I need help with my college project...

[Muzamba]

...my college baseball project, that is.

For the last several weeks, I've been working on what I consider to be THE definitive college baseball template, which I'm releasing as a mod for the OOTP community. It looks like I'll reach my target release date of June 1st, as the structure is fully in place. (Hopefully, there won't be any problems converting it to X next week! ) However, I still need some help to make it complete. What I'm mainly looking for at this point is feedback on how to configure this setup to function realistically. If I can get all the settings/rules/options updated to my satisfaction, I should be ready to release the beta by Sunday.

So here are some questions...

Please keep in mind that the initial release will be a regular "major" league setup. I have a plan to release a feeder league version soon, but for now, focus on the following as they would apply to a standard league of college baseball teams.

FINANCIALS:
1. How might I go about insuring that the more historically successful college programs (USC, ASU, LSU, Texas, Miami, etc.) remain so in this universe? Could this be done solely by raising the fan interest/loyalty and market size ratings, or will money (i.e. cash on hand, media/merchandising contracts, etc.) need to be involved?
2. Does anyone know if financials even have to be enabled to utilize fan interest/loyalty and market size?
3. Could/should the financial coefficient in the global setup be adjusted, or would that unnecessarily mess up financials in other leagues if one were to add this template to another universe?

PLAYERS:
4. What should the created players' ages be?
5. What should the min/max ages be for players in the league?
6. How, if at all, should ages be adjusted for juco players?
7. Should players be eligible for free agency? If so, what about service days? (Even with all player contracts set to $0, could free agency be used to control how long they stay with their respective team?)
8. How might college transfers be handled?

STRATEGY:
9. What should the General Strategy Tendencies be set to?
10. What should the Player Creation Modifiers be set to, considering that we want to limit the overall number of good players?
11. What should the League Totals be set to?

HOF:
12. What should the HoF requirements be? What about for juco players?

Also, if anyone would be willing to help with logos and team colors, it would be greatly appreciated! (There definitely won't be logos for the first release--although I do have a special little graphic package I'm including--but I do want logos in there eventually.)

Anyway, that should be enough to at least get the discussion going.

[gohorns98]

I can try to help since I have been trying to perfect this for sometime as well.

Originally Posted by Muzamba

...my college baseball project, that is.

For the last several weeks, I've been working on what I consider to be THE definitive college baseball template, which I'm releasing as a mod for the OOTP community. It looks like I'll reach my target release date of June 1st, as the structure is fully in place. (Hopefully, there won't be any problems converting it to X next week! ) However, I still need some help to make it complete. What I'm mainly looking for at this point is feedback on how to configure this setup to function realistically. If I can get all the settings/rules/options updated to my satisfaction, I should be ready to release the beta by Sunday.

So here are some questions...

Please keep in mind that the initial release will be a regular "major" league setup. I have a plan to release a feeder league version soon, but for now, focus on the following as they would apply to a standard league of college baseball teams.

FINANCIALS:
1. How might I go about insuring that the more historically successful college programs (USC, ASU, LSU, Texas, Miami, etc.) remain so in this universe? Could this be done solely by raising the fan interest/loyalty and market size ratings, or will money (i.e. cash on hand, media/merchandising contracts, etc.) need to be involved? I would do this through market size and seating capacity of the ballpark. This way good team earn more revenue then poor teams
2. Does anyone know if financials even have to be enabled to utilize fan interest/loyalty and market size? If you want to represent the various qaulity of baseball in college you will need financials to be on so that "high priced" quality players are picked up by the better teams and more scrubs will need to fill less quality teams.
3. Could/should the financial coefficient in the global setup be adjusted, or would that unnecessarily mess up financials in other leagues if one were to add this template to another universe? I wouldn't mess with the coefficient, but I would change the value of the various player levels. (i.e. value of a super star vs. a poor player). If it was going to be added to another universe I would believe that it would be as a feeder league in which the financials would be turned off.

