similar, it takes a couple seasons for the players to get going though. For the first couple seasons you either need to use Ghost Players, or you need to generate fictional players to fill out the rosters at each minor league level.

What I did? International Amateurs. Set it to Max, move players to Single A from your International squad as appropriate each season. I was able to maintain 3 tiers of fictional minor leaguers plus my historical players this way with little trouble.

[luckymann]

If I could have ONE wish about an area of OOTP that was to be improved it would by far and away be how the minors are handled, both with regard to the AI but also the manageability of it for the human player.

I love running a large franchise with all MiLB levels in place, and seeing prospects I have drafted develop and hopefully come in big time is just about my favourite part of the game. But I am also a bit OC, and despite trying to let the AI handle my minor league teams to a greater degree a number of times to reduce my workload a bit I have never been satisfied with how things go and each time fairly quickly reverted to full hands-on mode. Players promoted / demoted improperly, used in a way different to how I want, game strategies - these are all bugbears with the way it plays out, even with the various tools available for setting certain elements the way I want.

The same goes with the minors in a macro sense. In my Footnote League, I have just the one affiliated Independent League at the moment and it is proving problematic as is, let alone any thoughts I might have about adding more. Despite my ensuring there are ample free agents available for teams to staff their squads the AI just doesn't seem to be intuitive enough to make sure it works the way it should. Rosters are not being filled properly as mentioned above, with either too few position players, pitchers, or both, a constant problem. Players are being released from squads already short-staffed, in one instance (after I had filled the pitching ranks once) to the point where Teddy Higuera was the only starter left in a rotation and they had just 4 relievers with terrible stamina ratings. This means I have to meddle, which I am loth to do as I want the league to go about its business as organically as possible.

So beware rushing into it. I'd definitely do it in a piecemeal way, add one to begin with then wait a couple of drafts before adding another so there is a big enough FA pool for them to stock up with. Even then I suspect you'll need to get in there and help them out in doing so.

[Syd Thrift]

If you’re not bothered by fictional players occasionally getting cups of coffee in your league you can also just go into you A ball league settings, click “fill teams with fictional players”, and then let the AI redistribute them where needed (that may require you to do so twice, or look at individual teams and fill them separately from the team Roster / Transactions screen. Players generated for A ball will generally be not good enough to have long careers in the majors, although of course talent randomness could grab hold of one of them and turn them into something.

If you want to include minor leagues from 1975, can’t you actually import players from the top 3 levels? At worst you could import using the Spritze/Garlon DB, which I know has MLEs for a massive crapton of players, although don’t import history when you do that.

[David Watts]

Thanks for all the great responses.

I created 1975 last night with two level of minors, AAA and AA. Once the league was formed, I ran a free agent draft so teams would sign the stragglers that weren't on major league rosters. This gave most teams around 10-14 players on their AAA roster. Next I used the fill minors function on both levels of minors. This gives every team 75 players, with 50 in the minor leagues. This should be more than enough to allow for use of the high realistic injury setting.

I played out the first couple days and some of the fictional players have made their way to the starting lineups. Oddly enough, most of them seem to be either 2B or SS.. Will be interesting to see how the fictional guys do in this environment. I figure in 77 when the Jays and Mariners arrive, I might have to add some more fictional guys.

Question, is there a way to add players to just one team or does the fill with fictional option only work on a league wide basis?

[Syd Thrift]

Yes, if you’re in commissioner mode you can go to the team in question and from the roster screen up in the top right hand corner there’s a drop down that has, among other options, the option to fill the team with fictional players.

Also, you generally want your lowest level of minors to be uncapped in terms of roster size. 25 players at the lowest rung of the minors beginning of your sim will quickly turn into 10 by mid season due to injury replacements, and eventually you won’t be able to play through games because some of your (in this case AA) teams won’t have 9 players to play (and long before this, those teams will make do with like 12 man rosters and lose all the time).

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yes, if you’re in commissioner mode you can go to the team in question and from the roster screen up in the top right hand corner there’s a drop down that has, among other options, the option to fill the team with fictional players.

Also, you generally want your lowest level of minors to be uncapped in terms of roster size. 25 players at the lowest rung of the minors beginning of your sim will quickly turn into 10 by mid season due to injury replacements, and eventually you won’t be able to play through games because some of your (in this case AA) teams won’t have 9 players to play (and long before this, those teams will make do with like 12 man rosters and lose all the time).

I will check the cap deal when I get home from work. I thought by default minor league teams were uncapped, unless you set a limit. Thanks so much for telling me that.

