More Intense, More Aggressive Baseball

[PW MAX]

There's a chance this might be the most off the wall question I've ever asked on here, but what kind of settings can I have in OOTP to make for a more intense, more aggressive - more hardcore, if you will - form of baseball? I was inspired by Blitz: The League, I guess, and wanted to see what I could do to create a baseball league with a very keen old-school mentality to it.

Few things I thought of myself were fewer teams, (so the premiere talent wouldn't be spread out so thinly), a single league - the idea being that the whole season was a dogfight for the pennant, etc.

Anyone have any other idea? Many thanks in advance, and my apologies if I didn't make a lick of sense. I typed all that out rather quickly.

[prodgers]

Just to put in my 2 cents. I took the major league totals for the last 136 yrs and averaged them to put in the setup. In case your wondering that came to the following:
At Bats : 100543
Hits : 26355
Home Runs : 1947
Doubles : 4430
Triples : 938
Strikeouts : 13991
Walks : 9344
Hit Batters : 718
BABIP : .302 (average is actually closer to 300 but I like it a little tougher too)
Set all creation modifiers to 1.00
use less than 20 teams total (I used 16 split in two leagues with 2 4-team divisions each) SET THE LEAGUE STRATEGY to the same way you like to play your team (ie rate yourself as a manager and set those settings for the entire league) then good luck in the draft.

I'm currently using a 155 game schedule and I'm at the all-star break. In my division 2 games separate first from forth in the division. In the other divisions in the league 2-3 games from first to third. Tightest run I've ever experienced. Damn I love this game!

edit: It's a fantasy league by the way

[PW MAX]

Originally Posted by prodgers

Just to put in my 2 cents. I took the major league totals for the last 136 yrs and averaged them to put in the setup. In case your wondering that came to the following:
At Bats : 100543
Hits : 26355
Home Runs : 1947
Doubles : 4430
Triples : 938
Strikeouts : 13991
Walks : 9344
Hit Batters : 718
BABIP : .302 (average is actually closer to 300 but I like it a little tougher too)
Set all creation modifiers to 1.00
use less than 20 teams total (I used 16 split in two leagues with 2 4-team divisions each) SET THE LEAGUE STRATEGY to the same way you like to play your team (ie rate yourself as a manager and set those settings for the entire league) then good luck in the draft.

I'm currently using a 155 game schedule and I'm at the all-star break. In my division 2 games separate first from forth in the division. In the other divisions in the league 2-3 games from first to third. Tightest run I've ever experienced. Damn I love this game!

edit: It's a fantasy league by the way

This looks extremely helpful. It's a little late here now, but I'll put this into action tomorrow sometime, and see how it works out. Looks interesting.

[stevebydac]

I run one league, with two subleagues of 14 teams each. The teams play only 26 games -- home and away against the other 13 teams in the SL. Two games per week. The short season makes for INTENSE pennant races. With just 3 or 4 games left you often have 5 or 6 teams within 2 games of 1st place. EVERY game seemingly matters.

I also have playoffs disabled. So the winners of the two SLs don't meet. BUT I've added a twist -- with playoffs off, OOTP allows you to manually schedule Challenge Cup games (my invented name) between the teams of BOTH SLs concurrent to your regular season (or whatever playoff games you want, whenever you want). What I do is this A) give the teams finishing 1st and 2nd in each SL the previous season a bye in the Cup, B) randomly match up the 12 remaining teams in each SL to play a Qualifying Round in the Cup WITHIN THEIR OWN SL during around week 3 of the regular season, just ONE game each, no series, C) take the surviving 16 teams -- 8 per SL -- and randomly match them up (ALL TEAMS TOGETHER NOW, both SL) in one game eliminations during about week 6 of the regular season, D) and so on and so on until one club wins the Challenge Cup in the last week of the regular season, when that team might ALSO be fighting for its SL title too!

What's great about this setup is that even if you build a superteam, if you hit a 3 or 4 game slump midseason it might kill you because the season is so short. And even if you win your SL, it's very rare to win both your subleague and the Cup because the Cup consists of one game eliminations all the way through -- one loss and you're done. "The Double" has only occurred about 5 times in 60+ seasons of my game.

Plus you can go many years before playing a particular team from the other SL in the Cup. It's pretty cool to finally play a game against a team wearing uniforms you added to OOTP years before, in a stadium you added years before but had not seen in action yet.

[PW MAX]

Originally Posted by stevebydac

I run one league, with two subleagues of 14 teams each. The teams play only 26 games -- home and away against the other 13 teams in the SL. Two games per week. The short season makes for INTENSE pennant races. With just 3 or 4 games left you often have 5 or 6 teams within 2 games of 1st place. EVERY game seemingly matters.

I also have playoffs disabled. So the winners of the two SLs don't meet. BUT I've added a twist -- with playoffs off, OOTP allows you to manually schedule Challenge Cup games (my invented name) between the teams of BOTH SLs concurrent to your regular season (or whatever playoff games you want, whenever you want). What I do is this A) give the teams finishing 1st and 2nd in each SL the previous season a bye in the Cup, B) randomly match up the 12 remaining teams in each SL to play a Qualifying Round in the Cup WITHIN THEIR OWN SL during around week 3 of the regular season, just ONE game each, no series, C) take the surviving 16 teams -- 8 per SL -- and randomly match them up (ALL TEAMS TOGETHER NOW, both SL) in one game eliminations during about week 6 of the regular season, D) and so on and so on until one club wins the Challenge Cup in the last week of the regular season, when that team might ALSO be fighting for its SL title too!

What's great about this setup is that even if you build a superteam, if you hit a 3 or 4 game slump midseason it might kill you because the season is so short. And even if you win your SL, it's very rare to win both your subleague and the Cup because the Cup consists of one game eliminations all the way through -- one loss and you're done. "The Double" has only occurred about 5 times in 60+ seasons of my game.

Plus you can go many years before playing a particular team from the other SL in the Cup. It's pretty cool to finally play a game against a team wearing uniforms you added to OOTP years before, in a stadium you added years before but had not seen in action yet.

I love the sound of this, and especially the Challenge Cup at the end. Every game matters, that's kinda the idea I was going for here. What kinds of figures would I have to have in place for Hall Of Fame qualification though? Hard to imagine very many 3,000 hitters in this environment.

Color me interested.

[stevebydac]

Originally Posted by PW MAX

What kinds of figures would I have to have in place for Hall Of Fame qualification though? Hard to imagine very many 3,000 hitters in this environment.

The 26 game season = 16% of a normal 162 game season.

What I use as benchmarks:
500 hits = 16.7% of 3000
80 HR = 16% of 500 (and 100 HR is 16.7% of 600)
100 wins = 40% (because of 2 man rotation) of 250 wins

And of course you will get guys hitting .400 often.

[PW MAX]

Just out of curiosity, does OOTP actually let you name the Challenge Cup, and does it show up officially like it should in the history section of the game? This will be my first time doing such a thing, and, while I'm more than willing... dare I say, eager?... to take the 'use my imagination' road, I always like to have a little something official in my record keeping.

[stevebydac]

Originally Posted by PW MAX

Just out of curiosity, does OOTP actually let you name the Challenge Cup, and does it show up officially like it should in the history section of the game? This will be my first time doing such a thing, and, while I'm more than willing... dare I say, eager?... to take the 'use my imagination' road, I always like to have a little something official in my record keeping.

No unfortunately. You can write a recap after each game. You can also write a news story. But I'm personally not into it THAT much.

The stats will automatically show up as playoff stats for each of your players if you scheduled the games as playoff games.

What I do is keep separate forms outside the game. I have a spreadsheet made in Open Office that details all of the matchups for each season's Cups, complete with team logos. I also have an Open Office presentation (like Powerpoint) that details all of the Cup winners and runnerups in history, with logos plus a Cup photo I pulled from the web and customized.

That's as far as I go, and I'm happy with it. The rest of the details are in my warped little head.

Read this thread: Ideas to make fictional leagues unique

It's where I got the Cup idea (and suggested another far more detailed league I'm working on). And check out the other folks ideas, particularly Cooleyvol's great site.

