Doubleheaders/rain-outs

[D-BacksJosh]

Would like to see some doubleheaders due to postponed games, I think this would add to to the realism and the strategy of fatigue.

[Cryomaniac]

This is a cool idea. IIRC Markus has said that the rainouts part is easy enough to code, but getting the game to schedule the make-up is more difficult.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

This is a cool idea. IIRC Markus has said that the rainouts part is easy enough to code, but getting the game to schedule the make-up is more difficult.

This should be possible with a set of "if-then" rules. The tricky part is that such a rule set might be rather long. There are also historical variations in the rate of postponements (quite a bit higher in the past than is the case now).

[thehef]

At a minimum, postseason rainouts would be cool because that's when they can have the most interesting and dramatic effect (as the 1911, 1962, and 1975 series' remind us: World Series Has Been Down Wet Paths in the Past - NYTimes.com)

And postseason rainout scheduling shouldn't be that hard to accomodate/code: Just move the games back a day.

As for the regular season, again - at a minimum - an option could be put in to Allow Regular Season Rainouts. And then, when a game gets rained out the user is notified that the rained-out game should be rescheduled. At that point, the user who likes to immerse himself in such things can peruse the remaining schedule and look for an open date or create a double-header, or wait until the end of the season to see if a makeup game is necessary, etc.

Perfect solutions? No. But these would be nice additions and shouldn't be all that difficult to add.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by thehef

As for the regular season, again - at a minimum - an option could be put in to Allow Regular Season Rainouts. And then, when a game gets rained out the user is notified that the rained-out game should be rescheduled. At that point, the user who likes to immerse himself in such things can peruse the remaining schedule and look for an open date or create a double-header, or wait until the end of the season to see if a makeup game is necessary, etc.

There's a problem with that: what about postponements for the AI-run teams? You'd have to manually reschedule all their games too.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

There's a problem with that: what about postponements for the AI-run teams? You'd have to manually reschedule all their games too.

Sure. It's not a perfect solution. But it would give the game-player the option of rescheduling postponements (or not) in a God mode... It'd just be like many other options: You don't have to use it.

An additional feature could be added - that shouldn't be too hard to code - that would ask you if you'd like to schedule a double-header at the next available opportunity (if games remain between the two rained-out teams). In fact, it shouldn't be too hard to have the program do the following:

1. Look for the first off-day immediately after a meeting between the two teams; if one exists, schedule an afternoon make-up game, if not...
2. Look for the first off-day immediately before a meeting between the two teams; if one exists, schedule a make-up game, if not...
3. Look for the next (or last? or next weekend?) meeting between the two teams; if one exists, schedule doubleheader, if not...
4. Do nothing except inform the user that a game may need to be manually added to the schedule on an off-day or at the end of the season. (After all, some rainouts are not made up.)

Would this be totally realistic? No. More-realistic than never having rainouts (or less labor-intensive than manually researching weather and manually creating them in your game)? Heck ya. (And, as a bonus, it would add variance and realism, especially when not using real-life schedules.)

[Peterk]

Thumbs up to the suggestion. Will make games in bad weather more interesting (ie. Can I manage to get a cheap 5 inning win???). Double headers will be fun due to the fatigue management necessary...and that extra day of rest in the playoffs could well be big in many cases.

Football Manager always does a great job of rescheduling regular season games due to cup matches, but there's a bit more empty space to work with in a soccer schedule than a baseball schedule. I understand Markus' concern.

[ZMan]

This really remains one of the dream options to add to the game.

It would also finally elevate weather to more than just a seemingly cosmetic part of the OOTP experience.

[risp2out]

One more thing related to double-headers: Please make it so that I can click back to both box scores. I hate how, in the schedule mode, you can see both scores from a double-header day, but you only get the box score from game 2 no matter which one you click on.