Question on Winter Leagues

[falkonisback]

How exactly does a winter league work? I mean, I know it is normally used to get your prospects more playing time during the offseason (correct me if I'm wrong). I mean, I assume (this is strictly just a guess b/c I really don't know) that I will have to manally assign my own players to my winter league team, but what does the AI do...do they assign their players to the winter league also? I mean, how exactly does it work? How do you guys utilize the winter league?

[1998 Yankees]

My impression is that winter leagues are just like any other in this game except for their schedules. Some of us use them in the way that you describe for the reason that you mention, but the AI does not AFAIK. Free agents may migrate to those leagues if the money and other factors are right, but they are not used by the AI for player development.

[wlight1]

I don't get it. If they have financials, the winter league must be an independent league, so then how could you assign your players there for development? I'm glad f.i.b. brought this up because I've been wondering myself.

[Raidergoo]

Winter leagues in OOTP do not function like real, developmental winter leagues. In OOTP, they are leagues that play in the wintertime. You can't assign prospects to them to play and try to develop.

This is a feature added that does not work as expected.

[Who Killed Kenny?]

They are Independant leagues. They have no relationships with other leagues. You cannot assign your players to that league, unless they are an affiliated minor league or you are commissioner (in which case you can do anything).

However what is nice is that some free agents (and in some cases big stars) will purposefully sign there for 1 winter league season before signing elsewhere for multi-year contract. The league leaders in my 2 winter leagues are normally major league players on 1 year contracts.

That being said there is a risk of that player signing a multi-year extension, and then you have a major league calibar player only playing 50 games a year.

[falkonisback]

Wow, I'm glad I asked because I was thinking about maybe adding one to my solo league but I'm not going to now.

[No Pepper]

Kenny, what are your winter league's finances compared to your majors'?

[Ktulu]

This is a feature added that does not work as expected.

I think it should be removed altogether, it just adds confusion... I also don't see enough benefit in spending time to make it more realistic. It would just take too much work to get winter leagues to work like real life and winter leagues don't really add much to the game IMO. There's a long, long list of more important things to work on.

[Who Killed Kenny?]

Originally Posted by No Pepper

Kenny, what are your winter league's finances compared to your majors'?

Much lower actually, but higher than real-life. I don't remember offhand here at work, but I believe the 5 star players only make around $1 - 1.5 million for the season. Then that same player will sign a 5 year contract in the bigs for $15 million a year.

I always thought it was a feature that was coded in to allow major league players to play in Winter Leagues even if thats not really the way it happens in real life.

[zekester91]

If you wanted a winter league to work the way you expect it couldn't you create a minor league with ghost players on and set it's level to like AA or AAA and a winter schedule, then send your elete players to have extra playing time.

[Who Killed Kenny?]

Originally Posted by zekester91

If you wanted a winter league to work the way you expect it couldn't you create a minor league with ghost players on and set it's level to like AA or AAA and a winter schedule, then send your elete players to have extra playing time.

But even that wouldn't work for AI controlled teams. They would demote or premote players there as they would any other minor league team. You won't see AI teams move players from their summer league to their winter league because they feel that player needs more playing time. The player promotion and demotion would work the same as before.

[zekester91]

you could set the winter league roseters to 0 or 1 player during the summer and then 25 man roster for the winter, The AI would then still send "random" players to this league, but you won't have anybody sitting down there durring the summer.

[wlight1]

Originally Posted by zekester91

If you wanted a winter league to work the way you expect it couldn't you create a minor league with ghost players on and set it's level to like AA or AAA and a winter schedule, then send your elete players to have extra playing time.

I tried to set up something similar to this to get minors prospects additional playing time after the low minors seasons all ended, but it doesn't work too well. The problem is that you do have to set the level of the minor league, and then it interferes with player morale in the "team transactions". I set mine to Short-A because I've got it starting a little bit after my regular Short-A season ends, but if I send AA or A players there to get work, they get all mad because it's considered a demotion. I guess if you have morale turned off it wouldn't be a problem.

With the added information in this thread though, now I'm thinking of setting up a real short season in a winter league that runs only during the offseason of my majors and having guys play there in the offseason just for kicks rather than as a true "developmental" winter league. So guys can show off their talent. Problems would be that it would cut into the FA time of the players that played there... obviously no way to set it up so that the winter league contract wouldn't override the MLB contract a guy was really looking for.... fun idea to tinker with though.