Quote:
Originally Posted by RMc
Now that the 19th century is playable, what will it look like? Will the league automatically expand and contract as teams are added/drop out? What about the not-National Leagues (AA, UA and PL)? Four balls for a walk wasn't standardized until the 1880s; will the game reflect this?
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Here's my take as an observer who has been trying to get the same answers from people who actually know what they're talking about. This all could be wrong, but I'm fairly confident of most of it. I am not a betatester, and I'm actually trying to bait anyone who knows into correcting my errors.
1. The game engine won't change. 4 balls will still be a walk. That's too much trouble for too little benefit. OOTP does have historical modifiers that will ensure that the total number of strikeouts, walks, errors, etc. in the organization will be reasonably accurate. Sometimes the first year is a bit off, but this will be no different from starting a league in 1901.
2. The only way you're going to get the UA and PL as separate leagues is going to be if you create them yourself. Stats from those leagues won't be included as major league stats in your history. The UA was way too fluid to recreate, anyway.
3. The National Association years will be included, but the National Association won't. We'll start out with eight teams in two subleagues and gradually expand from there. This means that teams such as the Middletown Mansfields that had a lifetime of a couple of months will not be represented, although I imagine its players will be available in the game as free agents. I don't know whether the original 1871 team names will be used, and moved from city to city, or whether we'll just start with the original 1876 lineup of franchises and 1871 players. I suspect the latter.
4. The American Association is very likely to be in the game as one of the subleagues, although it may be called the American League. I expect it and the National League will each have eight teams for the duration of the 19th century after 1883. That means the majors will not contract into one league in 1892 and that we'll have sixteen teams throughout the period. (This is the guess where I'm most likely to be wrong.) You won't get the 12 team 1884 American Association and there will be too many teams in the 1890s.
5. We may or may not be able to alter these things manually in order to more adequately mirror the actual league structures during the period. I've about decided that an idealized National Association with eight teams will be more fun than the real thing. On the other hand, I don't really care for not being able to contract to 12 teams in the 1890s. If I can make that change, I will.