[David Watts]

It's going to be interesting to see if the Reds end up dealing Ken Griffey Sr., as right now they're starting Pete Rose in LF, with Foster in RF and a fictional dude playing 3B. Fictional cats hitting 8th, so I'm guessing it's his defensive ratings that have him starting.

[quillenl]

One thing I have noticed when mixing the historical database with a large pool of players (whether fictional or just very young real players).

There is low variance in player development when solely using the historical database. I would imagine this is due to the relatively high age of players making their debut. It is rare to see surprise players... and only slightly less rare to see a player sputter who was a hall of fame player in real life.

When I introduce Fictional Players, or 18 years olds from the Minor League database the numbers of surprises increases fairly relative to the amount of young players I have introduced. I am playing with 4 levels of Minors right now drafting a good half my players at 18 years old and I see a lot of players changing quickly, I posted an example in general a few days ago of a player going from a potential contact rating of 2 to 9 on a 1-10 scale in about 3 seasons. This is with a Talent Change Randomness Setting of 1.

Long story Short, the more you do to fill your minors with young players... the less the players with names you know will reflect their real life counterparts. This makes sense when I think about it... but if you are hoping for performances similar to how they did in real life... adding a bunch of young playters will be counter productive.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by quillenl

One thing I have noticed when mixing the historical database with a large pool of players (whether fictional or just very young real players).

There is low variance in player development when solely using the historical database. I would imagine this is due to the relatively high age of players making their debut. It is rare to see surprise players... and only slightly less rare to see a player sputter who was a hall of fame player in real life.

When I introduce Fictional Players, or 18 years olds from the Minor League database the numbers of surprises increases fairly relative to the amount of young players I have introduced. I am playing with 4 levels of Minors right now drafting a good half my players at 18 years old and I see a lot of players changing quickly, I posted an example in general a few days ago of a player going from a potential contact rating of 2 to 9 on a 1-10 scale in about 3 seasons. This is with a Talent Change Randomness Setting of 1.

Long story Short, the more you do to fill your minors with young players... the less the players with names you know will reflect their real life counterparts. This makes sense when I think about it... but if you are hoping for performances similar to how they did in real life... adding a bunch of young playters will be counter productive.

I only want enough fictional players to allow for the use of the high-realistic injury setting. Since I started in 75, I figure I may need to add a few more fictional players when the league expands. I don't like playing without injuries. As long as teams maintain adequate roster size to allow for the high realistic injury setting, I will not add fictional players. I decided not to use recalc for this experiment, as I figure things are going to stray from reality somewhat by adding fictional players. I've tried playing with real minors and I just don't like it. It's so darn massive and there are just way too many players. If OOTP creates a fictional player and he makes it onto a MLB roster, I can fathom it, because he's FICTIONAL. But, when I fire up real minors and Swede Savage knocks Bill Freehan out of the starting lineup I instantly feel my league loses all credibility. Especially when I look at Savage's real stats and realize in real life he never made it out of AA ball and Tebowed the entire time. The name Swede Savage was used to make a point. Anyone related or close to the real Swede Savage, please forgive me.

In the end, I create so many silly hurdles to jump over when it comes to enjoying leagues. My inability to play with zero injuries is just silly, but by now it's deeply seeded and it's not going to be something easily overcome. Thing is, fictional is really what I should be playing, but I love historical way too much to depart.

[quillenl]

Gideon Jarvis was my Swede Savage so I get it.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/r...d=jarvis001gid

He went from 8th round draft pick to the league's best hitter. Pissed me off so bad I made a post about it and kind of lost interest. That's why I'd been playing with TCR set to 1... I thought it would make that sort of thing an ultra rare occurrence. What you expressed was exactly why I had previously been playing with International Discoveries to keep my minor leagues populated previously

[Mr. HudsonBay]

David Earl Savage, Jr., nicknamed "Swede", was an American race car driver. He died at age 26 from complications from a blood transfusion while recovering from injuries suffered in a crash in the Indianapolis 500, nearly five weeks earlier. Wikipedia
Born: August 26, 1946, San Bernardino, CA
Died: July 2, 1973, Houston, TX

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by Mr. HudsonBay

David Earl Savage, Jr., nicknamed "Swede", was an American race car driver. He died at age 26 from complications from a blood transfusion while recovering from injuries suffered in a crash in the Indianapolis 500, nearly five weeks earlier. Wikipedia
Born: August 26, 1946, San Bernardino, CA
Died: July 2, 1973, Houston, TX

1 post, 1 Thanks. You are on an amazing pace for quality helpful posts. Hope to see you post more in the future Sir!