College and HS feeder leagues

[littlechris1977]

If I convert a 6.12 league and have all of the international leagues, how important would these be. I don't really want to create them unless I had every college team and that DB would be ginormous. Would I be able to get good quality players from the drafts and overseas to prevent the league from becoming "stagnant"?

[blackrussian]

Originally Posted by littlechris1977

If I convert a 6.12 league and have all of the international leagues, how important would these be. I don't really want to create them unless I had every college team and that DB would be ginormous. Would I be able to get good quality players from the drafts and overseas to prevent the league from becoming "stagnant"?

i think the trouble that we've run into using a full NCAA type of feeder (ie, all college baseball teams) is that you end up having a surplus of really good players. the trick is finding a number of teams that will produce a decent amount of players so you're not overstocked with superstars. that said, if you have multiple international leagues, the college (underdrafted) FA's could potentially sign with non-MLB teams but i would still worry about artificially raising talent levels. ive had more success using something like a pool of 64 teams (from the CWS) to scale back on how many college players there are.

and yes, the DB would be ginormous

i dont remember exactly where, but i think the manual covered on how many feeder teams you need depending on how many draft rounds you have. search for it in the manual.

as far as stagnation, i find that (if im using feeders) a combination of feeder + additional players (under game setup/league setup/rules) usually helps to keep the parent league fresh.

[DCHepler25]

blackrussian...

Do you know if there is anyway to get a feeder league to feed players without having a draft? I tried this thinking the players would become free agents after "graduation" but that is not the case.

Thanks for any help!

[littlechris1977]

That's definitely what I'm trying to prevent is having a lot of roster turnover. If I have no college and high school, I can still have a draft, correct? Essentially these players would be from college and high school, correct?
How many rounds would be good for a 24-team league with the standard INT and Minor leagues? Direct me to the page in the manual please?


Also, what's the deal with scheduling AS games for minors and other leagues. I had a college league and it ended up "Freezing" my game. Had to get a hex editor to fix. Is there a way to prevent this without not scheduling AS games?

[injury log]

Originally Posted by littlechris1977

That's definitely what I'm trying to prevent is having a lot of roster turnover. If I have no college and high school, I can still have a draft, correct? Essentially these players would be from college and high school, correct?
How many rounds would be good for a 24-team league with the standard INT and Minor leagues? Direct me to the page in the manual please?

Yes, you can still hold a draft without having feeder leagues. The game will generate a pool of fictional players before the draft, normally 30 days before, unless you change the default. The game will pretend the players come from high school or college depending on their age, but there will be no high school or college stats to look at.

The normal 'rule of thumb' (somewhere in the manual) is 5 rounds of draft per level of minors. I find that's too many- I have a full MLB-style minors system, and generate 20 rounds of players, and have never run out of players or encountered issues with talent deflation over time.

[blackrussian]

Originally Posted by injury log

The normal 'rule of thumb' (somewhere in the manual) is 5 rounds of draft per level of minors. I find that's too many- I have a full MLB-style minors system, and generate 20 rounds of players, and have never run out of players or encountered issues with talent deflation over time.

i do the exact same thing, actually. 20 rounds, MLB style minors (all levels). no problems for me either.

as draft w/no feeders, yes the game will generate the players for whatever amount of rounds your draft is set for. you just dont have the bonus of being able to have that level of detail and scout players before the graduate.

and feeders w/no draft? dont think that would work like you want them to. in theory, the players would become FA's upon graduation then sign with whatever organization they can latch on to. remember, there was no (modern) draft in the MLB pre-1965, so teams were on their own anyway w/minors and independent leagues (youve probably heard stories of connie mack scouting good independent leagues, paying a whole lot of money for players that these teams couldnt pass up), scouting, etc. without an actual draft though, you couldnt guarantee that a feeder player will end up in the parent league.

also remember that the feeders structure is pretty limited. that is, HS players that "graduate" will not go on to college. they will become FA/available draftees for you ammy draft. it's been brought up w/markus, hopefully will have a more logical structure for the next release.

[Curtis]

In 2007 'feeders' are just that — they 'feed' the draft. Months before release Markus told us that their functionality would be limited, and he was telling the truth. Many of the perceived problems with the feeders has come from players trying to get them to do things Markus never intended. DCHepler's idea is one of those. I don't believe there's any way designed to get feeder players to default into the free agent pool.

A workaround you might want to try, and I can't guarantee it'll work, is to have enough feeders to supply several (or many) rounds of draft, but only hold one round. Those undrafted should dump onto the FA market. You could try setting your draft to zero rounds, but I'm not sure the game will accept that. Make sure you backup everything before giving that a try.

Hopefully blackrussian will be right about Markus being able to adapt the feeder system for 2008 into something that more closely reflects the current high school/college world. The problem with that is that it will just result in a flood of (perfectly serious) requests to be able to run pony/little leagues, American Legion ball, t-ball and wiffleball leagues. I think the man has the patience of a saint.