PLAYERS:
4. What should the created players' ages be? 18
5. What should the min/max ages be for players in the league?18-21
6. How, if at all, should ages be adjusted for juco players? If as a seperate league then I would make the min and max for this league 18-19, this way they would enter the free agent pool at 20 for the other league.
7. Should players be eligible for free agency? If so, what about service days? (Even with all player contracts set to $0, could free agency be used to control how long they stay with their respective team?) I would go with no transfers or trading. I would not want to see a star pitcher "transfer from USC to Texas because of free agency.
8. How might college transfers be handled? I wouldn't do them. OOTP is not made to handle this type of thing. You could do it manually, but I would just try to leave this out.

STRATEGY:
9. What should the General Strategy Tendencies be set to? I would increase bunting, stealing, and subing tendencies. Most of college pitching staffs go with either a 3 man rotation, but this is because of scheduling (3 games a weekend and 1 game on Tuesday or Wednesday). You might also try lowering the stamania, but most starters get about 6 innings in which is about the same as the modern settings in OOTP.
10. What should the Player Creation Modifiers be set to, considering that we want to limit the overall number of good players? I would leave these alone, but if the league is a stand alone universe I would increase the development quite a bit. I think 2.5 for both batting and pitching development gave me a good curve. This means that when the player hits 22 in the college league his development would be as if he was about 28 (if I understand that function correctly). Also I would increase Talent Randomness, and make scouts less acurate. This way you can get more busts and "diamonds in the rough" into the league.
11. What should the League Totals be set to? I would go with something equivalent to the totals in the late 80's or early 90's. This will keep the HR's a little lower then what you see in the MLB currently.

HOF:
12. What should the HoF requirements be? What about for juco players? Not sure on this one.

Also, if anyone would be willing to help with logos and team colors, it would be greatly appreciated! (There definitely won't be logos for the first release--although I do have a special little graphic package I'm including--but I do want logos in there eventually.) I have all Division I logos from last year set up if you want to PM me with your email.

Anyway, that should be enough to at least get the discussion going.

An other thought is that you will need to increase the Free Agent pool every year. Each team will lose around 25% of it's roster each year. OOTP makes it very easy to create Free Agents, but it something that has to be done in each off season.

One thing you might try to do also is use the MOD that has each state as a country. This way you can limit teams in their "out of state" players. Also you can control the quality of baseball in each state. For example Texas might be 5 quality country while Alaska would be a 1 quality country.

With OOTPX you can limit the reserve roster (which I am excited about because of my desire for this type of league). I would limit each team to a 40 man active roster and 0 on the reserve roster. This way every player will have a contract and you will not have anyone with a minor league contract sitting on a reserve roster of a good team when they could be playing on a bad team.

[VaCubbie]

This sounds great and sounds like you are asking/answering the right questions. I have thought about attempting such a feat, but don't have a whole lot of time (nagging wife/needy child j/k, of course ) I would love to play the mod as is, and perhaps after the 1st release collaborate on the 2nd. Looking forward to it!

And BTW Horns...Boomer Sooner!!

[dcpcarmona]

sounds very promising just on what has been said thus far...I will definitely keep my eyes out for this one...btw, for min/max ages, I think 17-25 should be a good range to work with that way any juco players can be implemented into the league. And as far as logos and jerserys, there are some sets floating around in the OOTP 9 - Mod thread and some listed over at Padresfan site.

[gohorns98]

Originally Posted by dcpcarmona

sounds very promising just on what has been said thus far...I will definitely keep my eyes out for this one...btw, for min/max ages, I think 17-25 should be a good range to work with that way any juco players can be implemented into the league.

The problem with this is that you will get players in the league for 8 years instead of the 4 that they are allowed. I know with red shirting and other factors college baseball players can range in age outside of 18-22, but in order to achieve 4 years for the majority of players the range needs to be 4 years.

[koolkerns101]

I would agree with the previous posters on about everything, but I think transferring could be possible if you do this:

1. Set AI trading frequency to very low and treat any trades as transfers.
2. Then manually DL those players for 365 days (create an injury called Transfer).

I'd also say absolutely no free agency, and would instead recommend having all players being introduced by your scouts, rather than an amateur draft. I'd maybe do a one round draft or something just to ensure teams get players, but by using the scouts, it would play up to the fact that teams have larger budgets to find/sign (as in commit) players. Most discovered players pop up in the offseason, so it makes some sense.

I'm not sure how to go about doing it, but I'd also make sure you can make sure players "graduate" once they turn 23 (or have 4/5 years of active service). This could be done manually, or maybe by opening up free agency and then deleting the free agent pool (I think that might delete everyone from the league records?...if so, I wouldn't recommend that) or retiring them by hand once they hit FA.

As for the hall of fame, it's tough to say. That would likely require some test runs to determine. However, I am currently using a College feeder in my league, and it seems like "outstanding" players are doing this yearly:

HR: 20-25
RBI: 60-75
Hits: 100-110 (~.400 BA)
Wins: 10-14
Strikeouts: 125-140
VORP: 50-60

So in order to figure out hall of fame worthy totals, I suppose just multiply by 4 and adjust to limit the amount of guys that enter it.

Also do you plan on having certain players leave after 3 years via a draft?

[Jamee999]

It'd be much easier to have a no redshirt, no transfer universe

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Jamee999

It'd be much easier to have a no redshirt, no transfer universe

That is true, but I would love for OOTP to do all that stuff right one day, including High School recruiting and years of eligibility rather than age limits. Maybe OOTP 11 or 12.

[gohorns98]

The Free Agency period to me is the Recruiting period. All players that would be created can be set as 18 year olds coming out of High School. I see the money offered to players as the amount of money and effort a school is putting in to recruit them. Also, if you have the States as Countries and limit the amount of Forgein players on a team it will force teams to regionalize their "recruiting." I do not know how well OOTP handles this aspect (setting Free Agent priorities based on country), but it means that a UCLA team would not be filled with players from Delaware.

[gohorns98]

Originally Posted by koolkerns101

I'm not sure how to go about doing it, but I'd also make sure you can make sure players "graduate" once they turn 23 (or have 4/5 years of active service). This could be done manually, or maybe by opening up free agency and then deleting the free agent pool (I think that might delete everyone from the league records?...if so, I wouldn't recommend that) or retiring them by hand once they hit FA.

OOTP actually handles this quite nicely. If you have the max age set at 22 years old then if a player is 22 at the beginning of a season they are able to play through the season even if they turn 23 during it. At the beginning of the off season period all of these players are cut from their team. They do not necessarily "retire", but they do not show up in the Free Agency pool for the league any more and will not be picked up by another team. This is why I suggest a age limit of 18-22. The most a player will be in the league would be 4 years.

[codyg19]

Originally Posted by gohorns98

This is why I suggest a age limit of 18-22. The most a player will be in the league would be 4 years.

This is actually a five-year period. It's the same as saying that ages 1-5 only cover a four-year period because 5-1=4. It's a little easier to see when you start with age one as opposed to 18 .

[gohorns98]

Originally Posted by codyg19

This is actually a five-year period. It's the same as saying that ages 1-5 only cover a four-year period because 5-1=4. It's a little easier to see when you start with age one as opposed to 18 .

You caught me. I have tried to run this so many times I forget. You should have the age range down as 18-21 and it will work correctly in OOTP with 4 years of eligibility.

[CoachDirty]

Originally Posted by gohorns98

I can try to help since I have been trying to perfect this for sometime as well.





An other thought is that you will need to increase the Free Agent pool every year. Each team will lose around 25% of it's roster each year. OOTP makes it very easy to create Free Agents, but it something that has to be done in each off season.

One thing you might try to do also is use the MOD that has each state as a country. This way you can limit teams in their "out of state" players. Also you can control the quality of baseball in each state. For example Texas might be 5 quality country while Alaska would be a 1 quality country.

With OOTPX you can limit the reserve roster (which I am excited about because of my desire for this type of league). I would limit each team to a 40 man active roster and 0 on the reserve roster. This way every player will have a contract and you will not have anyone with a minor league contract sitting on a reserve roster of a good team when they could be playing on a bad team.

Where can I find this mod? I've looked and it appears to have existed at one time, but don't know where to find it now. Thanks for any help

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by gohorns98

You caught me. I have tried to run this so many times I forget. You should have the age range down as 18-21 and it will work correctly in OOTP with 4 years of eligibility.

This is the reason I'd like OOTP to have years of eligibilty for college leagues instead of age limits. How I can see it working is it's a number of seasons that gets automatically reduced to zero when a player signs a minor league or major league contract.

