First attempt at historical leagues - minor leagues

[GCCWolverine]

I started in 1977, and am having a lot of fun with seeing how the real-life players turn out in this re-assessment of history.

However, I'm concerned because of the lack of minor leaguers. Is there any way to get the players to be drafted in the year they actually were? For instance, Steve Trout was picked in the first round of the 1976 draft, but he's nowhere to be found here. I want players to be drafted, then spend some time in the minors before they arrive in the majors - is there any way to finagle that in this game?

[Bluenoser]

To have an annual draft, disable "assign players to original teams"

I believe one of the custom DB's is setup to have players enter the league the year they were drafted.

You can assign drafted players to whichever level of minors you prefer. The AI may not put them where you think they should be.

Depending if you use recalc or not will determine if players develop into what they were like irl.

[bigMatt]

The way it's set up, from what I've seen, is that the player becomes available in the draft pool the year they debuted in the Big Leagues.

This has been a bit of a disappointment for me as well. I started in 61. Picked up Staub in 63 and his morale is already in the tank in mid year 64 because I haven't promoted his .192 hitting butt yet.

Note - I'm a newbie myself, so there might be a way to fix this that I'm unaware of.

[GCCWolverine]

Yeah - I want to do a historical sim, but if people don't get drafted until the year they debuted, instead of the year they came in - or even if everybody was drafted two years sooner - it's tough because I want to see that development, but I don't see how it's possible with this interface.

[plannine]

You have to remember, that everything in Lahman Database is based on their MAJOR LEAGUE stats and their first year in the majors. Even in some of the custom databases that use their first year in pro baseball, base their stats on some form of reduced major league stats (as far as i know).

If your doing historical before the mid-60's remember there wasn't a draft then!! Everything was pure and simple. Offer him money and get him to sign!!!! In the late 40's or early 50's if you offered him more then a few thousand dollars, you'd have to keep him on your major league roster for the year. This was to keep salaries low. As bonus went higher (and Kansas City would sign, keep for a year and trade to the Yankees) they implemented the draft (again to keep signing salaries low).

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by plannine

If your doing historical before the mid-60's remember there wasn't a draft then!! Everything was pure and simple. Offer him money and get him to sign!!!! In the late 40's or early 50's if you offered him more then a few thousand dollars, you'd have to keep him on your major league roster for the year. This was to keep salaries low. As bonus went higher (and Kansas City would sign, keep for a year and trade to the Yankees) they implemented the draft (again to keep signing salaries low).

Just to flesh out the above, bonus rules were in effect in MLB from 1946-50 and 1950-57. Both times the rules stated that any amateur player signed with a bonus over a set amount had to be retained on the major league active list roster and generally could not be optioned to the minors. But the rules ultimately did not work, as clubs found ways around the rules, including under-the-table payments to players.

In 1959 the first year player draft was implemented. This draft worked by allowing any minor league player after his first season in the minors to be drafted by any major league club unless that player was advanced to the major league active list roster. The idea was that a major league team wouldn't pay an amateur player a large signing bonus if it knew there was a good chance he'd be drafted away by another club after the first year. Generally, such first-year players could not be optioned to the minors.

The first-year player draft rules didn't do all that much to reduce signing bonuses either, so the amateur draft was adopted for June of 1965 (and was held twice per year, in January and June, up until 1986).

[GCCWolverine]

Yeah, I understand - but one of the shortcomings of this database (and I don't know of any others that would work around this) is that Paul Molitor is picked first in the draft, and the next day, he's the starting second baseman for the Orioles. Of the 26 players picked in the first round, 7 jump to the majors immediately - when only about 20 or so in the draft era have done so IRL - and 14 start in AAA. I want to set up a historical league for the purposes of telling a story and doing a dynasty, but it's difficult to talk about my character's fight through the minor leagues if there are a dozen blue-chippers suddenly leap-frogging him on their way to their debuts.

The way I'm going to do this, unless anybody has any ideas, is to sim ahead a year and a half, hold the draft in the game in the off-season, then use the fictional minor leaguers to simulate what they did up until that point and pretend they got drafted in June a year and a half prior. Not the best, but it'll be doable for what I'd like to do.

