Short seasons

[LeeHoFooks]

I am one of those fools that has to play out all of his team's games in order to enjoy myself. At the same time, I feel player development and the development of a league history are the best part of OOTP. I could never fully enjoy player development or the history aspect of this game to its fullest while playing out every game of a 162 game schedule. I just didn't have the time. So I decided to experiment with playing a shortened season. I went all out too. I started a twelve team league with a 62 game schedule. My league (fictional) started in 1900 and I am proud to say I am halfway through 1907 at this time. All the things I thought I would hate about playing shortened seasons (no 20 game winners, no 100 rbi guys, etc etc.) quickly disappeared. It took maybe 3 seasons for me to assimilate myself to the new stat levels. Now there is nothing better than checking the career leaders. I love watching players work their way to the Hall. I have had 2 guys get 75 rbi's in a season, a feat that I find amazing. I set each team so they have 4 man rotations. This gives each starter basically 15 to 16 starts a game. In the first year of this league I had a guy go 15-1. He has done nothing since. Oh well I ramble on. I just wonder if anyone else plays short seasons?

[John Marsh]

How quickly do prospects develop in your league?

I seem to recall running a shortened year for precisely the reasons you list, but it took a long time for prospects' ratings to reach their talent level. Do you notice something similar?

JM

[Bluenoser]

Have thought about trying shortened seasons. Actually wanted to setup an identical league to the now defunct Canadian Baseball League with an 80 game schedule.

Couple of questions for you:

What time of year do you start your season? (What date) (A previous short season I tried I found the trade deadline was still 31 July so had to set my schedule accordingly)

What are your HOF criteria set at? Must be scaled back quite a bit I would guess.

[LeeHoFooks]

I have actually started my season at several different times through the first 8 years of my league. I have settled on a start of about 06/15. With a 62 game season this allows for enough stats time before the trade deadline, but ends the season before the rosters can be expanded. I have no all star game. I am not the one to ask about player development due to the fact that I play all my games out. To me my players are developing like they a supposed to. I have never simmed season after season so the only opinion I can have would be from playing 3 162 game seasons. How much development can go on in three seasons.

[DreamTeams]

I play a 100 game season in my solo Metro Leagues. Works out great. I recall from a past discussion that shortened seasons do not affect player development. I've noticed no adverese affects.

[kq76]

These are the threads I found on the subject:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=54146

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=44674

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=38607

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=34944

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=26551

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=20920

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=18600

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...&threadid=2314

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...&threadid=5320

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...&threadid=8774

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=52330

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=45641

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=45448

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=39350

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...threadid=35805

These are the issues I found:

-Finances might be off, not enough revenue for the player expenses, so you might want to divide your revenues by the ratio of the shortened # of games to 162. Apparently OOTP takes this into consideration if you set your league at the beginning to a short season, but from what I hear it ups the revenues instead of decreasing the expenses, which doesn't seem right. I'm not sure on this, it is just my impression of what I have read.
-Development appears to be mostly triggered by the # of games played and so shorter seasons should result in less development, but it's the same for everyone so it shouldn't matter that much. I think it should also be somewhat triggered by age and I think we know that hits are triggered by age and so hopefully the same also happens to bumps, which should make the effect of shorter seasons on development less severe.
-You should set the schedule around the trading deadline of July 31st (normally 2 thirds of the season is played before the deadline). I don't think any other dates really need to be scheduled around.

Now some of the info in the above threads is for different versions of the game, but I would assume that most things have gotten better, not worse.

[Ragnar]

I play 108 game seasons. Exactly 1/3 less. That made it easy for me to set the HOF criteria. I have no finacial problems with the league what so ever since i edited the TV rev.