Historical Managers

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by WarFisch

OK, I am a little confused (at work without the game in front of me) If I match the strategy of the team to the manager, these strategies change when a new manager is brought in? Do I go in and synch the team up again with the new manager or is it automatic?

Automatic. That's one of the interesting things about the way the game works. However, if the new manager is not one of the guys you've already tailored, you could decide to give him a real name and edit him as well.

Again -- and let me emphasize this -- it's just a way to have a little more fun with the game, if you are willing to put in the work. Definitely not required.

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

.Thats why i prefer to let the AI do the strategy settings for the teams.

You should absolutely do what you prefer. But I hope you understand that the manager strategy preferences -- and consequently the team strategy sliders set for each team -- are random. They are not based on any AI analysis of the team. If those preferences and sliders happen to match up well with the team, the team will prosper. If the matchup is not a good one, the team may not do as well. So the AI fires the manager and hires another one. And if the team still doesn't do well, the AI fires that manager and hires another one, and keeps doing that until the team does better. It's a kind of trial and error process that I think is designed into the game. You can speed that up by editing a better matchup from the beginning.

OTOH, if you like the randomizing, trial-and-error process (and it does have it's own appeal) you should stick with it. Besides, it's less work.

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by SteveP

You should absolutely do what you prefer. But I hope you understand that the manager strategy preferences -- and consequently the team strategy sliders set for each team -- are random. They are not based on any AI analysis of the team. If those preferences and sliders happen to match up well with the team, the team will prosper. If the matchup is not a good one, the team may not do as well. So the AI fires the manager and hires another one. And if the team still doesn't do well, the AI fires that manager and hires another one, and keeps doing that until the team does better. It's a kind of trial and error process that I think is designed into the game. You can speed that up by editing a better matchup from the beginning.

OTOH, if you like the randomizing, trial-and-error process (and it does have it's own appeal) you should stick with it. Besides, it's less work.

Yeah its random but for me the stats always seem close to the real thing. When you have Ty Cobb batting .367 over a career, im not sure if i want to mess with that. But at the same time i wish i could use historical managers.
But i guess im too afraid of making historical managers that would wreck that.

Then again maybe if i dont use the extreme settings like aggressive base stealing then it wouldnt effect hr hitters like Babe Ruth as much or vice versa.
I do like managers having an effect on wins and losses i just dont want it to
screw up the historical accuracy.

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Yeah its random but for me the stats always seem close to the real thing.

No problem. If you're happy, I'm happy.

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by SteveP

No problem. If you're happy, I'm happy.

Yeah thats the main thing. Dont do something if your not happy with the results.

[Carlton]

BaseballMan

Who says Managers strategies become stagnant?

Miller Huggins in Cincinnati was run and hit, bunt kind of guy. With the Yankees he was wait for your pitch, hit and run type of manager

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by Carlton

BaseballMan

Who says Managers strategies become stagnant?

Miller Huggins in Cincinnati was run and hit, bunt kind of guy. With the Yankees he was wait for your pitch, hit and run type of manager

Yes but how do you determine exactly when his strategy change? Some managers change because of the team and some teams change because of the manager.

[Carlton]

I'd say the 2 core players usually will change a manager's strategy. For Huggins, it was Ruth and Muesel

Here's a question...

How do I keep GM's and Managers from retiring? Right now I have the owners as GM's and Benjamin Shibe retired after 1901.

Connie Mack will be impossible to recreate as a MGR if they just have them retire around the age of 60

[clamel]

I just thinking on how much different it would be to NOT using coaching system at all, under the current formula.

After all it´s historical players with non-historical managers and teams that have totally different ideas how to play than the historical team had the same year.

Using some standard system and letting the players ran their stats to get perhaps historical close stats.

Thinking on some big old APBA baseball cardgames, Strat-o-Matic and such. They never used the impact of managers.

The development of players should also be taken care off with recalc. I can´t see how coaches can develop a player that will be adjusted come recalc time in October.

Having the comment that teams will fire managers until it get the correct one also scares me.

Hopefully Markus will look into this since it would be great to have real managers to really impact the game.

[PhillieFever]

This raises a question that I've never even thought of, what kind of strategy is used when the coaching option is turned off? Is it just a vanilla offense with all of the strategy sliders set at 5? Or is it something different.

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by PhillieFever

Is it just a vanilla offense with all of the strategy sliders set at 5?

Yes

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by clamel

The development of players should also be taken care off with recalc. I can´t see how coaches can develop a player that will be adjusted come recalc time in October.

