Step by Step to create a Best of League

[Comedian2004]

OOTP2007 has a great option to import a historical team into a league. Using this function and some knowledge of the game, you can create a 'best of' type league. For obvious reasons, you may want to create leagues that have team from the same decades. Having the 1905 White Sox playing the 2005 Yankees could be a little crazy, but you can still do it if you want.

I am going to create a best of the 2000s here. When done, I will run the year and post the results. So, let's hear some predictions on who is going to win the best of 2000 simulation.

1. Create a new fictional league in advanced mode
2. Decide the layout that you want and put some thought into this, as it will make it easier in creating the league.
In my example here, I decided to create a best of the 2000's league. So, from 2001 to 2006, that is 7 years. I decided to use each division winner and also the wildcard teams. My league will have 2 sub-leagues (AL/NL) and then 4 divisions (EAST, CENTRAL, WEST and WILDCARD). So I am creating a fictional league in this structure. I put 2 fictional leagues in each division that I will delete.
3. Set up the division names and league names, this will make it easier to import the teams.
4. Set the DH rule for the leagues
5. Since this will really be a RUN ONE SEASON type league, disable the draft and trading
6. I am also disabling financials and injuries and player development.
7. Make sure the HOLD DRAFT is not checked
8. Under strategy and equivalencies, select the year that fits the situation. I am selecting the year 2004 for this simulation.
9. I am turning off the coaching system and the scouting system and setting me as commish. I plan to just simulate the season, not take over a team.
10. Head over to the setup section and go into functions and select EDIT STRUCTURE
11. Remove all of the teams
12. Go to the FREE AGENT screen and delete all of the free agents
13. After you click START, you may want to save this as a template.
14. Now comes the time consuming part. Click on IMPORT HISTORICAL TEAM. Select the database and the year. I am using the defaults on this screen. You may want to have Baseball-reference loaded and ALT TAB between this page and the game to decide what team you want to load. The game is loading in the leagues from a CSV file, which means loading leagues that are from 2000 take longer than ones from 1926. You can exit the game at any point and resume it later, so you do not have to do it at one sitting.
15. Once you have all of your teams loaded and set up in the proper divisions, you may want to return to the names screen and rename the teams. By Default, they are named "Detroit" "Tigers 1968". I think it looks better as "1968 Detroit" "Tigers". You can do this pretty quickly by clicking on the team nickname and then using pressing the END key to put you at the end of the name. Then backspace to remove the year. Then move the cursor to the team name and hit HOME and add the year to the front of the name. This is optional, but it will make the standings look better.
16. Now you are ready to go generate the schedule
17. At this point, you may want to generate a QUICK START based on this league. This will make it easy to run the simulation over and over again.

TIP: Save your game every few teams, that way if you have the power go out or your computer lock up, you will not lose all of your work.
It does take quite a bit of time to set up a league like this, but it sure can be a lot of fun when done.

When you have one set up, be sure and let me know, as I will gladly put it up on my server for others to use.

The only downside to this is that you will have duplicate players, so I will have 7 Sammy Sosa's in the league. They will have different player IDs, so it will work in the game. I am going to suggest for a patch or future version that the players get imported with their year included in their names. (Optional of course)

[swampdragon]

Will the game import a pre-1901 historical team?

[Comedian2004]

Not using a unmodified Lahman database.

[rogmax11]

These guides are invaluable, thanks for doing them.

On a related note, is it possible to create a historical league and add duplicate teams to increase the league structure, but edit the dupes names and team info? For instance, if I want to create a 32 team league starting from 1901, with renamed dupes filling out the added 16 teams, can this be done? I'd like to see what happens if Larry Lajoie and Nap Lajoie competed against each other.

Guess I'll find out soon, one way or another.

[Comedian2004]

Without testing, I do not see why not, as when you import a historical team, it assigns all the players with unique IDs.

Give it a test in couple days and let us know.

How about an entire league consisting of the 1927 Yankees. Turn trading on and that could be very interesting.

[SandMan]

Originally Posted by rogmax11

These guides are invaluable, thanks for doing them.

On a related note, is it possible to create a historical league and add duplicate teams to increase the league structure, but edit the dupes names and team info? For instance, if I want to create a 32 team league starting from 1901, with renamed dupes filling out the added 16 teams, can this be done? I'd like to see what happens if Larry Lajoie and Nap Lajoie competed against each other.

Guess I'll find out soon, one way or another.

This works. I did it a little different though, import, rename players, reimport, using historical names.... To see who was who after the season I kept the historical career stats for all players. This was fun. In 1901 this works great if you have around 24 teams. 32 the rosters are small, 16 and the teams have a few Very Good players stuck in the minors....

One interesting note. It was interesting to see that the players did not re-import with the EXACT same ratings each time (very similar and believable but not exact)....

[svonkie]

sorry...dumb question here: I'm trying to use Comedian 2004's great walk through about creating that kind of historical league and I have a simple question. I can't figure out how to import an historical team (a league I can do), but a team, I'm stuck on it.

sorry for the dumb question.

[Comedian2004]

It is bump an old thread Monday

[Dr. C-Mac]

Thanks for the thread bump. That was exactly what I was looking for.

[Comedian2004]

Stickey request, stickey request.

Originally Posted by Dr. C-Mac

Thanks for the thread bump. That was exactly what I was looking for.

[bmerryman]

I did a variation of this with the top 36 teams of all-time (subjective, of course). I had 6 divisions (dead ball, roaring, G.I., Apollo, Wall Street, Silicon). I went in and made some team strategy modifications to try and smooth out the differences in eras. Then I let 'er rip. 1902 Pittsburgh had the best overall record but lost to the 1986 NY Mets for the championship. The Mets were a wildcard entry as they were second to the 1993 SF Giants in the regular season.

[texasmame]

Needs a stickey!

[robster1225]

You need to go into the league structure editor, under functions in "game setup". You'll see a button in there to "import team".