[bigMatt]

Supposedly, a player needs seasoning before his major league debut - read that somewhere anyway. But it doesn't seem to work that way with the stars, or even some of the marginal players for that matter. They just piss and moan until you promote them to the big time, which is understandable I guess since they show up in the draft the year they actually debuted in MLB.

Yea, I don't really like this at all, either, and it's been bugging me since the first time I played the game. I'd like to have the guys show up when they actually showed up in the minors, even if it is in some fictitious, scaled back version of their future MLB selves.

It's a minor quibble, taken in balance with the many positive aspects of OOTP, but something I definitely wish was different.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by GCCWolverine

Yeah, I understand - but one of the shortcomings of this database (and I don't know of any others that would work around this)

The Spritze db 4.0 works around this by including MLE equivalents for all major leaguers ACTUAL minor league records (1945 through 1974 so far - working on 1944 at the moment). These players start when they really did and quit when they really did so they will also appear in the "draft" or be available for signing in the correct years.

I am in the process of finishing up ver 5.0 which takes all the players I have not got to yet and gives them careers from age 20 to 30 at minimum.

My current plan is to use a players career average for half a season and the "coffee cup player" stats I used when creating the neutralized stats included in the game for half a season and then adjusting for age. Closer to 28/29 means closer to peak so more like career average and farther away means more like "coffee cupper". This should allow for proper player development irregardless of what year you choose to start your league.

I need to do something like this since as all of you have noticed OOTP assumes all the stats it is given are Major League. So MLE's are required.

My question is simply this "Does anyone have a better idea?"

[bigMatt]

Originally Posted by Spritze

The Spritze db 4.0 works around this by including MLE equivalents for all major leaguers ACTUAL minor league records (1945 through 1974 so far - working on 1944 at the moment). These players start when they really did and quit when they really did so they will also appear in the "draft" or be available for signing in the correct years.

I am in the process of finishing up ver 5.0 which takes all the players I have not got to yet and gives them careers from age 20 to 30 at minimum.

My current plan is to use a players career average for half a season and the "coffee cup player" stats I used when creating the neutralized stats included in the game for half a season and then adjusting for age. Closer to 28/29 means closer to peak so more like career average and farther away means more like "coffee cupper". This should allow for proper player development irregardless of what year you choose to start your league.

I need to do something like this since as all of you have noticed OOTP assumes all the stats it is given are Major League. So MLE's are required.

My question is simply this "Does anyone have a better idea?"

this sounds great! looking forward to its release.

[Spritze]

Just finished the latest Ver of the db (5.0). I'm gonna test it until Sat and then get it out to allsimbaseball.com
Please keep in mind that if you use this db you need to be careful about the "Import complete history" choice. Unless you have a buttload and a half of RAM or start your league very early in history do not choose this option or your league creation will hang due to the way OOTP loads external db's. See the note from Markus below.

Comment #1 from markus 2008-09-24 10:06 ------- Unfortunately there is no way to fix this, OOTP 9 uses the Lahman DB in a converted format (binary) to avoid this, but user created databases still suffer from this problem.

[bigMatt]

Perfect timing, as I just corrupted another database for the umpteenth time.

I look forward to the new DB - thanks for all of the work you do enhancing the fun for the OOTP community.

[Spritze]

Be sure to read at least the last paragraph of the readme file before using.

[fourwicks]

Hello My name is Linda and I have two pictures and I was wondering if you could help me with, I am having trouble using this form I can not seem to post a fourm. I have a team picture from 1905 of the Gunthers Chicago city League and a 1906 LA Baseball Pacific Coast League, my great grandfather was a pitcher for both teams and I just inhereted these pictures. I would like to know where to get them appraised at and put insurance on them, I see the Chicago Historical museum has the other two of the gunthers, mine is in mint condition. I was wondering if you could but me in the right direction, and I aplogize for bothering you.
sinserely
Linda Bergmann