Simple, dumb, rookie question..

[matt.decrevel]

Ok, So we have used Diamond Mind Baseball for our league in years past and stumbled across a really, astonishing site, CBABaseball.com, which uses OOTP. So I have downloaded the program and played around in it for a few hours now with the trial version. And have a hard time getting it to do what I want.

Is it possible to start fresh with my own format of league, with my own number of teams (say 22-26 legit teams, with each one have 2-3 teams in their farm system), and start over with a fresh draft. I basically want the league to start November 1st this year, with a fresh draft, no history (except historical stats like A-Rod at 599 hr or whatever) but with MLB and MiLB players. I don't want to load the MLB then format it all down to my specs.

Is this possible (I can't find it in the trial version)?


When we do a league draft, can ever manager log in online and make their selections in real time?

I'm sure these are very basic questions and easy to solve, but I don't want to spend $40 on the game, and not be able to do what I want. I will be having roughly 18-26 purchases of the software as well, so this is a big investment of our league.

[Vinny P.]

The short answer: Yes. You can start a 2010 season with no stats already inputted. - Check out the manual.

The long answer:

Forget it, I was going to give you a step-by-step description on what to do. The manual, obviously, will do a much greater job than I ever could, and it provides screen shots to boot!

BUT:

You CAN create a new 2010 Major League, which contains all the right place and nick names, with all the correct players on each team, along with the minor leaguers.

You can also create a commisioner, and have him either to release all players/clear rosters, or release all players/schedule an inaugural draft. (Most likely scenario.)

All players will keep all their stats and ratings. But if you want to, you can also clear all player and team histories as well in the same "Functions" screen, while keeping their ratings intact.

After you release players, and/or release and schedule inaugural draft, you can then go to the league set up menu, and totally change the structure of the league, however you like. You can have up to 2 sub-leagues, with 50 divisions in each sub-league, and 50 teams in each division.

Again, the short answer: You can do exxactly as you have described. If you ever get lost, there is the manual, a "ticket" system on these forums, and, of course, here where you can ask more questions.

If you need help, my AIM is Braves529, and my email is: Nihilianth@gmail.com. I would be more than glad to help you out in structuring your league, if you need.

[matt.decrevel]

I know you are working on this... but I mean,... start 2010 as FA every one is... also is my draft in Real time online? or can it be?

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by matt.decrevel

I know you are working on this... but I mean,... start 2010 as FA every one is... also is my draft in Real time online? or can it be?

I'm pretty sure the draft is not in real time. I think what most commissioners do, is to have a "ranking" system set up, where the owners of each team "ranks" the players they want most. I think it is then up to you to draft each player yourself, as the commissioner. I am not terribly sure how online leagues work with draft. I've never really fooled around with online leagues (limited functionality on the network I am using.... )

But yeah, you can release each player as a FA, without scheduling a draft, if you want. There is a separate functions which allows you to release all players and schedule a draft.

However, to just start a 2010 season where all players are FAs, without having to release the players yourself, I do not believe is possible, unless you start a historical league which starts in 2009.

The problem with the historical league is thus:

1. It only includes the major league. You would need to set up all of the minor league structures, and affiliations with the ML yourself. A time-consuming process.

2. There IS the default "Major American League," which gives you a full minor league system, but that gives you only fictional players. And you still need to go through, and change city and nick names, as all of those will be randomized cities, with fictional nicknames chosen from the name.txt file.

So, starting a new 2010 major league game, and just simply using the "release all players" function is the way to go.

[matt.decrevel]

Awesome. I have been playing around with this and found some cool things out... I guess we could just do a Yahoo! fantasy draft or something for our ML club's 40 man roster, or something to do it real time.

Another question: are there player files of every player in the MLB and MiLB that I can import at the start of every season? So like Chase Utley gets better next year, his file gets updated, but Pujols becomes like Mo Vaughn and starts to play horrible and it updates those abilities every year, as well as adding the new players that are drafted from HS and college.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by matt.decrevel

Awesome. I have been playing around with this and found some cool things out... I guess we could just do a Yahoo! fantasy draft or something for our ML club's 40 man roster, or something to do it real time.

Another question: are there player files of every player in the MLB and MiLB that I can import at the start of every season? So like Chase Utley gets better next year, his file gets updated, but Pujols becomes like Mo Vaughn and starts to play horrible and it updates those abilities every year, as well as adding the new players that are drafted from HS and college.

