[Timeless]

I am getting ready to setup a historical league (starting in the 60s or 70s) and am curious about the minors.

So far I have found that if I don't have full minors, the players who are there get their stats out of whack (one guy gave up something like 45 hits in one week). But when you use full minors how do you know -- if you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every player ever -- which guys are the fillers (who can't be promoted -- I'm only allowing actual major leaguers to make it to the majors) from the legitimate guys? Obivously I can eyeball my roster and figure it out to some extent, but there could be guys on there I don't know about. I'd rather not have a ton of trial and error trying to call guys up. Is there a way to have the text of their names show up a different color or something?

Also, do you set it to just not have an amateur draft, to prevent teams from not picking the "right" guys?

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by Timeless

I am getting ready to setup a historical league (starting in the 60s or 70s) and am curious about the minors.

So far I have found that if I don't have full minors, the players who are there get their stats out of whack (one guy gave up something like 45 hits in one week). But when you use full minors how do you know -- if you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every player ever -- which guys are the fillers (who can't be promoted -- I'm only allowing actual major leaguers to make it to the majors) from the legitimate guys? Obivously I can eyeball my roster and figure it out to some extent, but there could be guys on there I don't know about. I'd rather not have a ton of trial and error trying to call guys up. Is there a way to have the text of their names show up a different color or something?

Also, do you set it to just not have an amateur draft, to prevent teams from not picking the "right" guys?

1. The only certain way to be sure who is real and who is fictional, is to look at the profile of each player. A real player will have a "real stats" tab, while the fictional player will not. If you have downloaded real player photos, that is another way of telling the difference.

2. There is a downside to preventing fictionals from reaching the majors: getting shorthanded at the major league level due to injuries, etc. Of course, you can dial down injuries, if you wish.

3. There was no draft in the 60's, so if you have one you are doing something that is unhistorical. Also, the historical rookies had already been signed a year or two earlier (IRL) than when they show up in the game, so to have them in a "draft" the year they first played in the majors is also unhistorical. Those are two good reasons to not have an amateur draft. Some OOTPers do it anyway, of course, so it is up to you. If you have a draft, the expectation is that you want some or all rookies to end up in teams different from what happened IRL.

[Spritze]

Another easy way to tell who is fictional and who isn't easily is to edit the master.csv and change the first name and last names to all CAPS using the format commands in whatever spreadsheet you like to use.

[bwburke94]

Originally Posted by SteveP

3. There was no draft in the 60's, so if you have one you are doing something that is unhistorical. Also, the historical rookies had already been signed a year or two earlier (IRL) than when they show up in the game, so to have them in a "draft" the year they first played in the majors is also unhistorical. Those are two good reasons to not have an amateur draft. Some OOTPers do it anyway, of course, so it is up to you. If you have a draft, the expectation is that you want some or all rookies to end up in teams different from what happened IRL.

The draft started in '65.

[TribeFanInNC]

A couple options you may have already considered:

a) you can play with a reserve roster (i.e. no minors); players develop as normal and you don't need the fictional aspect.

b) you can turn on ghost players; again guys develop normally, this time with stats, but you also avoid the fictional aspect.

I prefer either of these methods to having fictional minor league players. I generally use b).