For Those Who Use HS And College Feeder Leagues...

[bucketsndimes]

I am trying to create the most realistic (but fictional) baseball universe possible with a major league, minor leagues, leagues in other countries, independent minor leagues and HS and college feeder leagues.

How do you guys set this up and how exactly do the feeder leagues work? I've never tried it.

Also, do the independent minor leagues and leagues in other countries interact at all with the main major league?

I know this may take awhile to explain, and for me a long time to setup, but please help me create the most realistic baseball universe in OOTP that I can. Specifically with the feeder leagues because I have never tried them out before.

[blackrussian]

the stock answer is that this will be a trial and error experiment depending on exactly how you choose to set things up, as you well know we have enough options that can be turned on/off to make one blue in the face.

what you will need to experiment with carefully are finances, player movement b/w leagues and keeping an appropriately sized pool of players coming into the setup every year. there have been a number of threads (as well as documentation in the manual) regarding recommendations for # of draft rounds and # of feeder teams that will supply the leagues. but see, this stuff is hard to make recommendations for b/c you can, for instance, have your major league fed exclusively by feeders or feeders and "additional players." if youre generating talent for your draft exclusively from the feeders you need to be careful to setup enough feeder league teams to ensure you have enough players for the draft.

also, what level of realism do you want? typically foreign leagues dont trade with each other, movement is fairly restrictive IRL. so you have to decide how free some of the foreigners will be to move via free agency. and thats where the financial component comes into play. ive typically assign foreign leagues much lower salary structure than my major league so there isnt a mass exodus (having foreigner limits in the foreign leagues helps greatly). but you may not want this... you may like the fact that there is a lot of movement b/w leagues, i dont know.

another issue that ive come across that bothers me personally is the frequency of foreign personnel migrating to major leagues. example: ive long wanted to have an MLB w/minors setup including the NPB (japan) as a foreign league. ive found that GM and manager vacancies in the MLB or minor affiliates become frequently filled with ex-NPB staff. so in terms of realism, thats really disappointing and theres no way to control that element of it. so if you can accept a japanese GM and/or manager helming your major league squads then its ok. doesnt work for me though.

so bottom line: experiment. youll need to play around for a while with settings to get to where you need to be (whatever your definition of realism is). there are always going to be things that OOTP cant sim exactly but you can still get a reasonably accurate snapshot of a universe i think.

oh, dont forget about creation modifiers either. like the financial component i usually have foreign/independent league mods much lower than my major league. that way you wont have foreigners all over your major league b/c most will be of minor league quality with a small handful of truly quality players migrating to the majors (a la matsuzaka, matsui, etc coming from japan to the states). at least thats the goal

[bucketsndimes]

Thanks. I may decide I don't want foreign leagues. However, I've always wanted to try out feeder leagues, especially since I will get easily bored in the amateur draft. Being able to sort through stats would make the draft a little more enjoyable for me.

I'd like to make the draft made up of entirely players from feeder leagues. I've thought of ridiculous things like a feeder league mimicking the entire structure of NCAA Division-I baseball as best it can (meaning there would be something like 300+ teams) and having a high school feeder league and possibly a smaller junior college league. However, not only would that take forever, but I don't know how that would effect the talent that enters the draft. Would that somehow screw everything up so that a much larger portion of draftees are star-caliber players?

Anyone who uses feeder leagues care to explain how they set theirs up?

[blackrussian]

im actually playing around with a setup resembling this. im not replicating the entire NCAA structure cause thats a bit over the top for me. i initially started playing around w/this when i found truthserums NFL facegen stuff. so i created an NFL style 32 league major league. 2 levels of minors (AAA, AA). the feeder league has 52 teams and the draft is setup to have only feeder league players. based on what ive read, this should produce enough players to keep the league rolling. there are a few threads that are easy to find that explain how to figure out the number of feeder league teams you would need (based on the size of your major league and draft). i also added the baseball equivalent of the CFL as my foreign league.

im still running test sims so i can get it to my liking. its a bit tricky getting a good balance of players coming in to the league... ive been ending up with a lot of players in the free agent pool after a few years which makes me think i either dont have enough draft rounds or too many feeder teams.

as far as level of talent, there are some folks here that have looked at this issue specifically for feeder leagues that may offer some better info than me. i do recall there were some concerns that after a few years w/this kind of setup, talent levels become artificially inflated b/c the feeder league players, on the average, were being generated w/above average ratings. but im not sure if that was due to having a lot of feeder teams (ie, large sample).

my advice would be to keep things scaled down...keep the # of feeder teams proportional to your major league. if i can find the thread with the info about how to figure that, ill post it here.

[blackrussian]

dola,
heres a thread you may find very helpful:
How Many rounds for the draft?

[bucketsndimes]

If I was to add teams to my major league and add minor leagues throughout the league's history can I do the same within a feeder league?

[toxicavenger74]

I have an additional question for those using feeder leagues. How are you handling the bug where players are created with very high contact ratings but extremely low everything else? So for your MLB league you potentially could get an 18 yo kid who hits .400 with very few to no HR or doubles.

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by bucketsndimes

If I was to add teams to my major league and add minor leagues throughout the league's history can I do the same within a feeder league?

Yes you can add feeder teams it's harder to do since they don't have the expand button, but you can go to league stucture and add teams every year or when ever you need them. I don't think feeders auto expand with the league.

[Who Killed Kenny?]

