High-School/College Feeder Leagues

[Tiesenberg]

Hello everyone,

Like the majority of those on the board, after playing around with OOTPX, I am both more than pleased with product and have had ideas running through my mind on what might be possible. One such hope I have had was helped shaped by Muzamba's College Baseball Project.

I would like to create both a High-School and College Feeder type system for a MLB league. After reading the manual, I have come to realize that the "younger HS" feeder league would under no circumstance feed into the college league, but rather all players who finished HS eligibility would become draftees or free agents. This would obviously be the same for the College players without any more eligibility.

As a result, each draft class would be filled with either HS "grads" (18 years old or dependent on age maximum) and College "grads (22?). I am thinking about trying to make a system (mod in League Totals?) in which HS players would be far less developed and "unknown" due to what would be a 4-5 year age gap. Do you see this as a problem or have any other potential ideas on how to create a template that might fix the constant age gap between draft prospects?

Any ideas that people might have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

[Afino]

HS prospects are already less developed and "unknown" by design. They may have higher potentials, but less of a chance to hit that potential.

I don't know how to fix the age gap unless you create several HS feeder leagues, one that has ages of 13-16, one from 14-17, one from 15-18, one from 16-19, etc.

Also, after you start the league, make sure you change the "created player" min and max to the minimum age allowed for that one feeder league.

One more thing - keep in mind any aging/dev modifiers ALSO APPLY to the feeder leagues. So you may want to dial the aging/dev modifiers below 1 (where exactly I'm not sure and still testing) to make sure you don't end up with a lot of 20 year old superstars in your MLB.

[Cryomaniac]

One thing I definitely want to see in OOTP 11 is high school leagues feeding college leagues in at least a sensible way, ideally in the same way as real life.

[Tiesenberg]

After my first day of OOTPX, I'm happy I decided to go with the new version.

In continuing with the dilemma of a College Feeder league, I have come up with some more ideas that I want to bounce off other minds in an attempt to find something that could be useful for many users alike.

First off, instead of a single College Feeder league, what if there were multiple college feeders, with each feeder being a different conference. This could allow for each conference to have more specific and tailored league total and modifiers for each conference. This could make players from the Big 12 or from the ACC superior to smaller conferences. This still leaves a problem where schools such as Baylor and Wake Forest could produce similar to talent as a Texas or North Carolina, but it would in some sense boost talent from still superior teams. This could similarly be altered if "elite programs" were placed in a Super Conference where league totals and modifiers made players better than lesser programs and conferences, this of course though would ruin conference integrity at the collegiate level.

A second thought I had included changing the age gap for which players remain eligible to play in each league. Instead of having 4 years of eligibility, what if elite schools/conferences (again this would require some modifications with either conferences or with leagues) had players for only 3 years. This would be similar to top talent leaving after their Junior years rather than after graduation. With players moving on every 3 years instead of 4, more and more players from these schools and or conferences would populate the minor league systems of MLB teams as a higher rate than those players who stayed for four years. This one year split could go the other way with elite schools maintaining 4 years and a one year raise to other schools (Redshirt year perhaps?)

[neojonas]

Originally Posted by Afino

One more thing - keep in mind any aging/dev modifiers ALSO APPLY to the feeder leagues. So you may want to dial the aging/dev modifiers below 1 (where exactly I'm not sure and still testing) to make sure you don't end up with a lot of 20 year old superstars in your MLB.

In my feeder testing I've found development between leagues with feeders and leagues without feeders to be very similar so I have not adjusted the aging/dev modifiers. Curious to see the outcomes of your testing.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by neojonas

In my feeder testing I've found development between leagues with feeders and leagues without feeders to be very similar so I have not adjusted the aging/dev modifiers. Curious to see the outcomes of your testing.

Were those with the default 1.000's?

[neojonas]

Originally Posted by Afino

Were those with the default 1.000's?

Yes. I'm still playing around with it. I've got another test I need to run (hopefully tonight) that will help me determine if talent distribution is alright.

[Tiesenberg]

Over the past two days I've been setting up a template with 12 college feeder leagues with league totals that used 2009 real life statistics from teams within each conference.
(Conferences Include)
-ACC -Big East -Big 10 -Big 12 -Big West -Conference USA -Ivy Leagues -Pac-10 -SEC -WAC -WCC and -1A Independents (Yet to determine what teams will be included here)

I have a few questions for everyone and your ideas/input would be appreciated.

1. I plan to now add some high-school feeder leagues, first does anyone have any good League Total #'s to start testing with? To go along with high-school feeder leagues, how many HS Leagues would you include?

2. How many minor league levels are worth keeping? With the AI confusion over the multiple A teams, is it worth keeping all of these leagues or would it better be off to only have 1 A-Level team. This then goes to what are everyones opinions on both Short-A Ball and Rookie Leagues?

Thanks everyone

[Afino]

Originally Posted by neojonas

Yes. I'm still playing around with it. I've got another test I need to run (hopefully tonight) that will help me determine if talent distribution is alright.

The problem I keep running into is the runs/game rate steadily increasing.

The league batting averages say within a perfect range (10-15 points), but the run production in 15 years went from right around 4 to the 4.75 range. In 30 years, it reached over 5.00. I took a look at the league history leaderboards, and it's not like HR are out of whack either.

I've tried changing the pitching PCM's to 1.100 to try and create better pitchers (since I don't think the batters are juiced if the league AVG is the same), but the same result happened.