OOTP 26 suggestions

[jaa36]

This game continues to get better every year... This is a running list I keep every year, and there are a few things that I can take off and a few more to put on...

1. Awards. We should have the ability to enter or change award winners retroactively. There should be an option to only have a player from the winning team win a Player of the Game or postseason series MVP award, and to be able to select or edit these awards. And finally, more than one Custom award.

2. More options for how players enter the league. For example, an international (or all amateur player) draft, or a free market system in which players either enter at a specific time or over the course of the year and you just sign them to whatever contract you want; like the current international amateur system, there could be a spending cap, and ideally cap money could be traded.

3. More All-Star game options. Allowing the ability to select all-stars or an all-pro team after the season would be great, and to have an all-star game for leagues with only a single subleague and single division. Being able to pick teams by “player draft” (a la the NBA all-star game) would be fun, or by nationality (US vs the world) in some cases.

4. Better support for amateur baseball. I'd love to have a more true-to-life high school and college system. For colleges, they should have a "prestige" rating that would determine the quality of players that go there. There should be a weekly ranking system, and a College World Series at the end of the year. High school could be more abstracted- perhaps just generating a few hundred players with stats to simulate each class, but then have a recruiting model for the college level based on the college's prestige, and a rating for the player as far as how likely they were to sign with a major league team rather than going to college.

5. Adjustments to the stamina system for pitchers. There should be both a current and a potential rating for stamina- but it should change much more rapidly than other ratings. A starter being shifted from shorter to longer outings would see his stamina increase to his potential max relatively quickly over a few weeks. Additionally, you should be able to set expectations for a pitcher- both generally (by what role you are assigning him in your pitching staff) and specifically to the game in which you're planning to use him. So if your starter gets injured or leaves early in the game, you could bring in the long reliever and instruct him that you’re expecting five innings from him, which you can sort of do in the first three innings currently if you check “follower,” but really should be an option at later points in the game as well. If the pitcher expects to go just one inning, he’d end up with the “standard” bonus to his stuff, but otherwise he’d be treated more as a starter would by the engine.

6. More options for what happens when tied after nine innings. There could be options for modifications to the “zombie runner” rules, like putting the runner on first base, or only starting after a certain inning. Or settling things with a home run derby.

7. A global events simulator! This could be the next phase of “automatic evolution” and incorporate not just expansion and relocation, but also contraction/dissolving franchises, new stadiums, ownership changes, playoff expansion, and worldwide events like pandemics and wars. (Well, maybe those last few are a bridge too far…) Ideally you’d be prompted when one of these is triggered to occur so that you can choose to decline it in favor of the status quo. Expansion option should have a long lead time, so teams might develop their stadiums, farm systems and staff months to years ahead of time.

8. A few changes/additions to stats and sortable views. wRC and wRC+ should be in single-season and career records for hitters. RA9 (as in runs allowed per 9 innings) should be included for pitchers, and this and rWAR should be in single-season and career records for pitchers. The number of games a player has played at each position should also be viewable as a stat within a custom view- this really comes in handy for selecting all-stars. Times reached on error, pickoffs, and won-lost record during games pitchers appear in would also be helpful. I’d also like to be able to view a player’s current prospect ranking (up to 500) in the custom views. And finally, it would be great to get some clarity about how some stats are calculated... For example, I know generally how WAR is calculated, but it would be really helpful to have better insight into what constants the equations are using (is it 10 runs per WAR on a fixed basis, or does it change based on the league run environment, etc.)

9. Better interface in the League Totals section. I should be able to see from this section very easily what the estimated statistical output will be for the league, including how (very approximately) the leaderboard will look. As it stands, you can tell what the projected BA, OBP and SLG will be, but not much more than that. It’s difficult to have any sense of how to set the modifiers lower down, like balks or outfield assists, or what the value “should” be in comparison to modern MLB.

