Suggestions from a newbie

[nedyken]

I have been playing the game for a couple weeks now and overall I'm blown away by the game. I have a few small gripes/suggestions.

This game is continuing to surprise me, so it might be that some of my suggestions might already be a part of the game... so sorry in advance if I'm suggesting something that already exists (or is planned for the new version).

#1 - Team relocation? - In 20 simulated seasons I've seen 4 new expansion teams added and the Toronto Blue Jays change their name to the "Toronto Channel Cats", because they needed a fresh start... but no teams have relocated. You'd think a small market team would have relocated by now.

#2 - New Stadiums? - Also on that note... do teams ever build new stadiums with larger capacity? I was in charge of the Pittsburgh Pirates for 15 years and won 7 world series in that time. I've long since left Pittsburgh behind, but I've noticed pretty cool stuff as a result... Well after I had left them behind and they began struggling... I saw an article about a star free agent considering going to Pittsburgh because of the team's history. Pretty awesome!... In 2033, their fan loyalty has grown to "above average" and their market size has grown to "rather big"... you'd think maybe they'd consider building a new stadium to accommodate their larger fan base. At one point my budget in Pittsburgh was something like 40 million total... when we became a dynasty it seemed to cap out around 120 million. That was all ownership could afford to give me and I think it might of had something to do with the stadium not being able to accomodate more fans? ... Had they built a larger stadium, they probably would have sold more tickets and I would have had a larger budget to work with.

#3 - Managerial History - As far as I can tell, you can only find managerial history for coaches who have been manager of a team (AAA, A, Majors, etc) ... I would like to see a complete history of a guy in my personnel... whether he started his career as a hitting coach in single a... moved up to manager in AA... somehow ended up becoming a bench coach in the majors a couple years later... and ultimately becoming a manager for a team. Seems like this would be a pretty easy thing to incorporate since the game seems to keep track of EVERYTHING else. Hah

#4 - Show World Series victories Award summary - I love being able to click on a player, click on the history tab and see a nice list of all his various awards/accomplishments. For awards it shows a list of all the player's various career awards followed by a summary of the titles. Example: 4 time player of the week, 3 Time battle of the month, 8 time best fielder, 4 time allstar. I think that summary should include World series victories. YOu can find this info by looking through the player history... and some might disagree winning a championship should be lumped in with "awards", but personally I'd like to click on a player and instantly see "Holy crap, that guy played on 7 world series teams!". .... Random note: I notice the game collects minor league all-star appearances in the all-star field. Should this be the case?

#5 - Financial player history - This is more of a suggestion than a gripe and I wouldn't put a priority on it, but some part of me wants to click on my retired superstar and see how much money total he made over his 20 year career.... a tab that shows how much he made year by year and the total career earnings. A first basemen in the year 2030 signed a 5 year 200 million dollar contract that was paying him 39 million a year. I could go through his history line-by-line and add up his various contracts, but it might be cool to just quickly see how filthy rich a player became.

#6 - News for Broken Records!?!? - I'd say this was the first time I was surprised by something missing from the game. The news articles in the game are incredible... I love seeing articles about a pitcher getting his milestone 300th win or 3000th hit... but was shocked that when 43 year old Jason Heyward collected his 4257th hit... surpassing Pete Rose in the all-time hits record... no article was published. WOuldn't that be pretty big news?

#7 - Sort players by awards - Piggybacking on my suggestions with award summaries... I'd like to be able to sort all current (or retired players) by their awards. Jason Heyward has been an all-star 18 times now and batter of the year 7 times. There doesn't seem to be a way to sort players based on their accomplishments. I'd like to see who, if anyone, has had more allstar appearances than Heyward. On top of that, if you ever add the ability to quickly see a player's financial history... I'd like the ability to sort players by their career earnings.