There is a school of thought which holds that "correct" historical league play is to use recalc and retire-according-to-history, and to turn everything else off, including player development, dial down injuries, etc. I interpret this as a desire to have an historical league recreate history as much as possible within the framework of a computer sim that's also a game.

I do not use recalc and retire-according-history, and I have everything else turned on. My desire is to put myself in the shoes of a GM/manager of the day, with no more ability to predict the future development/health of my players than they did.

There are, I am sure, OOTPers who mix-and-match options that result in something other than those two alternatives. But, as you point out, there is the potential for this to be self-defeating, not just in player development but also things like the impact of major injuries on future playing abilities. It is good idea for people to think this through when they choose options.

Having the comment that teams will fire managers until it get the correct one also scares me.

Not so different from what happens IRL. I was only suggesting that it happens a bit more in OOTP, and what I suspected might be the reason for it. It's not that big a deal: manager strategy preferences don't differ all that much -- unless you edit those preferences to create bigger differences. I have done that a number of times. It adds interest to the game.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by SteveP

There is a school of thought which holds that "correct" historical league play is to use recalc and retire-according-to-history, and to turn everything else off, including player development, dial down injuries, etc. I interpret this as a desire to have an historical league recreate history as much as possible within the framework of a computer sim that's also a game.

Given that "correct" history has already happened and that there is not a big bunch of fun in merely seeing how close you can get the game to come to that for me, I basically play as you do, change stuff up and see what's what. My all-time HR leader is Ed Sanicki who was a big power guy in the minors. Now I didn't see that coming so he wasn't on my team but I could have if I'd paid attention. And that to me is the heart of playing this game.

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by Spritze

Given that "correct" history has already happened and that there is not a big bunch of fun in merely seeing how close you can get the game to come to that for me, I basically play as you do, change stuff up and see what's what. My all-time HR leader is Ed Sanicki who was a big power guy in the minors. Now I didn't see that coming so he wasn't on my team but I could have if I'd paid attention. And that to me is the heart of playing this game.

A variant on this which I find quite interesting are the players who start out, or come into the league as rookies, with very good ratings, but who for some reason (Bad injury? Bad attitude? Deported to Mexico? Ran off with the GM's wife? Shot by the GM?) only played a year or two. With retire-according-to-history turned on, these guys disappear on schedule (which, of course, you know is going to happen). In my league, they often hang around to have pretty significant careers (then they run off with the GM's wife ... ).

[clamel]

Originally Posted by Spritze

Given that "correct" history has already happened and that there is not a big bunch of fun in merely seeing how close you can get the game to come to that for me, I basically play as you do, change stuff up and see what's what. My all-time HR leader is Ed Sanicki who was a big power guy in the minors. Now I didn't see that coming so he wasn't on my team but I could have if I'd paid attention. And that to me is the heart of playing this game.

I must say that even based on total recalc I can´t see that history really repeats itself even with recalc. After all we can look at each and every player on his own, getting the stats close.
BUT then we must also see what batting order he played in and a couple of thousand other factors that never can be the same.
So even with a player going "almost" as IRL, we still could have very big difference from whatever happend.
Then if you let the AI deal and sign contracts you will NEVER find the same personel in a team at almost any given time during a dynasty.

So with recalc on it´s more than likely the outcome of a season is very different then IRL.

The sliders are truly all the same when starting a dynasty with no coaches, BUT one can use the Action Ask AI for strategy and you will get different settings for each team (I tried it).

However I don´t know how much it actually differ from if I had managers.
My problems was just that it was fictional managers (historical one that had to be adjusted by me) with historical players.
That will also give different results as IRL.

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by clamel

I must say that even based on total recalc I can´t see that history really repeats itself even with recalc.

There are OOTPers who like to sim out decades or multiple decades at a time, and take great satisfaction (my interpretation ) in seeing the same names on the leaderboards as they see in history. If they see strange names there, it means their historical league did not function correctly for them. Recalc and retire-according-to-history are key devices for producing this result. Random player development, major injuries, etc. are deterrents to achieving this result.

AFAIK, people who enjoy OOTP this way do not care that much about whether teams perform as they did in history, or if the Yankees win as many World Series as they did. This could not be done in OOTP anyway. So, in that respect, you are correct.

However I don´t know how much it actually differ from if I had managers.
My problems was just that it was fictional managers (historical one that had to be adjusted by me) with historical players. That will also give different results as IRL.

I don't think we are going to see historical managers included in the game, because there is no "historical managers database" to use for that purpose. I think it might be possible to modify the game design to make it easier for people to create mods for others to use (although every time I think about how that might be done -- game design, that is -- my head starts to hurt ).