The American 50 - The definitive hometown hero tournament of the United States

[Timetxu]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking in the shadows in this forum for quite a while. I mostly enjoy wacky simulations with real players, which I spend most of my time on while playing OOTP. There's one simulation idea that had always been in my head but I've never had the guts to start off with. That's got to change. This is the time to document that labor of love I've been wanting to give a shot:

What would a big tournament between all different states look like?

We don't have anything like this in real life. College baseball probably comes closest with hometown heroes playing with the name of the state on their chest. But there's no limit on recruitment of players from another state. No, what I want to know is what a tournament of every single state would look like. 50 states, 1 winner. What state would win?

This was the premise of my idea, but it immediately had two issues: the size of certain states as compared to others doesn't really make this tournament that exiting from the onset. I think it's pretty safe to say either California, Texas or Florida would win this tournament. Also, some smaller states do not have enough players in the game's database to form a 26 man roster.

That's why I came up with the idea to - instead of using 50 states - divide the US into 50 regions of equal population size. This way every region has the same amount of players to choose from which made it possible to actually create 50 different rosters. It also ensures some excitement because now we'd have different teams from California, Texas and Florida.

Luckily I didn't have to start from scratch with this idea, because a quick google search later I found out that a redditor had already came up with a very useful map. I'd love to credit him/her but unfortunately I can't find the post anymore. Anyway, here it is:





Let me start off saying I'm not from the United States. You might have noticed English is not my first language as I'm from the Netherlands. I have no rooting interest in any region whatsoever. I also do realize that some regions are very weirdly chopped. The Midwest looks like it has all the new borders just a few 100 miles too much to the right. And Orange County suddenly belongs to San Diego. The region names are probably terrible too. And I bet there's more in here that might not really appease everyone. But yeah, we have to draw a line somewhere. Get it? Draw a line? I'm sorry. Anyway, this way every region more or less has 6.5 million inhabitants.

The Rosters
So how did I come up with all rosters? Basically I've exported a list of every American born player in OOTP filtered by place of birth (according to OOTP). I then distributed them according to this map. To make the best rosters without spending too much time I've used players CAs and PAs to quickly rate them (with CA counting for 60% and PA for 40%). This helped me pick every region's best 2 catchers, 6 infielders, 5 outfielders and 13 pitchers for a total 26 man roster. If there were any ties, I used various tiebreakers like major league or professional experience, age, stamina. Some regions were quite thin on professoinal experience so there are quite a few High School/JuCo/NCAA with 4* or 5* PA in there as well.

In my next posts I'll publish all 26 man rosters of the 50 different regions.

The Tournament Structure

I love simulating and watching games myself so having a 162 game schedule was never going to happen. I've derived inspiration from the College World Series. However, because I feel like one bad day often leads to the favorites crashing out way too early, I've come up with some alterations. Basically this tournament will consist of five phases:

Regionals
- Every team is distributed over one of 8 regions. You can see these in the image I uploaded above. Every region contains 6 or 7 teams. Every team will compete in their regional first. These tournaments will be a triple elimination knockout. I liked the knockout idea, but single elimination was out of the question. Even double elimination felt too cutthroat for me, so I've gone with triple elimination. This will guarantee every team to at least use every starter once. You will learn more on what the schedules look like when this phase starts.
- The best 4 teams of every regional will advance to the Super Regionals. That's right, only the 5th, 6th and 7th team of every Regional will be eliminated.
- Games will be played at the ballpark of the home side.
- The final position in your Regional will be very useful as this determines your seeding for the Super Regionals.

Super Regionals
- After the Regional phase, all 32 remaining teams will be divided over one of 8 Super Regionals. A draw will determine which team will play where.
- Every Super Regional contains one #1 from the Regional phase, one #2, one #3 and one #4.
- No two teams from the same Regional will be drawn together in the same Super Regional
- All games will be played at the stadium of the #1 seed (more or less like in college baseball).
- The format will again be triple elimination, but a 4 team triple elimination this time.
- This time only the 8 Super Regional winners will advance to the next phase.

Elite Eight Series
- The 8 Super Regional winners will be drawn into four different Elite Eight Series.
- These will function more or less like the LDS in MLB, with all series being Best-of-5.
- Ties will be determined based on seeding. All teams win record in the two prior phases will be used to make a list from #1 to #8. In case of a tie, net run rate will be used. More on that later when the phase arrives, but it's a concept from cricket. You can learn about it here.
- The 4 winners will advance to the Final Four Series

Final Four Series
- The 4 winners advance and will be paired based on seeding again.
- The Final Four Series are best-of-7.
- The 2 series winners will advance to the Series of the States

Series of the States
- The 2 winners of the Semi Final Series will play the Series of the States in another best-of-7 series. The winner will be crowned as the best baseball region in the United States of America.

