Feeder Leagues vs. OOTP generated Drafts??

[crookedmacs]

I've been running a few different simulations trying out both. Feeder Leagues have consistently given me issues. It is nice to have statistics of 4-8 years for players, as opposed to guys just kind of appearing out of nowhere. But the equation for how many teams you need in your Feeder League is incorrect I believe. In a 35 round, 30 MLB team, 7 levels of Minors league the equation says you should have at least 175 feeder league teams. I find this produces way too many players every year. The Feeder League prompt will actually adjust automatically to around 125 teams which I find works better. But the manual suggests the higher number. I always notice the first few years of Feeders produces more, then kind of stabilizes over time. In comparison to the fictional generated players, I find the draft classes comparable enough to where I don't know a difference. Plus adding the extra Leagues slows sim times. So, sell me on why Feeders are so much better than fictional created drafts. Because it seems they just add more stress and finger crossing that a given year isn't going to have an influx of extra players for no reason

[Charlie Hough]

There has been a lot of discussion of feeder leagues over the years, so I really recommend that you do an advanced search on these forums, search for "feeder leagues" in thread titles, and look for some of the past threads that have the most replies.

In the meantime, here is a recent post that summarized someone's experiences with feeder leagues over the years.

[crookedmacs]

Yeah, I went down the Feeder League rabbit hole on Reddit, and through Google searches. Tons of information, opinions, and confusion.

[Sweed]

The game generated draft classes were improved for OOTP21. Before this year I used feeders and they worked very well for me. I did not have issues with my feeders, they always produced realistic draft classes.

However with this year's changes to how OOTP creates and presents the draft class I went to the game generated draft classes. I think my feeders produced as good a class as the new way but at the expense of file size. So yeah, if I can have a realistic draft class at a smaller file size, why wouldn't I do it?

Unless you want to dig deep and follow feeder league seasons in progress, IE read the news, see standings, have champions etc. I can see no reason to use them.

[Hrycaj]

Feeders are great for immersion and I really like the fact that OOTP now has an internal setup option that gives the player the recommended size of the feeder leagues. The flip of course is file size. If you are running a standard, modern mlb setup I can’t see how feeders would not slow the game down unfortunately. I think though, they work great in many fictional settings if the player has a universe where they have culled their minor leagues. I have a hunch without any evidence that many fictional setups do not have 7 levels of minor leagues. My guess is they are probably closer to 4 to 5. So adding feeders to this sort of setup may very easily be useable for some.

Edit. I also didn’t factor in international leagues. If you have a fictional setting that is strictly based in a single country that would help file size as well.