10. Clearer calculation of projected park factors. You can currently find an “approximate park factor” in the Team Statistics->Sortable Stats->Park Info section (which is devilishly hard to find), but it’s not clear how this is determined, and it’s not listed on the individual ballpark pages. Also, having a button that would “normalize” all park factors in the league around 1.0 would be helpful- as in, if all the park factors in the league are 1.2, they should be normalized to 1.0.

11. Some more roster options. There should be an option to limit when a player can be called back up to the majors after being sent down- for example, in MLB, a player cannot be recalled within 10 days of being sent down unless replacing someone going onto the IL. And it would be great to have a “taxi squad” roster option, where for example you have 30 players on the active roster, but only 20 are eligible to dress for a given game- this would help to reduce roster shuffling when pitchers are tired or players are injured for just a few days.

12. An easier way to rotate the DH among players that would otherwise start. A lot of teams do this now rather than have a full-time DH. You can sort of do this with daily lineups, but that's a lot of work. Perhaps just having a selection in the DH slot within the lineups page where you can just check "rotate among starters." Or perhaps allowing an option on the player strategy page to select "start at DH when tired." Also, it would be good to have an option to tie the DH to the starting pitcher- so the DH would need to be removed from the game if the starting pitcher were removed.

13. Option for extended spring training- or more broadly, a way to shake off the rust for player you've signed late in the spring or in midseason without immediately adding them to the active roster. Likewise, it would be helpful to be able to do something with the same effect as a rehab assignment even after the minor league seasons are over.

14. Better schedule generator and schedule editing interface. I'd like to be able to suggest how many games per team within the division, outside of the division, in the other league, etc, and have it throw out a schedule. And I'd like to be able to click and drag a game or series from one day to another day. Finally, there should be an option to assign fixed numbers to each team in the scheduler rather than re-sorting based on the previous year’s record- this would allow for more realistic road trips, and possibly down the line a malus for teams that travel long distances.

[mitchkenn]

a director or coaches for International Complex. long overdue ... here's to hoping.

[BubbaDbone]

I once thought an immersive experience to include AI discussion between Coach/GM or Coach/Player was ridiculous. However, after playing the game for 500+ hours now and 10 seasons I see the need to have an AI discussion process for the GM and Owner which could generate some interesting POV processes on budgets, trades, strategy and a more intimate gaming experience within the dynamics of that relationship. It might even be fun to have some conflicts requiring tact and resolution at the risk of firing. Just saying. But the one-sided process of the Owner telling GM THIS IS THE BUDGET is very heavy handed. In OOTP, my team has seen a reduction of budget from $2.1 to $1.5 despite winning 3 pennants and winning seasons for 8 consecutive years. I play historical OOTP so I have no salary arbitration control. This year I have $909 cash reserve.

Also, as in OOTP, I would like to see the historical side also have marketing/branding opportunities for fan loyalty and attendance. My fan loyalty has not improved one iota even though fan interest has gone from 38 to 86. Attendance also always lags. I HAVE NO CONTROL. That does NOT COMPUTE. Thanks OOTP.

[monkeyman576]

I think the point is that you're not always going to like or agree with your owners decisions.

[kq76]

1) Awards
-I agree on all of these to some degree or another.
-Retroactive awards, while I'd like them, I just imagine the devs would think is to much work for too little reward, but I'd definitely still like them. I'd go back to the early years of my league to add custom awards, etc.
-I actually find it interesting when someone from the losing team wins the award, but I can definitely see how some people wouldn't like that. And I've definitely seen the award given to someone on the losing team where I thought the award could have just as easily been given to multiple people, including those on the winning team. So as long as someone hasn't had an amazing game/series while others haven't, I'd prefer it to go to the winning team too.
-I myself give an award (in my notes) to the overall PostS MVP, but yeah, it'd be nice if the game did it automatically in-game.
-I like seeing whom the game gave the award too, but I definitely agree that we should be able to override it, or maybe better yet, give out our own in addition.
-I'm definitely on board for more than 1 custom award. It's always boggled my mind that they limited it to 1. I get it, how many is too many? But only 1? At least 3. I figure the max anyone might want is 9 or so.
-So many people have come up with so many good custom awards, that I'd go ahead and put those in the game without them even being custom awards, like best base-stealer, best base-runner, best slugger, home run king, strikeout king, best OBA, best overall batter (vs "MVP"), comeback, most improved, etc.
-One thing you didn't mention about awards that I'd really like and has actually been in MLB since 2019 is the All-MLB Team[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-MLB_Team] (1st and 2nd teams). I'd probably expand the 2 teams to 18 each (9 batters & 9 pitchers), but yeah, I really like that they do that.
-I actually think that if they added a bunch of these award features that you could legitimately advertise them as one of those 3 "back of the box" features that are used to really sell and promote a game.

