How to include ALL players including free agents in the inaugural draft

[arod23]

Unlike 6.5, v2006, does not include free agents in an inaugural draft. That is, only players already assigned to teams become part of the draft pool after "releasing all". I also noticed that, sometimes, the draft pool would not even contain all of those players, as if it limited the size of the pool. While my learning was specific to the random debut database, this applies to any league wishing to do an inaugural draft.

I was working on the random debut historical database last night. While I was running some test imports, I learned a few things about the inaugural draft. Since players are all jumbled, the first year requires an inaugural draft and drafts for all subsequent years. That is, players cannot be assigned to their original teams (primarily because the teams the players played for may not exist).

As a first run, I imported about 500 players into year one. About half of these players landed on rosters and the other half were free agents (not assigned to teams). Under the transaction screen, half were listed under show all players and half were listed under free agents. Clicking on Release all players and hold inaugural draft yields a draft list that only includes those who were assigned to teams, thus leaving out all the free agents listed. Of course, this is not what most people want. Most of us would like to draft from the entire pool of available players.

To enable the inaugural draft to include ALL players available, you can do the following:

1) Start a historical league, do NOT check "hold inaugural draft" in the setup screen, import real rookies should be checked and hold amateur draft should be checked (so in subsequent years players are not assigned to a team), other settings are up to you
2) After start game, checking the transactions screen, you should see players listed under free agents and under show all players (you should make a note of how many are listed in each)
3) Now go back to setup and change settings so AI can make all roster moves and run all teams.
4) Sim one or two days, which should be to Jan 3rd or 4th. The AI should sign all available free agents.
5) Check transactions screen and all free agents should have been signed to a team and show all players now should include every player that loaded (the total should match the sum from earlier or you can check the database info screen for the total number of players imported)
6) Now, go back to setup and click release all players and hold inaugural draft.
7) The draft pool should now contain all players
8) Change AI settings back to human control or whatever mix you want moving forward
9) Clear service years and stats if you want
10) Hold draft

And by the way, a new random debut database based on the current version of v.2.1 Arod/Garlon 2006 DB should be available this week. (The one currently available for download is based on last year's efforts).

[Mr. Capo]

My friend and I are playing a league that uses your random debut DB. We set it up just about as you described, except that we simmed four seasons (just to establish some history) before holding our inaugural draft. It worked out fine. There were a few free agents in our 16 team league with one level of minors, but they were the ones nobody had signed, so were of little consequence.

This league is really fun; thank you so much for the random debut DB. A couple of questions:

• Does the new version of this DB use the same randomization as the last version, or is it a new reshuffling of the deck?

• If the same, can I substitute the new version and continue the league seamlessly?

• What's the chance of getting some additional randomizations? To me, this is a very fun way to play, but I'm beginning to get almost as familiar with this version of history as the real one.

[arod23]

Originally Posted by Mr. Capo

• Does the new version of this DB use the same randomization as the last version, or is it a new reshuffling of the deck?

• If the same, can I substitute the new version and continue the league seamlessly?

• What's the chance of getting some additional randomizations? To me, this is a very fun way to play, but I'm beginning to get almost as familiar with this version of history as the real one.

The new random DB is based on our new 2006 DB & it is a totally different shuffling. Since it is not the same, you can't substitute it for the previous one, otherwise you may have repeat players (debuted already and then may pop up again).

I took the time to write some efficient code this time, so other randomizations are not as time consuming. I am planning to post a new 'compressed history random DB' tonight. This will randomly assign all players across just 20 years. Many have liked this DB even better because you can play out 20 years and the talent pool is richer for each draft. I was planning on creating several versions of this, so that one can play multiple 20 year sims with a different mix of players occuring each time. Playing through 100 years of history is a long time.

[Mr. Capo]

Originally Posted by arod23

The new random DB is based on our new 2006 DB & it is a totally different shuffling.

COOL! That's what I'd hoped for. Our present league is going just fine, based on the old DB, so we'll keep plugging along with that one for now, but plan on starting a new league soon.

I haven't tried the compressed version, because I actually prefer a more normal (rather than richer) spectrum of talent. I like getting to know some of these journeymen, especially the ones who end up over-achieving.

I sure do get a kick out of cross-era play. For league modifiers, I took a straight average from 1900-2005, but found that I had to turn down the homers and strikeouts a bit to satisfy my own aesthetic. It's working well for me now: single season HR record is 61, but high 40s usually lead the league with an occasional 50+. No one has hit .400 yet, .350 or so typically leads the league. One or two ERAs below two in a season. Overall it looks about like 50s-80s stats ...my kinda ball.

If anyone is interested, here are the settings I use: