[Bristolduke]

VERSION 2 Available.

While waiting for OOTP 11 to be fixed, I started down a path of creating a real historical master file. To be clear here this file makes no changes or impacts no part of the OOTP data. It's purpose was to fix the player bio data which has grown considerably out of date from Lahman, which OOTP uses at it's base.

I started out trying to create a master with unique names. This would greatly simplify the use of photos and the new facegen features. I have been working with tnfoto on the photo names and these files will match his newest release, coming out shortly.


I have based everything upon the data at Baseball-reference.com. It is intersting that they do not provide the ability to pull a single file with all the bio data. Instead they recommend using Lahman. This is a great dis-service to baseball-reference as I found out. There are over 20,000 errors and omissions in Lahman from what is on Baseball-reference. Over 9,000 players data changes (and this is before I tried to do anything with common names). Since Lahman is the base of OOTP, then our historical sims may be statisically sound, but not the players we are playing with. For example there are 1300+ ommisions and errors in how a player bats and just under 1000 on how they throw. We know the last game played data was suspect. Birthday and birth place as well as a players given name was missing in many cases. I updated the death information and college information as well, mostly because I felt I may as well since I was doing this even though the game won't care.

After fixing the ommissions and errors (and I don't know if I got all them, since I didn't do a manual player by player compare of all 17,000+), I then addressed unique names. The basic rule was to use the baseball-reference name and add a middle initial if needed. Worked with tnfoto to ensure compatibility with the photo project. The use of Sr/Jr/III was also used.



What I have is the following files.

1) Historical Master - This contains the data from rows E thru AB in Lahman. It is reflective of the data in Baseball-reference, including all data still unknown

2) Master.csv for OOTP11
3) Master.csv for OOTPX
4) Master.csv for OOTP9
5) Master.csv for Lahman version 5.7 (This would be used for all versions before OOTP9.

To make this work in OOTP9, OOTPX and OOTP11 you must delete the .odb file.

The for OOTP files I made the following data assumptions.

1) default weight is 170
2) default height is 5'9" ( there is an error in OOTP that will not properly show height so these defaults will show as 5'8". This is true for OOPT9, OOTPX and OOTP11 - I haven't looked at 8)
3) Player bats - if he has a value for how he throws then that is the value I used to bat (e.g. If he thows left but had no bats value then I use left), If there is no throws value then it would default to bats right.
4) Player Throws - If he has a value for how he bats then that is the value I used to throw. If he had no value or was a switch hitter I defaulted to throw right.
5) Brithday - If there is no birthdate then I created a birth year that would make him 21 at debut. For month and Day I used the same logic regardless of whether year was present (or month was present in case of Day). If Month or Day were not presnet they defaulted to 1. So a player with no known birthdate would default to 1 Jan of the year he would be 21.
6) Birthplace - If there is no country known, then USA is the default.
7) Debut date and last game date. The Historical master has the exact dates (no times) of these events. However, since OOTP only needs year I only populated the year value in the master.csv files.

I am also asking the OOTP guru's to utilize this file going forward so that we are not forced to delete odb files and/or make lots of changes to support photos/facegens. As I have indicated before, I am more than happy to do the work, support the work, and/or test the work. But starting with OOTP12 it would be nice if you could have a standard master file all the modders can leverage.

Again this mod will work for all versions of OOTP so, people shouldn't feel like they have to by a new game to have accurate player data.

Cheers
Bristolduke