2) Ways to Enter a League
-I'd like an international draft, sure, but I don't really care about the rest.

3) More ASG Options
-Yes to all these, especially to your all-pro team request which I mentioned above.
-You didn't mention this, but we can't rename all-star teams and if you don't have 2 sub-leagues the game names them AS1 and AS2. Not everyone plays with 2 sub-leagues so let us name the teams however we want.
-Also, right now, with only 1 league, it seems the game just assigns the first half of your divisions to the first team and the other half to the second, what if you didn't want that?
-And have an option for the ASG teams to be drafted, like the NBA does. This would resolve the problem of 1 and 3 divisions leagues not supporting ASGs.
-Add Option to Change the Date All-Star Game Voting Begins - I schedule my ASB about 70% through the season to give voters more stats to base their decisions on (August 3rd, 1987), yet the voting still begins early. MLB's is 55% through the season (July 11, 2023). I checked and my ASG voting started May 29th, while MLB's starts on May 20th. My Opening Day was March 24th, MLB's was March 30th. So I'm not sure how it's figuring out when to start ASG voting.
-Something someone else brought up to me was they'd love to take a team picture of an all-star team and I agree, that'd be cool.

4) Amateur Baseball
-I myself don't care about the amateur side, but I can see how others might.

5) Pitcher Stamina Change
-Yeah, I've talked about something similar about 2 stamina ratings, but I was more onboard with a short and a long stamina. As in, if you expect you'll be going long (either as a starter or a reliever) then your effectiveness might not be as good, but you should last longer. And if you expect you'll go short (as a follower or reliever), then you'll go all out, but you might only last an inning.
-I also think we should express stamina in # of pitches instead of the 20-80 or whatever range. I want to know what # they're likely (not definitely, but likely) to hit the wall at. I'm not one who thinks, "oh, 100 pitches, gotta take him out", but if his wall is 120 or 90 or 30, I want to know.
-Also, in my experience far too many relievers can go 2-3 innings when they never do IRL. That's great for us of course, but it's unrealistic.

6) More Options After 9
-I'm more than happy with my ties after 12 with no automatic runner, but more options sounds great!

7) Events!
-Ooo, I like this a lot. I'm big into board games and one of my favourite mechanisms are random events. I know a lot of people despise dynamic evolution, but I like a lot of it.
-My big recommendation for dynamic evolution, however, would be a popup before the game does it like, "Executives in the league would like to expand the league. What say you?" And then you could accept or reject it as you like. I understand OOTP might like some things to be a surprise like stat changes, but I think that if the game asked us about the more controversial changes that people might like it more. "A volcano close to team X has just exploded. Do you want to contract the team and redispurse the players, or relocate the team? If you relocate them, do you want it to be somewhere temporarily or permanently?" Something like that I think some people would get a kick out of. "Wow, my world is really alive!" The key point though is that the game asks you what you want.

8) Stat Additions
-Yes, to everything.
-For how far the baseball world has come in stats it kind of amazes me how far behind OOTP is with them all. I get it, some stats aren't as easy to include as we would like, like stats that rely on other stats that OOTP doesn't track, but some of the stats it doesn't have are incredibly easy to add. Like RA9 (and no, OOTP, RA9 is not runners allowed, it's runs allowed), xFIP, HR%, H%, etc. Let's at least get the easy stuff in the game.