[gohorns98]

Originally Posted by CoachDirty

Where can I find this mod? I've looked and it appears to have existed at one time, but don't know where to find it now. Thanks for any help

That is disappointing. I have just sent Padresfan what I am using and hopefully he will be able to set it up for downloading soon. I would have put it on here, but we have a 100KB limit.

[Muzamba]

Sorry it took me so long to check back in. Now that my girlfriend's left for work, I should be able to devote the rest of the evening to this.

I'm gonna try and address each issue individually...

Originally Posted by gohorns98

One thing you might try to do also is use the MOD that has each state as a country. This way you can limit teams in their "out of state" players. Also you can control the quality of baseball in each state. For example Texas might be 5 quality country while Alaska would be a 1 quality country.

I neglected to mention that I've already done this. I had my own states-as-nations file set up quite a while ago, but I did borrow the ethnicity percentages from someone else's later on. (I'll have to look up whose mod it was so I can give them credit.)

And by the way, mine also has Canadian provinces as nations, as well. I don't recall if the other one(s) did or not. PLUS, I have what I consider to be a nifty little bonus graphics pack that will be included with my release.

I'm glad you mentioned adjusting the quality for each state, as I had intended to that a while back, but completely forgot in the midst of all the other work.

Originally Posted by CoachDirty

Where can I find this mod? I've looked and it appears to have existed at one time, but don't know where to find it now. Thanks for any help

I'll release my "states-as-nations" as a standalone mod, as well as part of my college universe, so just wait until tomorrow and it should be available. (I just wanna add in the quality ratings gohorns mentioned above.)

[Muzamba]

On the subject of ages, I had been setting the min/max to 18/21, although 22 might make more sense as the max.

EDIT: Ok, I missed gohorns comment earlier about the game rotating out the players AFTER the season, so 18/21 should be fine after all.

As for created player ages, I had 17-19. This way, theoretically speaking, you would have "free agents" that were 17, but not yet eligible to play in the league. And this should give you the opportunity to "scout" them beforehand. (If they don't even show up in the game until they're 18, wouldn't they be losing a half-year or so of eligibility?) I'm actually not sure if the game works this way or not.

Of course, this leads into the free agency question...

[Daern]

If possible, could you just make all contracts four years long, allowing you to fudge the age limits beyond four years?

[Muzamba]

As I mentioned above, I'd like there to be "free agents" (not sure if that would be the applicable term here) at the onset, so if you are controlling a team, you'd have the opportunity to try and recruit players... if, of course, it would work that way.

I agree that an amateur draft would be a bad idea, because there are so many teams involved, it would unrealistically distribute the good incoming players.

And there should be no need for free agency afterward, as it would be preset that a player wouldn't be eligible for free agency for 4 years anyway.

As for transfers, I agree that they're really not all that necessary, even though they do seem to be more common in baseball than in other college sports. But I think there will be enough players that will be released (likely by the better teams and signed by the lesser teams, which is more reflective of how players transfer in real life.) Of course, you could locate these players and manually DL them for a year, as was suggested, but this could be addressed in one's own house rules.

[Muzamba]

Originally Posted by koolkerns101

As for the hall of fame, it's tough to say. That would likely require some test runs to determine. However, I am currently using a College feeder in my league, and it seems like "outstanding" players are doing this yearly:

HR: 20-25
RBI: 60-75
Hits: 100-110 (~.400 BA)
Wins: 10-14
Strikeouts: 125-140
VORP: 50-60

So in order to figure out hall of fame worthy totals, I suppose just multiply by 4 and adjust to limit the amount of guys that enter it.

First off, I have a confession to make: Considering how much time I've spent working on this project, I really don't follow college baseball all that much, or know very much about its statistical output.

In theory, I'm sure you're correct. I thought about just figuring these out from a purely mathematical standpoint, i.e. calculate the average major league hall-of-famer's number of years in the league, divide the default HoF totals by this number, then figure out what they'd have after 4 years. However, there are several other factors to consider in the college game. Most significant of which is the fact that they only play about 56 games per season. Also, I'm pretty sure pitchers are used differently, and managing styles and strategies are different, too.

Bottom line on the HoF is, I think we're gonna need either...

a.) someone who follows the game closely and knows the numbers
b.) someone who's willing to take the time to look them up
or
c.) a pretty darn good mathemitician!