What do you recommend we do when the game won't move forward due to an illegal roster?

Once the next build is released that won't happen no more as long as ghost players are off. The AI fills the rosters now from the free agent pool. I have tested 1919 - 1932 so far with no challenges so it is looking good. I'm hopeful so far. The MLB and MiLB reserve rosters are still too large but that will be adjusted in version 18.

MLB should be around 15 and MiLB around 10. See the attached file for the particulars. This will be automated in OOTP18.

Great news.

Buck Crouse. His DOB is listed here as 1896. In BBref and Wikipedia, it's given as 1897. Either way, he certainly wasn't 24 years in 1923, as shown on his Real Life Stats. What gives?

The age part is not a database error so the game barfed on him in some way. I'll send this to the clean up crew. AND I'll fix his birth year.

I don't know if this is helpful, but he WAS 24 when his first minor league stats are recorded in BBRef. He was in the Central League in 1921. I'm guessing that since the Central League isn't represented in the game, maybe OOTP is somehow shifting his age over to his first year in a league that is in-game. (????)

Now, a follow up question for you, Sir Spritze. In the game, I have recalc (3-year FWIW) selected at the major league level. When I look at the league settings for the minor leagues, recalc is not selected automatically. Should I select it there, as well, to have consistent results? What is the effect of selecting or not selecting recalc at the minor league level in historical games? Thanks. (Oh, and by the way, you can only get to the "Historical" settings screen in the minors by being there in the majors, and then changing the league in the drop-down menu on the upper right-hand side. If you go directly into the minor league, no "Historical" tab appears in league settings. That's weird, huh?)

That is, indeed, great news for those of us who like the Olde Tymey baseball. HOWEVER, I just started a game this morning in the new build, and ghost players were on by default. I turned them off, and indeed, got better results. There is, however, no way to limit the reserve roster sizes at any league level. Here's the funny thing: Even without a reserve roster size, the game seems to be keeping the major league reserve rosters to right around 15 players. In the minors, however, the teams are piling up reserve players at a far greater rate. Was that your experience in your tests?

I had to release minor league players to free agency to keep from running out of them. If I did not some leagues were empty. When reserve roster limits get added this necessity will go away.

I did not know this selection existed for minor leagues until now. I have no idea how or if it works.

FYI: There are a few affiliated leagues that will be dropped from OOTP18 as BBref lists few players in them if any. I have the guides for these years/leagues and will be adding the players for them over time. Eventually they will be reactivated so don't panic if they are your favorite leagues.

When I start a historical league, players were given an entire year of service time, for any year in which they had appeared in the majors.

I created a test league that started in 2000. For example, after the 2000 season, Brian Giles was a free agent. Giles started his career by playing in 6 games for the Indians in 1995. So, he was charged an entire year of service time towards his 6 years in the majors.

I remember there was a similar issue a few editions of OOTP ago. I believe the issue was easily fixed by having a revised database issued, which calculated service time based on prorating how many of the players games that year were in the majors, compared to the minors. Is there any chance that a similar fix could be available for this year's edition?

The database does not cowculate service time. The OOTP 18 program does. This issue should be reported one level up in this same forum. I don't know if those programmerers visit this level very often.

Thanks. I will take care of that right now.

I have a historical sim I started with v16 and converted into v17.

All these seasons (I simmed from 1901 - 1968 and then took over the Seattle Pilots in 1969) ran perfectly ... and it continued through 1979.

The league then took a back-seat to my fictional leagues, so I didn't play it all that much, and so I just came across the rookie draft.

When the draft pool was created it had only 10 players.

The path to your database was correct - to make sure I ran several test leagues and it always came down to this draft pool.

I even backed up my v16-backup and ran a test in v16 and ended up with that.

Do you have any idea what may be wrong here ?

Possibly this.....

There is a bug that shows up occasionally where a draft class is delayed a year. It has been reported but not yet found.

Thanks !

That's what I thought ...

I moved on, but in 1981 I had just one player in the draft before the number increased to 29 players in 1982.

Do you think there is a chance that the missing players eventually will show up ?

Or are they lost forever ?

BTW, I ran the tests with your database as well as the "original" database and had the same results, so this obviously has nothing to do with your database.

Hopefully this Bug will be squashed eventually.

Thanks a lot !!

minor league team relocates - new coaches
 

In my historical sim, one of my minor league teams moved and all of its coaches got changed to new ones.

Also, it was an Oakland A's sim and there were two Jose Canseco's. Mine wasn't as good as "The Chemist" one that appeared in the draft later that year.

Thanks!

I have not been able to find two Jose's as yet.

two Jose Cansecos in 1983 Oakland A's sim
 

It was a 1983 sim if that helps. I ended up deleting the non "The Chemist" one in mine.