9) League Totals Interface Improvement
-I'm so used to using my spreadsheet for this I don't really mind, but yeah, I get it, showing more of the expected results in-game would be great.
-What I want out of the League Totals are just more stats that I can dial in, like SB, CS, IBB, SF, SH, RBOE, RBOI, and XI.

10) Clearer Park Factors
-Sure. I'm not as crazy about PFs as others are as so many of them can swing so wildly year-to-year IRL, but for those who are really into them I'm sure this all could be greatly improved.

11) More Roster Options
-Yes to all these, but you know what surprised me. I went to expanded (by only 3 players) rosters to start and end my season, but then I realized there's no way to keep these expanded rosters for the postseason! You're locked into whatever size you had for the middle of your season. I'd really like an option to set the postseason roster size.

12) DH
-I'm on board for the rotating DH.
-And I'm absolutely on board with tieing the DH to the SP! I would not be so on board with some of details I've heard thrown around like, "as long as they pitch 5 innings...", but I'd pay money just to get this one feature in the game. The NL's late game was far superior to the AL's and we need it back. Doing away with pitchers hitting was one thing, but getting rid of all the late game moves really hurt the game.

13) Shaking Off Rust
-You know what's crazy? You can't play without minors. Well, you can, but then your players are much more likely to be re-injured because there's no way to get in some rehab assignments. They need to disable rust after injuries if you're not playing with minors.
-Another thing about rust is I'd love for the following to be cleared up, "do players develop rust waiting for their next postseason appearance in OOTP?" I'm cool with it if they do, I just think it should be cleared up. And if they do, maybe we should have the option of playing practice games between series, which would shake off the rust, but they'd also put your players in minor danger of injuring themselves.

14) Better Schedule Editor
-As someone who has made some schedules and has put a lot of time and effort into them, I think you're underestimating how complicated it is to make a schedule editor. I'm thinking you'd probably have to dedicate 2 developers full-time for an entire year to make a schedule editor as good as many people would like it to be. There's just no way that would make sense for OOTP. Sure, they could maybe make some improvements to it without too much work (like your point about assigning teams #s so you could more easily determine exactly who plays whom and when, and I'd like this too), but this is probably the one request that I think there's just no chance of happening. It's just too much, except for maybe the aspect I commented on.

All in all, there's a lot I agree with here! Keep them coming. I love reading wishlists.

[jaa36]

Couple other items I'll add to my annual list:
-It would be great if there were a way to list current/potential stuff as a starter, as well as as a reliever, in sortable columns. Usually it's about a 5-point bump when you switch, but sometimes it's 0 points and sometimes it's 10, so would be nice to know without having to manually switch everybody.
-It would also be good to do away with the "CL" role altogether and fold it into "RP." So you'd just have SP and RP. CL at this point is a distinction without a difference, and it's weird that sorting by relief pitchers doesn't include "closers"...

[orioledave]

More rosters changes

[jaa36]

One other thing I'll add to the list: I'd love it if there were better contract logic for players at the end of the season. There are a couple of things that happen routinely that really shouldn't:
-Players who decline a player option, but then turn around and request less money (or for example, decline an option worth $20M but then want a two-year deal worth $30M)
-Players who get to the end of the season on an expiring contract, but then are willing to negotiate/sign extensions with a team in between the end of the season and the start of free agency. While this theoretically can happen in real baseball, it's way too easy to do in OOTP, and you'd think a player would absolutely need to be blown away by an offer to accept it, but you can often get pretty good deals on these players.

[Rain King]

$30mil is more than $20mil.

Yes, it is spread out over multiple seasons...players will generally accept less per season if they are getting multiple seasons such as that. You could argue that is too much of a discount per season....but it isn't less overall money.

[jaa36]

Well, sure, that's technically true. There are much more egregious examples of this though, including situations where a patient might sign a deal with a $15M contract and $30M player option, then decline the player option, then sign another deal for a $15M contract and $30M player option. Technically more money, but also pretty clearly not a wise string of decisions. One way around this would be getting a message from a player saying "I'm thinking I'm going to decline my option- but I'd love to stay with the team- what kind of contract would you offer me?" And that's sort of how it often plays out in real life for high-value player options, there's some negotiation that happens rather than it getting to the point where the player actually says yes or no to the option itself.

[crusadecat]

1. better trade logic, especially around 10/5 players working out conditions, etc.
2. dynamic weather and more possibilities of unique plays, situations.
3. many more storyline possibilties.
4. More create a stadium features to choose from, backgrounds, fields, outfield features,
5. a color commentator in the dialogue as well.
6 . a place to have a color and play by play team listed in personel etc.
7. fan feedback from time to time to help gauge the ear of fans , press etc.
8.promotions scheduled such as retire a number day, old timers day, bobblehead day, that could help promotions,
9scheduled doubleheaders
10. I too would like to have deaths recorded to add to the level of realism and immersion.

[Garlon]

Messing with pitcher stamina ratings would wreck the game. Consider adjusting your league strategy settings for pitcher stamina and moving it to Very Low.

For league totals you have the option to select any season in history, so if you really like the league totals from 1993 you can lock those in for every season if you want. The game uses ratios so you need not worry about the raw league totals. Just go in baseball reference and look at the average team totals for things like SB and CS or any other statistic

Regarding park factors do you mean historical seasons? These have been calculated from historical data and if you go to the steam workshop you can even download the quadratic version of the park factors.

[TrbldWiseman]

The option to have women as players/coaches in game so one could truly do a version of the AAGPBL or the new WPBL slated to start in 2026

[Garlon]

Regarding #10, the approximate PF on the team statistics>sortable statistics>park info screen is a flawed calculation.

I have all of the park run factors in a file and I also created a version of the park factors using the quadratic formula that adjusts the BA and HR values of the ballparks to create the proper scoring environment.

As a rule of thumb, if you increase BA and HR both by say 5% (1.050 park factor), then the resulting scoring in that ballpark relative to the league (assuming the league is centered at 1.000 for the park factors) will be about 1.100, or 10% more than league average.

If you were to set BA and HR to 0.950, which is 5% below league average, it would reduce scoring in that ballpark by about 10%.

I have a spreadsheet that calculates this for each season in history, but as a rule of thumb figure the effect of increasing or decreasing BA and HR by a given percentage will double the effect on scoring at that stadium.

When reviewing the Approximate PF on that screen in OOTP they are actually estimating the effect in the wrong direction. For example, I see a team with a 1.048 factor for BA and HR (using the quadratic factors we always keep doubles and triples at 1.000 in OOTP, because the BA factor stacks with the doubles and triples factor anyway. So, when you increase BA, which is actually a BABIP factor, by 4.8% you are also increasing doubles and triples by 4.8% in the game even if you keep doubles and triples at 1.000 because they are a subset of BABIP) I would expect the scoring in that park to be up by about 9% or so compared to the league average. However, OOTP reports an estimated PF of only 1.014 for that team.

[thedokes]

Can it adjusted to see the HR if I press the RISP. Currently I come back to the game with then next batter up and having to backtrack.

[Le Grande Orange]

Regarding #3 and additional All-Star Game option for single division leagues, here are some formats that have been used by real-life minor leagues to provide some ideas.

--------------------------------------

The team leading the league as of a specified date plays a team made up of players from the other teams in the league.

The league is divided into two geographical sections and the All-Star teams are made up of players from the teams in each designated section.

The team winning the first half of the split-season plays a team made up of players from the other teams in the league.

An All-Star team of veteran players from the league plays an All-Star team of rookie players.

The players from the teams in one state plays against the players from the teams in the other state (for leagues whose member cities are split between two states).

The players from the teams in one division plays against the players from the teams in the other division (for leagues whose single subleague is split into two divisions).

