Why can we only start in 1901?

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Just curious, but why would you want to run all those minor leagues in a historical league anyway? There just going to be filled with fictional players who aren't supposed to make it to the majors anyway... unless you want fictional and historical players mixing. Is that what you're after?

That's certainly a good point. I'm looking for an occasional fictional player to be good enough to play, and will probably rename fictional players that make the majors with the names of better minor league players from that year that never made it. I guess I'm really just captivated by the idea of the huge universe, and I'm not ready to give up on recreating history, either.
I'd love to see a Kid Nichols winning 20 games in the minors when he's 42. I know it's a little weird. My inclination is really to stop at AA. Certainly the fewer minors I have, the fewer the number of fictional players that will make it. I want the game to be dominated by the real players.

[swampdragon]

Late dola. Eureka alert. All I have to do is start over with unaffiliated minor league teams and the AI won't drain them of position players. I can affiliate them after the patch. That will let me get started on importing the real players and integrating them into the universe. I probably won't finish that until the patch is out anyway. Talk about a solution sitting there in front of me.

[spark240]

Originally Posted by Garlon

...you have to make sure al your teams have at least 3 pitchers which is another problem because thre were only like 10 pitchers in the league in 1871...

Do you really HAVE to have 3 pitchers (for a "rotation")?

Shouldn't it be possible to schedule the games far enough apart to allow one primary starting pitcher to pitch the great majority of his team's innings?

I think the longest schedule any NA team ever played was about 82 games, but most--especially in the first couple years--were far shorter. I'm looking at 1871 standings now, and the most games for any one team is 33. I would think that with pitcher endurance set high, you could easily get through a season like that with maybe one primary starter and one reliever/spot starter.

I'm just thinking, though. I never tried to run anything historical before 1893 myself.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by spark240

Shouldn't it be possible to schedule the games far enough apart to allow one primary starting pitcher to pitch the great majority of his team's innings?

If you have a schedule with just three games per week (which is accurate for that time period), you can have just two starting pitchers and they will be getting three or four days of rest between every start every time.

The low number of games played per week is why the total number of games played in the season was low even though the calendar length of the season was long. In 1878, for example, the NL took 151 days to play a 60 game season.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

So wait. Do teams have to have three pitchers per team or not? Because that and the turning off playoffs seem to me to be the only show-stoppers right now. I'd really like to give this a shot from 1871, but if those two things are still problems I'll wait.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

So wait. Do teams have to have three pitchers per team or not? Because that and the turning off playoffs seem to me to be the only show-stoppers right now. I'd really like to give this a shot from 1871, but if those two things are still problems I'll wait.

I still would like an answer on the three pitchers thing from someone who knows.

From what I can tell, these are the only 19th century showstoppers at the moment. If and when these things get addressed, I'm planning on starting a new 1871 league, and will be glad to give a step-by-step explanation of how I do it... but these two 'features' are game-breakers as far as the 19th century is concerned.

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

I still would like an answer on the three pitchers thing from someone who knows.

From what I can tell, these are the only 19th century showstoppers at the moment. If and when these things get addressed, I'm planning on starting a new 1871 league, and will be glad to give a step-by-step explanation of how I do it... but these two 'features' are game-breakers as far as the 19th century is concerned.

I'm pretty sure from what I've read that three pitchers have to be on the roster. That doesn't mean they get to play. As slowly as you sim, and as short as the schedules are, I feel pretty sure you can arrange it so Al Spalding pitches all his team's games. The one thing the AI won't do is leave the starter in to get beat 28-5, but maybe if it has no relievers...

Of course, you would have to manually edit the schedule to space the games, but that should be easy to do until 1882. I've never done 1871-75, but I did a DMB 1876 replay once. Most of the teams had two starters, but there were some that only carried one.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Okay. I think there are workarounds for most of the killer problems for 19th century baseball then. I'm still too attached to my current 6.5 league to let it go, but I may start up a concurrent BB2006 league in 1871.

[Bobbuttons]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Scruff - give me a couple days and I will post an 1871 starter league file. There is a warkaround built in to OOTP that allows you to start before 1901. Create a fictional league in 1870 with fictianal players, set your DB path so that he game will import rookies when the draft rolls along (set the draft to Dec). Then all you have to do when the season ends is manually delete all the fictional players from your league and proceed with the rookie draft....all that you will have left is the real 1871 players at the beginning of 1871. This is a big hassle, plus you have to make sure al your teams have at least 3 pitchers which is another problem because thre were only like 10 pitchers in the league in 1871...I can solve that too. Give me some time and I will have a file available, I like to start in 1871 too :-)

Any progress on this?