Well, the files are only imported once. The actual player files are not modified, as they are only used once, on import. I think.

From there, yes, there definitely are ratings changes for each player. You can have a Greg Maddux get injured in, say, 1993, and have all of his ratings drop, and he becomes garbage that can't play the AAA level anymore for whatever is left of his career.

You can also change HOW the player ratings change throughout their careers. You can have slow development, and slow decline. You can have them develop very rapidly, and slowly decline, and etc.

There are TONS of options available at your fingertips. If you haven't already, I would very much suggest downloading the manual, and reading it from cover-to-cover. I mean, while DM is a very good game, it just is not at all in the same league as OOTP. I guarantee you, you'll find a lot of neat little gems about OOTP that you would never find out yourself, unless you play around in the menu systems, and read the manual.

[Vinny P.]

Dola,

I would love to help with your league, but alas, all the ports are blocked on the network I am using. I cannot ftp anything....

[matt.decrevel]

Vinny, you've been amazing with your quick and accurate answers... NOW, I think I have a lot of my league set up to show to our commish (I am scouting out new software to run our league and I want to get my mock league setup and be ready to answer questions for our meeting this coming week).. How can I release all coaches / managers and have each team "draft" or sign the managers they want to run their respective teams or is this possible?

Bonus question: Every manager / real GM is hyperlinked to their profile, why aren't the human managers hyperlinked?

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by matt.decrevel

Vinny, you've been amazing with your quick and accurate answers... NOW, I think I have a lot of my league set up to show to our commish (I am scouting out new software to run our league and I want to get my mock league setup and be ready to answer questions for our meeting this coming week).. How can I release all coaches / managers and have each team "draft" or sign the managers they want to run their respective teams or is this possible?

No problem!

The easiest way, in order to release all coaches/scouts, is in the same screen where you released all players.

OOTP drop down box -> Game Setup -> League Setup tab -> Functions tab (first tab, and will defaulted here.)

In the top middle section of this screen, you can set all teams to be controlled by you, near the bottom of the top middle section.

Then you have to go through, and manually fire all the team personnel yourself.

Although, I can see why you would want to have each owner to hire a whole new staff, I honestly don't think that is a real important thing to do, even if it might be fun for the gms of your league to fight/haggle over different personnel at the start of your league. But that is all up to you and your league to decide.

Just wondering, what's the link to your league home page?

Bonus question: Every manager / real GM is hyperlinked to their profile, why aren't the human managers hyperlinked?

Human gms don't have hyperlinks, because they have no real stats or ratings, other than their team record, seasonal scores, and and whether or not they made the playoffs and/or won the championship. Other than the fact that each human manager can visit their own history page, all each human manager can see the records of every other human managers on the team history page, there isn't a real huge use for them to be hyperlinked.

I personally see no real reason to not have them hyperlinked. I never even really thought of that question a whole lot myself.....hhmmmm.....

[matt.decrevel]

We don't have a league site yet. I will share it for sure when we get it going (probably around late October / November). Right now I'm doing some scouting for my league commish. Our league fizzled out after a few years using DMB and we're trying to look at other options.

... Just to double check, I can send out the updated league files to everyone and they can play their games against other managers of other teams and have 1 common user database right? I keep noticing that I can check other teams things on my manager account, but my only fear is that Manager / GM of Team A (ML, AAA, AA, A, R) can't adjust anything on Team B or Team C, but I want it to be more or less an online community where everyone has the same files and knows exactly where the league stands on a daily basis.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by matt.decrevel

We don't have a league site yet. I will share it for sure when we get it going (probably around late October / November). Right now I'm doing some scouting for my league commish. Our league fizzled out after a few years using DMB and we're trying to look at other options.

... Just to double check, I can send out the updated league files to everyone and they can play their games against other managers of other teams and have 1 common user database right? I keep noticing that I can check other teams things on my manager account, but my only fear is that Manager / GM of Team A (ML, AAA, AA, A, R) can't adjust anything on Team B or Team C, but I want it to be more or less an online community where everyone has the same files and knows exactly where the league stands on a daily basis.

Ah, when it comes to these kinds of online league things, I will try to find someone knowledgable, and ping them to this thread for ya.