I like to think of the feeder leagues as "Academy" leagues rather than college and high school for the following reasons:
1) Have less teams. Its impossible to mimic every US highschool and college. A smaller Academy league is more realistic. Think Cap Cod League.
2) Talent. Since every feeder league player eventually enters the draft I feel that baseball academys are more realistic than schools because there are less teams and more talented players.
3) The hometown of the players don't match their high school. You'll have players from LA playing in a Chicago high school. Not realistic for schools, but realistic for academys.

[spark240]

Originally Posted by Who Killed Kenny?

I like to think of the feeder leagues as "Academy" leagues rather than college and high school

I had an MLB league that used 15 collegiate summer wood-bat leagues (Cape Cod, Coastal Plain, Northwoods and so on), plus leagues in Venezuela and the Dominican, as feeders.

[bucketsndimes]

Would having the same amount of feeder leagues for when my league is only 12 teams as when it has 30 cause problems of too much talent appearing in the draft?

[bucketsndimes]

I'm planning on having my league start with 12 teams (no minors, 5-round draft). Then move to 16 (AAA as well, 5-round draft), than 20 (AA, 10-round draft), than 24 (A, 15-round draft), than 28, than 30 (Short-Season and Rookie ball, 25-round draft).

I want feeder leagues represented for the following...

NCAA Division I
Preparatory High Schools
NCAA Division II
NCAA Division III
Canada High Schools
Canadian Colleges
Puerto Rico High Schools

That is also the order in which I want it to populate the Majors, meaning most players would come from NCAA Division I, the second-most from High Schools, and so on.

I know this is confusing, and I may be asking for a lot.

But based on all that information on expansion and feeder leagues, what would anybody recommend for the amount of teams in each feeder league after each year?

This may sound ridiculous and I'm going to try some stuff myself, but I have no clue about feeder leagues. Also is there a way to adjust the level fo talent coming out of each league?

Phew.

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by bucketsndimes

I'm planning on having my league start with 12 teams (no minors, 5-round draft). Then move to 16 (AAA as well, 5-round draft), than 20 (AA, 10-round draft), than 24 (A, 15-round draft), than 28, than 30 (Short-Season and Rookie ball, 25-round draft).

I want feeder leagues represented for the following...

NCAA Division I
Preparatory High Schools
NCAA Division II
NCAA Division III
Canada High Schools
Canadian Colleges
Puerto Rico High Schools

That is also the order in which I want it to populate the Majors, meaning most players would come from NCAA Division I, the second-most from High Schools, and so on.

I know this is confusing, and I may be asking for a lot.

But based on all that information on expansion and feeder leagues, what would anybody recommend for the amount of teams in each feeder league after each year?

This may sound ridiculous and I'm going to try some stuff myself, but I have no clue about feeder leagues. Also is there a way to adjust the level fo talent coming out of each league?

Phew.

I really don't think you'll be able to have so many feeder leagues unless they have very few teams in each league, My Major NCCA Feeder (about 120 teams) for a 34 team, 25 round draft with full minor kicks out about 1200 players a year, while I only need 850 players. For your final set-up you will only need about 100 feeder teams to get the right number of drafting players. you could do about 14 teams in each league or so. for your starting league you would only need 60 players in the draft, so you would only need around 10 teams. (5 rounds X 12 teams / 10 teams) = 6 (and you get about 6.25 players per team if 1/4 of players go into the draft *** Assuming 4 year feeder leagues)

[Who Killed Kenny?]

Originally Posted by bucketsndimes

I'm planning on having my league start with 12 teams (no minors, 5-round draft). Then move to 16 (AAA as well, 5-round draft), than 20 (AA, 10-round draft), than 24 (A, 15-round draft), than 28, than 30 (Short-Season and Rookie ball, 25-round draft).

I want feeder leagues represented for the following...

NCAA Division I
Preparatory High Schools
NCAA Division II
NCAA Division III
Canada High Schools
Canadian Colleges
Puerto Rico High Schools

Talk about realism. The problem with feeders is that in real life only a small handful of players are good enough to become pros, while in OOTP everyone enters the draft. You will have thousands of players entering the draft and there may be a influx of talent. A 5 round draft will not be even close to be enough to take care of all the players being created. My guess is many of them will sit in free agency until they retire.

You won't be able to completely specify the order of how many players come from each feeder leagues. I believe players are created with the Player Creation settings of its parent major league. That means a PR high schooler has the same chance as being drafted as a D1 player.

Another thing about OOTP is memory usage. With all these teams and players you will have to use a lot more RAM and disk space. Depending on your computer your league may or may not be feasible.

Best of luck anyhow! Playing around with leagues is many people's favorite part.

[bucketsndimes]

I might get rid of the Puerto Rican high school, I just know that they are allowed to enter the draft IRL along with Canadians, but not other countries.

I guess I should just scale down the amount of teams for the leagues I want to feed less players.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Who Killed Kenny?

I like to think of the feeder leagues as "Academy" leagues rather than college and high school for the following reasons:
1) Have less teams. Its impossible to mimic every US highschool and college. A smaller Academy league is more realistic. Think Cap Cod League.
2) Talent. Since every feeder league player eventually enters the draft I feel that baseball academys are more realistic than schools because there are less teams and more talented players.
3) The hometown of the players don't match their high school. You'll have players from LA playing in a Chicago high school. Not realistic for schools, but realistic for academys.

Very good points!

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Who Killed Kenny?

You won't be able to completely specify the order of how many players come from each feeder leagues. I believe players are created with the Player Creation settings of its parent major league. That means a PR high schooler has the same chance as being drafted as a D1 player.

You can change the sabermetric player creation modifiers for each feeder league.