The players from the affiliates of one major players plays against the affiliates of the other major league, e.g. AL affiliates versus NL affiliates.

A major league team plays an All-Star team of players from the minor league.

[Pointer1VB]

I'm big on realism... especially when it comes to the CBA and how MLB operates for transactions. Here's the biggest "OOTP currently does it wrong" things I'd like to see changed.

1. International amateurs should be overhauled. Scouting discoveries that immediately get put in your international complex should not be a thing as that's not how it works. All international amateurs should be part of the international signing period and I think that will vastly change how international amateurs currently work... instead of spending your whole international budget on the highest rated player, now you'll have to meter out your signing bonus pool to try and get anywhere from 10-30 international players (how it works in MLB currently).

2. Should add player promotion incentive program. Any rookie that finishes top 2 in ROY voting gets a full year of service time. Any team that has a top 100 prospect rookie that is on the roster on opening day and wins ROY should get a supplemental first round draft pick. Any team that has a top 100 prospect rookie that is on the roster on opening day and finishes top 3 Cy Young or MVP voting in their pre-arb years should get a supplemental first round draft pick.

3. Add pre-arbitration bonus pool that is equally taken from each team's budget.

4. The draft slot system needs to be fixed. Teams cannot give out a cumulative signing bonus amount greater than the sum of all their slot amounts. Currently in OOTP, that limitation doesn't exist. If you have a big enough budget, you can just draft all the "impossible" to sign high schoolers and throw massive signing bonuses to each of them. Makes it so large market teams get an even bigger advantage in the draft. It also removes any of the strategy behind drafting under-slot players to be able to afford all of your draft picks. The slot system works nothing like it does in real life.

5. Competitive balance draft picks. OOTP 25 has the right competitive balance draft picks for the 2024 season, but after that the system just disappears. The bottom 10 revenue teams should get additional draft picks (5 after round 1, 5 after round 2, alternating each year).

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Pointer1VB

5. Competitive balance draft picks. OOTP 25 has the right competitive balance draft picks for the 2024 season, but after that the system just disappears. The bottom 10 revenue teams should get additional draft picks (5 after round 1, 5 after round 2, alternating each year).

It's no longer based on (local) revenue (and designated market score). Now the eligibility is based solely on the club having received revenue sharing.

From the 2021 Major League Rules:

(2) Competitive Balance Selections.

(A) Eligibility to Receive Competitive Balance Selections.

Beginning with the 2017 First-Year Player Draft, the ten Clubs with the lowest NDLR in the preceding year that are not market disqualified, and to the extent not included in that group, the ten Clubs with the lowest Market Score as set forth in Attachment 26 to the Basic Agreement, will receive an additional selection in the First-Year Player Draft (“Competitive Balance Selection”).

From the 2024 Major League Rules:

(2) Competitive Balance Selections.

(A) Eligibility.

All Clubs that qualify as Payee Clubs (as defined above in Rule 4(c)(1)(A)(iv)) in a given Revenue Sharing Year will receive an additional selection in that year’s First-Year Player Draft (“Competitive Balance Selection”). Eligible Clubs will either receive a Competitive Balance Selection following the conclusion of the first round (“Round A”) or the second round (“Round B”) of the Draft.

Twelve teams are disqualified from receiving revenue sharing due to their market score, meaning a total of eighteen clubs are potentially. eligible.

A further change was the ordering of the picks. Previously the order factored in both the ranking in local revenue and winning percentage; now it only considers winning percentage.

[JoJo]

Please bring back REALISTIC leagues from the rest of the world.
ie: It's fun to see Saitama Seibu Lions or Rakuten Monkeys or Diablos Rojos del México sign Juan Soto out of nowhere.

[kriscolic]

All AI player evaluations are, more or less, identical from AI team to AI team. Please introduce a significant random (or better yet non-random but still significant) variable to this feature. One [artificial] man’s trash is another’s treasure, after all.