#8 - See Hall-Of-Famers by team? - Not sure if this is in the game or not. I notice that players who played on my Pittsburgh dynasty, moved on to other teams and eventually retired seem to be wearing Pittsburgh Pirate ball-caps in their player profiles post-retirement. I assumed this meant that the game decided they would enter the hall of fame as Pirates. Big thumbs up for that... would have been lame if they retired and were showing a hat for a team they spent their last miserable year on. But if the game has made this decision, shouldn't "team" be a value in the hall of fame sortable list? WOuld be nice to quickly see all the players from my team who made the hall of fame.

#9 - Linking between Coach/Player profiles - Last little thing of note. Scratching the bottom of the barrel here. Say a guy like Alex Rodriguez retires and becomes a manager. I notice that if you open his manager profile it shows a link to his former player profile. Thumbs up on that. Very very cool to be able to quickly access his player profile. However, I notice that when you're on that player profile, there isn't a link for his coach profile. Very small gripe. But I find myself browsing profiles of players who made the hall of fame... and it would be nice to see "oh... check it out... I didn't realize A-Rod was a manager now... " simply from his retired player profile.


Let me know if some of these don't make sense. Just figured I'd contribute my thoughts. I'm sure i'll have more eventually. Thanks

[Carplos]

#1 - Team relocation? - In 20 simulated seasons I've seen 4 new expansion teams added and the Toronto Blue Jays change their name to the "Toronto Channel Cats", because they needed a fresh start... but no teams have relocated. You'd think a small market team would have relocated by now.

If you have relocations turned on under league evolution (you likely do since you have expansion happening) then teams will relocate. Can't say as to how often it happens as I play with league evolution off usually.

#2 - New Stadiums? - Also on that note... do teams ever build new stadiums with larger capacity?

Stadium changes would all have to be done manually at this point. It's a good idea to add to league evolution.

[oman19]

Sounds like you and I look for alot of the same things. Tons of good suggestions in this post. Well thought out post OP. Love suggestions 2-8.

[Chicagofan76]

Most all are great ideas and have been brought up before...as for relocation i am 9 yrs into a league and i have had 2 teams relocate...1 team moved for bad financial reasons and 1 moved a yr after a new owner bought the team.

I would love to see the new stadium feature

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by nedyken

#1 - Team relocation? - In 20 simulated seasons I've seen 4 new expansion teams added and the Toronto Blue Jays change their name to the "Toronto Channel Cats", because they needed a fresh start... but no teams have relocated. You'd think a small market team would have relocated by now.

Well, MLB went fifty seasons without a club relocating from 1903-52. This in spite of some clubs, such as the Red Sox and Browns, losing money on a fairly consistent basis.

So it seems your league is in its stable period. Be careful what you wish for - you may hit a period when clubs move every couple of years 1990s NFL-style!

[Syd Thrift]

What I'd like to see is these league rules "put to vote" every year, especially if you're in a solo league. Baseball didn't go 50 years without team movements because nobody wanted to move, it was a combination of:

- The leagues setting an uneasy truce in the 00s and being unwilling to move out of markets where the rival league existed
- The rise of the Federal League in the 10s making teams want to stick to their cities even harder
- The lack of a good nationwide transportation system keeping teams from going any further west than St. Louis and even that particular trip requiring a good deal of planning (there was a team in Milwaukee in the AL in 1901 but that proved untenable) until faster trains and air travel made that a better possibility
- The status of Major League Baseball as the #1 league in the nation as opposed to the league that everything else was based on. The PCL held a very high minor league status into the early 50s and even moves into IL or AA markets would have required negotiations with the owners there.
- The Depression really killing any team's ability to spend money to relocate or anything else.
- World War II.
- Kenesaw Mountain Landis probably put the kibosh on some moving-around plans but I've got no proof of that.

There were a *ton* of teams moving around in the decade preceding the 1900s and there would be a good many afterwards. I haven't really played with league evolution so much because I like to exercise too much control over the mundane day to day things but I do think the player should be asked to opt in to anything.