Not two Jose Canseco's so something else must have barfed for you.

I wonder if one of the Canseco's is a fictional Jose? He said only one had the "Chemist" nickname.

I asked to have the invisible Fictional/Historical player flag added to the Dropdown Options in OOTP18 for that very reason.

There was also a Bud Black and a Buddy Black.

Not a big deal, but I just noticed my historical league has two CC Sabathia's. One has his complete real stats listed, the other only 2015 (if that matters).

Harold and William = 2 different fellas

fixed

Quick note from a 1914 game I just set up: Lynn Brenton and "Turkey Mike" Donlin are both listed as being born in Peoria, AZ. They were, of course, born in Peoria, IL, as I imagine there was no Peoria, AZ at the time they were born in the late 1800s.

i am using "real transations and lineups" yet in the first game of the 1995 season, seattle has ken griffey jr. batting 8th?

Attachment 471223


Edit: I *am* setting my own teams lineup however...would that then cause the CPU to set all of the other teams' lineups instead of using real life ones?

There are about 1,200 MLB player birthplace names missing from the OOTP world.dat file. I do not know who is in charge of that but OOTP developments is aware of the challenge.

I believe so.

Hello, 1973 season, and I'm running the Cardinals, and I think the GCL setup/schedule is messed up.

For my GCL affiliate, I noticed that during August I had 19 scheduled doubleheaders. I checked the league standings and saw that as of August, the GCL Red Birds have played 66 games, most others have played in the low 30s, the Indians team has played 61, and the Reds have played 0.

My Red Birds also show up twice in the standings.

Baseball-reference lists 2 Cardinals affiliates, but I only have 1.

Cheers!

Schedules are created on the fly AFAIK.

I will check the affiliates affiliations affably.

1960 League Expansion Draft Glitch?
 

The day arrived, I clicked on the link to the League Expansion Draft, and there was only the background skin. Couldn't get the two expansion teams to show up or conduct the draft. Thanks.:confused:

It worked for me just now. Expansion took place a day or two after the Whirled Series ended.

not sure if already posted, but...

historic postseason GP are incorrect (too low) when i start a historical league for the real seasons that have "already happened" prior to the league's creation.

for instance Nomar Garciaparra only played 5 postseason games in 2003 according to the game, but he played 12 in real life. all of his other stats are correct.

also blown saves are missing from historic stats when i start a historic league. this is a pretty significant stat, and ought to be added into the historic stats.

Blown saves are not available in a historic context. Nobody never counted them in a meaningful manner and nobody put them into most downloadable stats 1871-2015

Have started a 1969 game and am discovering that Jim Ray Hart is incorrectly listed with "Jim" as his first name and "Ray Hart" as his surname, as if he were Bruce Dal Canton or Todd Van Poppel or the like.

This has two distinct negative effects:

• It knocks out Hart's Historic ID (hartji01), since the game is looking for something starting with "r", and as a consequence of this…

• Hart's MLB stats do not load. (His minors stats are ok, since the minors ID survived, somehow) According to the game, Hart played two years in the minors and then has been an inactive FA since 1963. Please correct this.

Also, on an (I think) unrelated point, Hart's date of birth is listed as October 30, 1940; the sources I've checked show 1941, instead.

Bobby Gene Smith is listed simply as "Bobby Smith" in the game, and so doesn't have this issue. And I can't think of any other "two first names" players who might have this problem off the top of my head, but if you can, please check them out as well.

Thanks in advance.

ETA: Not that simple, it appears. The "real" Jim Ray Hart is in his proper place, on the Giants, with "Ray" correctly ID'd as part of his first name and using the "hartji01" Historic ID and its attendant MLB stat history.

It's just that he's spawned this döppelgänger, Jim "Ray Hart", who has custody of the Historic Minors ID (hart--007jam) and has the minors stats that are missing from MLB Jim Ray's records.

So we've got one Hart who the game thinks went straight to the majors in 1963, and a Ray Hart who the game thinks played in the minors in 1962-1963 and then took a very long vacation. It's pretty much like the Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk is split in two (or the Buffy the Vampire Slayer ep where something similar happens to Xander, or however many more copies/homages have been done…), isn't it? Can you please get the two Harts reintegrated before Steve Ontiveros freezes to death down on the planet, or whatever? Again, thanks.

fixed

Thanks.

A quick check through one of my modern-day games shows that John Henry Johnson (only other player I can think of with this situation, and obviously not in any 1969 games) was not similarly afflicted, so that's good.

So, if I download the latest patch and restart my game, I should have one (and only one) Jim Ray Hart, with all majors and minors stats included? Or is there something else I would need to do?

