Attempting to create a rookie database

[bulldog55]

After some experimentation and some help from SandMan, I've managed to edit a database so that a player appears in their first professional season rather than their Major League debut season (or beyond).

There are some limitations to this, such as:
-Players who were in the minor leagues in the specific initial import year will not be imported; rather, they will import in their Major League debut as in Lahman.
-Not all players, especially as you go farther back in time, have records of their professional debut and they will have to import as normal.
-I expect that OOTP will give players bad ratings because they will have zero at bats in their minor league debut. While their talents should be accurate, the players may be too old, too close to their actual MLB debut or too underdeveloped to actually pan out as they did in reality.

I think that even with these sorts of hindrances it could still be a valuable database, especially for those who are more concerned with having a more realistic management experience as opposed to more realistic statistical results. A lot of superstars will probably wind up duds, and while that is the case in any database it will most likely be exaggerated here.


Creating this database will basically involve editing an existing database (Ankit/Lahman) to add a line for every player with their professional debut and zeroes across the board for stats.

If anyone is interested in working on this, I'd like to split this up alphabetically, having people take certain letters of the alphabet and adding the debut seasons for every player they can. I know a lot of people want this kind of a database so hopefully there will be a lot of of people who want to help create it.


So. Anybody want to give this a go?

Suggestions? Criticisms?

[SandMan]

Do you have MS Access? If so you can use the lahman mdb file and create a query to add a record for each player with zeroed stats, adding a record with the new debut year from the master file. This would probably take about an hour to do the tables required. I think you would need to do the Master, Batting, Pitching, Fielding, OF Fielding tables.

I did this a while back for my random debut database. I lost all my notes and tables on this when I bought a new computer but I remember those 5 tables. The master would need to be updated to change the debut. The other tables for the dummy record. One note though, create an additional field in the Master called new debut year and use that linked to the other 4 tables by LAHMANID.

If you don't have access but have Excel you can do the same by creating a work sheet importing the 5 CSV files as different sheets. Modify the Master tables Debut Date record. I believe there is a data function to subtract a number of years, days , or months. Filter the other tables on player ID making each a unique record. Using Paste Special Value put these into another sheet giving each player 1 record. Modify the year from a value in another column representing Year - #, Zero out all the stats. Simple...

Sounds difficult but once you get the routine down this can be done rather quickly. The only down side with excel is that you can only do about 65,000 records at a time, but I believe Lahmans 5.2 already breaks down the files. If you are using a different database in Lahman format you may need to manually break the file down to a Excel limitations or use the MDB version in Access.

Hope this helps.

[bulldog55]

Wow, awesome, thanks once again.

Yes, I do have Access. I'll give this a look.

[bulldog55]

dola,

on second thought I've just decided to go through Gambo's database and edit out dummy seasons. I don't know which db he went from but I'm sure it was either Lahman or Ankit so it seems like it would just be a lot of unnecessary work creating a new one. This seems to be going better so I'll just keep deleting rows for a while....

[Vholes]

Just FYI-- If I understand you correctly and you are planning to give all the players zero stats for the years they import, you will have major problems with pitching stats.

When I did my own database earlier this month, I initially tried doing the same thing-- that is, the master file would tell the game to import Pitcher X in year 1900, but he would have no stats until year 1904.

The problem I found was that the engine automatically looks for pitching stats in the import year so it knows whether to import the pitcher as a starter or reliever. If it doesn't find any stats for that year, it will import the player with essentially zero talent ratings (like you would have for a position player that was sent in to pitch).

A similar issue with hitters. You need to give them a line of fielding stats for their import year or they will import as pitchers (but with lousy ratings and talent). You do not seem to need to given them any later seasons for their fielding stats.

Interestingly, hitters do ok if they import with no batting stats from their debut year. Unless you want them to be permanently awful, you need to give them at least one year's worth of stats (doesn't have to be from their rookie year) so they will be given accurate talent ratings.

[Gambo]

Yeah..the pitchers stats will be screwy