Technical info and game setup
- To create the various teams I've simply released all players and manually moved the players to the different teams.
- All games are exhibition games set up by myself. I then let the AI play the game.
- To force the AI to use as many of the 13 pitchers as possible, I've set starting pitcher fatigue to the highest slider possible. Also, I've set the hook for pitchers to very short.
- Every team consists of 2 catchers, 6 infielders, 5 outfielders and 13 pitchers. Every team has a 3 man rotation and a 10 man bullpen. I've let the AI decide all roles and lineups.
- To force the AI to take pitch counts into account, I manually manipulate which pitchers are available before every game. I use this pitch count system:

- 0-30 pitches - 0 days rest
- 31-45 pitches - 1 day rest
- 46-60 pitches - 2 days rest
- 61-80 pitches - 3 days rest
- 81-105 pitches - 4 days rest
- 106+ pitches - 5 days rest
- A pitcher throwing two consecutive days will not be available the third day, granted the total amount of pitches over these two games has surpassed 30 pitches.
- If no starter is available, the AI will choose which reliever gets to start

And well, that's pretty much it for now. Keep posted in here as I'll first introduce the 50 different teams. After that we'll go Regional by Regional, with one game per post. Hope you guys enjoy. I have no idea what's gonna happen but I'm curious what you guys think who will win this simulation!

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Simulation Table of Contents

Rosters
1 - Boston
2 - Northern New England
3 - Southern New England
4 - New York City
5 - Greater New York
6 - New Jersey
7 - Delmarva
8 - Philadelphia
9 - Northern Appalachia
10 - Rust Belt
11 - Chesapeake Bay
12 - Central Appalachia
13 - Southern Appalachia
14 - North Carolina
15 - South Carolina
16 - Georgia
17 - North Florida
18 - Florida Gulf
19 - Greater Miami
20 - Greater Atlanta
21 - Alabama
22 - Mississippi
23 - Tennessee
24 - Arkansas-Louisiana
25 - Missouri
26 - Greater Dallas
27 - Greater Houston
28 - Central Texas
29 - Texas Plains
30 - Southern Plains
31 - Eastern Desert
32 - Illinois
33 - Chicago
34 - Michigan-Indiana
35 - Greater Detroit
36 - Ohio/Indiana
37 - Wisconsin
38 - Minnesota
39 - Northern Plains
40 - Eastern Rockies
41 - Western Rockies
42 - Pacific Northwest
43 - Seattle and Pacific
44 - Western Desert
45 - Greater Phoenix
46 - Greater San Diego
47 - Greater Los Angeles
48 - Greater San Francisco
49 - Eastern California
50 - Western California

Regionals
- Northeast Regional
- Mid-Atlantic Regional
- Coastal South Regional
- Southeast Regional
- Great Plains Regional
- Midwest Regional
- Northwest Regional
- Far West Regional

Super Regionals
- Super Regional 1
- Super Regional 2
- Super Regional 3
- Super Regional 4
- Super Regional 5
- Super Regional 6
- Super Regional 7
- Super Regional 8

Elite Eight Series
- Games 1
- Games 2
- Games 3
- Games 4
- Games 5

Final Four Series
- Games 1
- Games 2
- Games 3
- Games 4
- Games 5
- Games 6
- Games 7

Series of the States
- Game 1
- Game 2
- Game 3
- Game 4
- Game 5
- Game 6
- Game 7

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 1
BOSTON

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 2
NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 3
SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 4
NEW YORK CITY

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 5
GREATER NEW YORK

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 6
NEW JERSEY

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 7
DELMARVA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 8
PHILADELPHIA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 9
NORTHERN APPALACHIA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 10
RUST BELT

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 11
CHESAPEAKE BAY

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 12
CENTRAL APPALACHIA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 13
SOUTHERN APPALACHIA

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ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 14
NORTH CAROLINA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 15
SOUTH CAROLINA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 16
GEORGIA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 17
NORTH FLORIDA

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 18
FLORIDA GULF

[Timetxu]

ROSTER INTRODUCTION
TEAM 19
GREATER MIAMI