How many minor leagues needed?

[SittingDuck]

I am running a mid-60's historical league. I currently have just an AAA team affiliate for the majors clubs, and I use the ghost player option.

What I am wondering is: does this affect minor league player development? Are the young guys drafted adversely affected by being at AAA level, even against ghost players? Would the AI, given a full range of minor leagues from AAA down to A (or lower), put those players such as Nolan Ryan and Bench (both 16 years of age) at those lower levels for development?

I went to the Minors League System Report for various teams. Usually it will tell you if a player is either overmatched or undermatched and where he should be in the player notes. However, without any lower minor leagues, I am wondering if it just won't put in "should be in AA or A league" or whatever.

[Kelric]

It does affect minor league development when you skip over the lower levels. Because of that, I always have AAA, AA and A leagues. It still does affect development that I don't have Rookie leagues and Short-Season A and whatnot, but I don't like my minors being THAT cluttered up with leagues.

[SittingDuck]

Agreed. Thanks - I am going to add an AA and A level affiliate to each team. I saved my league right after creation, so I am hoping I can go in and just add the leagues with the editor and see what happens. Hopefully I don't have to rebuild the whole league.

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by SittingDuck

I went to the Minors League System Report for various teams. Usually it will tell you if a player is either overmatched or undermatched and where he should be in the player notes. However, without any lower minor leagues, I am wondering if it just won't put in "should be in AA or A league" or whatever.

Even if you don't have a specific level, you can still receive recommendations that a player should be at that level. In one online league I'm in we have Short season A, AA, and AAA. I get lots of recommendations for my Short Season A guys to be in single A.

[SittingDuck]

thats interesting. thanks for that.

[blackrussian]

Originally Posted by Kelric

It does affect minor league development when you skip over the lower levels. Because of that, I always have AAA, AA and A leagues. It still does affect development that I don't have Rookie leagues and Short-Season A and whatnot, but I don't like my minors being THAT cluttered up with leagues.

so what happens if you have a league w/no minors at all? eg, i have a modern MLB scenario w/all levels of minors and an international league on its own. i havent simmed far out to see how development is affected in the international league. one thing that annoys me is how the AI ends up stockpiling players in reserves who often sit there for years, though within the game structure there arent too many places for them to go i guess...

[Kelric]

IIRC (and I may not), players still develop on reserve rosters roughly as they would in a minor league system. I'm not sure on that though, I don't use the reserve rosters.

[SittingDuck]

Originally Posted by BruceM

Even if you don't have a specific level, you can still receive recommendations that a player should be at that level. In one online league I'm in we have Short season A, AA, and AAA. I get lots of recommendations for my Short Season A guys to be in single A.

Yup, sure enough they are doing that in my league, too. I have a Rookie, no Short-A league.

[chimanbj]

Reserve rosters are full of problems. Be careful with them. You can have great players getting buried in a team's reserve roster, and his most productive years are shot. This is especially true when free agency and minor league free agency is turned off, because the computer GM doesn't release the players, or move them around. They just sit there...

[SittingDuck]

Wanted to resurrect this thread.

It seems to me that if you are using a historical league with recalc ON, then using minor leagues is pretty much a waste of time. Using a secondary reserve roster, the players should develop like they would normally via recalc. How they function in the minor leagues doesn't even matter, as recalc will boost their ratings up to whatever correlates with their RL stats.

Or am I missing something here?

[Spritze]

Recalc on and development off.

If you also have development on unusual stat things that are not supposed to happen can happen even though they are not supposed to happen in a happening way. I just happen to know that.

[Greatgrampa]

Originally Posted by Spritze

Recalc on and development off.

If you also have development on unusual stat things that are not supposed to happen can happen even though they are not supposed to happen in a happening way. I just happen to know that.

Ok, I am a noob here and with the game and have a question that will probably be dumb, but I have to ask it because I need to know. Doesn't turning off development and turning on Recalc make the game rather boring? I mean, if you play a lot of seasons with a historical league with those settings, aren't you just getting, for the most part, the same results as if you had decided to create a new game every year? Am I wrong here, in thinking that? To me that would be very boring but hey, I guess we all play the game in different ways.

Oh, and speaking of settings. I have read the manual a number of times and I get very confused about what one setting does as opposed to another setting and how this setting will effect another setting I have....I mean, my mind, what little I have left of it, is swimming around like a fuzzball caught in a dryer. Could someone, and I know that there would be many different answers here from everyone, but could someone give me some good settings, some believable start setting for an historical league starting from 1901? I know, that is a lot of settings but I am totally lost when it comes to financial baseball matters or any kind of statistical matters. I took statistics for one year in college and hated every minute of it. Also, I just couldn't get the professor to answer this question for me, so that I really thought he knew what he was talking about. Does it not take just one tiny change to throw a statistic over a period of years, right out of the window. I mean, these guys here who are doing all of this statistical analysis of the game, are they all using the same exact settings? And even if they are, couldn't one players unexpectedly good season throw the entire league off for years to come? Maybe I really don't understand mathematics and statistics that well. And that would be an understatement even though I managed to do well is school in those subjects, I much preferred English and History....
Anyway, if someone could give me some kind of middle of the road settings for the historical league I want to start, I would appreciate it very much. Thanks ahead of time.
By the way, love this place. There are some very good people on here and some very very intelligent ones as well. That makes the game so much nicer to play.

[clamel]

Still, minor leagues are fun to play with for historical players anyway.

However if one filling up minors with fictional players to complement the historical ones and using the option not to have these fictional players ever to reach the majors I assume that with Recalc On Develop Off, these fictional will never be better than when they start.
Of course then one need to fill up the minors now and then over the years, OR

In the new 9.1.2 I read that fictional players that are created are not very good so what if one had development ON and permitting them to reach the majors.

