[boblight24]

Those of you who run historical replays (i.e. starting in 1961 with the Yankees & importing complete history) what are your thoughts on filling the minors with fictional players? And for those of you that do, do you block them from making the MLB or do you allow it? Just wanted to get some feedback, thanks!

[Spritze]

If you use ghost players instead of filling minors with fictional players you usually wind up with 17 catchers and 1 or 2 pitchers on a team or some other nonsensical roster makeup.

If you fill teams with fictional players this does not happen generally.

I block them from the majors.

[TribeFanInNC]

I used ghost players in the couple that I have done. I kinda treat AAA like a reserve squad that provides some sense of whether the player is playing well or poorly.

[SteveP]

I do a lot of historicals in the 50s-60s period. My approach is this:

1. I create only two minor league levels: AAA and AA. The historical rookies fit well into these two levels when they first arrive on the seen. More than this is unnecessarily complicated. Less is uninteresting. I don't use a draft because there wasn't any such thing then.

2. I create fictional players based on AA and A player creation parameters (couple of ways to do this). In addition I downgrade speed and fielding player creation modifiers, because otherwise even these low-level fictional players tend to outshine the real players. In the future I may downgrade pitching as well. As a result, these players can fill in for the real ones, but tend not to advance beyond backup status (though it's hard to avoid getting a few that do).

3. I do not block fictionals from the ML, for two reasons. One is that my purpose is to facilitate realistic injuries. If you don't allow fictionals into the ML, you don't have robust enough organizations in that period to fill in for injuries, suspensions and the like (or you end up having real players playing out-of-position too much). The other reason is that the fictionals represent stand-ins for minor league players of the day who, by happenstance, never got a chance to play at the ML level, even though at least some of them would likely have performed as well as some of the players who did get promoted. To put it another way, some of the players who show up from the Lahman DB might as well have been fictional or anonymous for all that their ML careers amounted to. Regarding them as somehow more legitimate than the fictionals is hard to justify.

Hope that helps.

[jduteau]

Originally Posted by SteveP

2. I create fictional players based on AA and A player creation parameters (couple of ways to do this). In addition I downgrade speed and fielding player creation modifiers, because otherwise even these low-level fictional players tend to outshine the real players. In the future I may downgrade pitching as well. As a result, these players can fill in for the real ones, but tend not to advance beyond backup status (though it's hard to avoid getting a few that do).

That sounds like an interesting way to run a replay. I'm interested in more details about point #2 quoted above. I may have to try that - I normally don't include fictional players at all but then I play with injuries on very low to get around the injury problem.

Not having looked into doing this, can you explain how to create fictionals with AA and A creation parameters?

Thanks,

Jean

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by jduteau

That sounds like an interesting way to run a replay. I'm interested in more details about point #2 quoted above. I may have to try that - I normally don't include fictional players at all but then I play with injuries on very low to get around the injury problem.

Not having looked into doing this, can you explain how to create fictionals with AA and A creation parameters?

Thanks,

Jean

Well, as I said, there are two ways. The way that is probably easier is to modify the player creation modifiers, assuming you understand how best to do that.

The probably more difficult way -- which is, of course, the way I do it -- is to create three levels of minor leagues at game creation: AAA, AA and A. The real players will be distributed between ML, AAA and AA. Then I add fictionals only for AA and A. Then I have go to each team (as commissioner) and have the AI "setup complete minor league organization." That causes the fictionals to migrate upward to fill in slots in the higher levels. Then I go to each team and move the remainder in A up to AA. Once the A league is empty of players, I delete the A league. Simple as that.

The best thing, perhaps, is a combination of the two. As I mentioned, the player creation modifiers tend to create players, even at AA which are better fielders and better baserunners than many of the "real" players. Also pitchers can be pretty good. It's a result of taking "modern" parameters and extending them to historical periods. So, an adjustment to player creation modifiers (in the major league strategy page) is not a bad idea before you create any fictional players.