[PW MAX]

Looks cool, love the Cup idea, and I'm especially big on the whole promotion/relegation thing, but for some reason, I can't help but think that it might get teeny bit complicated. Looks like a daunting task, I mean: a lot of work to do manually, a LOT of chances for me to mess things up.

Plus, I have nothing in the way of spreadsheets, (I'm sadly limited in that area, much more of a 'pen and paper' kinda feller, )

One thing I have been thinking of more and more the past few days is something (surprisingly) along the lines of the Little League World Series. Assuming that baseball around the globe is controlled by one governing body, it'd start out with a regional league, maybe - with the winning team being promoted upward into a National League, and the winners here being promoted once again into a true World's Series. There, they'd be competing with the winners of similar deals from other countries around the globe - the size of the thing expanding as new countries joined the Commission.

Hope I got all that out clearly enough, just kinda poured through my keyboard there.

No idea if such a thing as that is actually doable in OOTP, (basically just been Captain Thinktank this week).

Just throwing stuff out there now.



Edit: Actually, now that I've thrown all that out there, I think it might be losing a little steam in my noggin. I think I like the original Cup thing better actually. Only problem with that is I'm gonna have to go on a crash course online, study everything I can find about it, so I can more accurately re-create it. Gotta find a way to truly make it my own, ya know?

[stevebydac]

Originally Posted by PW MAX

I think I like the original Cup thing better actually. Only problem with that is I'm gonna have to go on a crash course online, study everything I can find about it, so I can more accurately re-create it. Gotta find a way to truly make it my own, ya know?

The way I'm doing it is very easy. All I'm really doing is disabling the playoffs, then manually adding in "playoff" games (my Cup games) wherever I want parallel to my regular season. It isn't hard. The computer spreadsheet stuff is easy for me -- if it isn't for you, then use pen and paper which is what you are comfortable with.

Start simple with a small league that you can test things with. Find out what you like & don't like, then add in more later. I have huge OOTP ideas but I have had to make concessions to the fact that I have to work 40 hours a week! So I scaled back to a more reasonable league.

Good luck my friend!

[prodgers]

Just in case you're interested I thought I'd post the standings. I misspoke myself earlier the schedule is only 120 games so the season ends on July 31. I believe that could be the key to close races. Arizona is kickin' butt right now (to bad I'm San Jose)

[PW MAX]

Originally Posted by prodgers

Just in case you're interested I thought I'd post the standings. I misspoke myself earlier the schedule is only 120 games so the season ends on July 31. I believe that could be the key to close races. Arizona is kickin' butt right now (to bad I'm San Jose)

I'm very much intrigued by this setup, might end up doing something along these lines. Wonder how it'd play out with 6 teams per division, as opposed to 4?

Lots of good possibilities, I think.

[PW MAX]

Originally Posted by prodgers

Just in case you're interested I thought I'd post the standings. I misspoke myself earlier the schedule is only 120 games so the season ends on July 31. I believe that could be the key to close races. Arizona is kickin' butt right now (to bad I'm San Jose)

Shuffling and reshuffling my teams around, it's starting to seem like this set-up would really work very well for me, and might be just what I was looking for. Setting it up so that the American Conference is divided up into the Eastern and Western Division, and the National Conference is divided up into the Northern and Southern Division, (4 teams in each), it feels like it's really coming together. It has the teams far-flung, and spread out, but still has the whole country very well covered. I was hoping for something like that.

Just need to work up the Hall Of Fame criteria for this, and I might be set.

[prodgers]

Originally Posted by stevebydac

The 26 game season = 16% of a normal 162 game season.

What I use as benchmarks:
500 hits = 16.7% of 3000
80 HR = 16% of 500 (and 100 HR is 16.7% of 600)
100 wins = 40% (because of 2 man rotation) of 250 wins

And of course you will get guys hitting .400 often.

Different numbers...same principle. If you have minors moving teams around becomes tricky. There minor league affiliates have to move with them. A quirk I found rather annoying. Hopefully it gets fixed in OOTP 13