Will the chance of seing one or two ficties in the majors then pop up ?
It could be fun perhaps.
But what will happend if that development are ON and using hist-players. They probably could improve during the season until a new recalc happens in the new year...

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by clamel

But what will happend if that development are ON and using hist-players. They probably could improve during the season until a new recalc happens in the new year...

Players can improve and deprove, evolve and devolve etc. Which can twist the stats a bit. Just depends on how picky you are about that.

The cool thing is you can play the game using any settings you want and get different results. By judiciously setting modifiers and stuff you can create leagues that average 20 runs per game or 2 runs per game. Pitchers with 700 K's per year or 17 K's per year. It is all up to you.

[SittingDuck]

Grampie,

I keep development ON and set it at a number well over 100. This seems to create ahistorical seasons from time to time for the players, which is what I want. Ideally I'd have players who just didn't pan out as they did historically at times, but that isn't possible with recalc, and with recalc off there is absolutely NO semblance of historical performance for anyone. It's a total crapshoot, in which case there is no sense of anything 'historical' to me.

So as I said, I play with development ON. But you are correct, with it off and recalc ON, then things get really predictable and boring. And worse, they overachieve beyond what they truly did. Boring and inflated.

[SittingDuck]

Originally Posted by clamel

But what will happend if that development are ON and using hist-players. They probably could improve during the season until a new recalc happens in the new year...

Yes, as I stated in replying to Gramms, that is exactly what happens. They are 'great' again. Which sucks to me.

I'd really like the concept of possible recalc error for any given player. Very difficult to determine how to do it, but I'd love to see players import with the possibility of being greater or lesser than their historical performance. A random error percentage, I guess. Difficult to conceptualize as to application, I think.

But I think it is what a lot of us who do historical are after.

[clamel]

What I am afraid will happen is that it will play Cecil Fielder as a SS if the recalc is not on and only development are ON.

I think I read this in another thread.

So perhaps the year will develop a little different with a chance of development in one way or the other for a player, then with recalc in next year he gets back on track to what he did historical.
In any way I hardly think we will have 100% correct numbers on any players even with recalc ON, so a diversity will happen.
I have seen players that had little time in the majors one year (thanks to whatever reason) actually explode with great numbers and vice versa.

You kind of getting the Brady Anderson 50-HR effect (if that wasn´t some pills hm)

History can´t happen 100% depending how you play guys in lineups and such. The AI also play a huge difference to history.

[Greatgrampa]

Originally Posted by clamel

History can´t happen 100% depending how you play guys in lineups and such. The AI also play a huge difference to history.

Well, that is true, I suppose, but there would be nothing more boring than playing each year and having the expected happen. I suppose a fictional league might seem best for me but I would like to see the players I grew up watching, playing the game, and not necessarily with the same teams or at the same positions. And I would like it if suddenly some obscure pitcher who only stayed around long enough for a cup of coffee, were to suddenly blossom into a great pitcher. And I don't care if there are some fictional players in there as well. I just like these kind of unusual events rather than the usual, year to year similarities to the same game I watched over the years. But again, we all play the way we like, I guess.

And still no one has given me an answer to if there is a list of settings out there that would make the game more realistic overall. Is there not one available somewhere? Sure would help me out a lot.

Anyway, nice thread. Interesting, to say the least. Thanks

[SittingDuck]

I can see some possible contradiction between what you want, and then what you are asking for - realistic.

So perhaps it would be best if you describe exactly what you want and what you don't want, and then some of us could chime in. What is 'realistic' to you and what isn't?

Let me say first of all that with recalc ON, you will not get a mediocre pitcher to become great for his entire career. He might have a great season, but not great career. The recalc process will ensure this. Likewise, you will have Mantle and Aaron boofing it up from time to time - possibly - but not their entire career, all dependant on the amount of random change you put into the Player Development value.

[Greatgrampa]

Originally Posted by SittingDuck

I can see some possible contradiction between what you want, and then what you are asking for - realistic.

So perhaps it would be best if you describe exactly what you want and what you don't want, and then some of us could chime in. What is 'realistic' to you and what isn't?

Let me say first of all that with recalc ON, you will not get a mediocre pitcher to become great for his entire career. He might have a great season, but not great career. The recalc process will ensure this. Likewise, you will have Mantle and Aaron boofing it up from time to time - possibly - but not their entire career, all dependant on the amount of random change you put into the Player Development value.

After looking at my post here again, I can see why you might be confused. I spent 12 hours yesterday (seriously) just trying to set up a league the way I wanted it to be...and it got really frustrating because to me there seems to be conflicting settings when it comes to how the game plays out with so many adjustments one can make...and also those same adjustments are not just in one place either, further frustrating my mind.

What I have is a fictional historical league, ie I have fictional team names for the real ones. I have the opposite of what everyone says here with the two settings on and off. I have recalc off and development on because to me, it would get very boring replaying each season as if starting fresh every year. I want the players to develop and let the chips fall where they may with these players. I know that sounds like a purely fictional league and it probably is but at least I have the real players in the game, and that is all I want. I have a fictional league as well, but playing with names I have never heard of is just not fun for me....Anyway, to each his own and hopefully my new league will do what I want it to do. But I sure did go through a tough process yesterday and eventually just winged a lot of the settings. We shall see. I have played four or five games in 1901 and it seems to be working for the most part. I still don't like so many pinch hitters being put into each game. Sure would like to rectify that without having to go into each team and changing their settings...The AI doesn't seem to handle a few things like this very well.
Anyway, I have it set up now and I will leave it like it is for now. I guess I will just wing it as I always seem to do in games...I eventually understand everything. I am just getting old and senile I guess.