Fix will not appear until ootp18

Fair enough.

Small tangent: players with incorrect/missing birthplaces were being discussed on the previous page. I understand if you don't add Hart's (Hookerton NC, population 409) to the database, but you should know that Jerry Koosman is coming up as Appleton, WI, which is a mistake. Kooz is from Appleton, MN, of course.

Once more, thanks.

ETA: fired up a 1984 test league to check out some other candidates

Billy Jo Robidoux is listed as having "Jo Robidoux" as his surname, his Historic ID is missing, and all he has left are his MiLB stats, no majors included on his Real-Life stats

Roy Lee Jackson is the other side of this divide; name is correct, has the Historic ID but no Historic Minors ID, has his majors stats but no minors stats. Same thing for John Henry Johnson.

I'd assume that because Jackson and Johnson are currently (1984) in the majors where Robidoux is still only in the minors, the game is choosing which "half" of the career to keep and discarding the other. At least it's not generating a duplicate, as it did with the Jim Ray Harts (Jims Ray Hart?), but that's still an issue.

Potentially larger issue: it seems as though all retired players from before a certain point (looks to be "began their careers before 1950", but I don't really have it narrowed down that precisely as yet) lose their Historic Minors ID and their minor-league records. Is this a glitch? Working as designed? Or simply something I would need to toggle? Just wondering.

depends on your league start date

So there actually is a formula that "players who started/ended their careers x amount of years before start date do not get their minors history imported", is that it?

Are there options on this? Because I rather like being able to compare what Ted Williams and Willie Mays hit at Minneapolis, regardless of what year my game is set in.

And if it is WAD, then at least it's good to know it's not a bug, I guess. But I'd like to lobby to change this in v.18, though.

Small database error: minor league OF Raymond Hunnicutt (hunnic000ray) has a duplicate. The 2nd version has no Minor League ID nor any stats, but as both of them are already retired heading into 2016, it's a minor (pardon the pun) issue, anyway.

ETA: We also seem to have a second Joe Davenport listed. This breaks down differently, though; one Joe has both the Historic ID and Historic Minors ID, as well as the proper birthdate (3/24/76) and the majors stats, while the other is a complete blank slate with no IDs and no stats, and with the birthdate wrongly listed as "3/24/77". Neither Joe has his minors stats, despite being far too contemporary to have shed them.

Not sure if this merely falls under the heading of cosmetic but does not affect player ratings, etc... or if it's a significant issue:

Several players - Carl Christian, Bert Cole, Herman Pillette, Willie Ludolph as examples - who played in the PCL at least in 1925 thru 1927 have Real Life Stats for 1925 & 1927, but nothing for 1926.

I don't know how widespread it is beyond these examples, and if it extends beyond PCL players or what...

that's weird, since they all have minor league stats for 1926 in bb reference .... i thought maybe they didn't play in the minors that year, but upon checking, they did play in the PCL. - ????

Since my post yesterday, I have found a BUNCH more. I'm guessing/hoping that it's some sort of display or data glitch and that it has no effect on ratings, etc. Will wait for Spritze to confirm, though.

1926 is included in the database. Must be a bug?

Two Names, Two Players…Too Many, again
 

One more case where the "Two First Names Creates a Döppelgänger" issue comes up, only this is caused by a player with a two-word nickname.

Created a 1962 league (for a different purpose) and the Pirates have the services of "Vinegar Bend" Mizell, with the Historic ID (mizelvi01) and the major-league stats…but their AAA team, the Columbus Jets, have a guy named Vinegar "Bend Mizell", using the Historic Minors ID (mizell002wil) and having the minor-league stats, but nothing showing since 1951, as Mizell had been in the majors since then. Again, please reintegrate.

Perhaps this entire scenario could be avoided by listing the future congressman as "Wilmer Mizell" and putting "Vinegar Bend" as a nickname, which it was? To be fair, though, I don't know how often people called him "Wilmer". I'd have to dig out my copy of The Long Season to see what Jim Brosnan says; they were teammates on the 1959 Cardinals. (Although I seem to recall "Broz" calling Mizell "Miz", which would be no help at all…)

Who else do we have this problem with? Bullet Joe Bush? Sad Sam Jones? Piano Legs Hickman? Sigh…

ETA: Oy vey. And also, "Oy vey".

While Hickman is logically filed away as "Charlie 'Piano Legs' Hickman", Bush comes up as: Bullet Joe "Bullet Joe" Bush, his sobriquet listed both as if it were his legal name AND his nickname, which is clearly one Bullet more than the gun is supposed to hold. So this needs to be cleaned up, and that's not even considering the possibility that there's some duplicate with the first name "Bullet" and the surname "Joe Bush" running around with Bush's minor-league stats, which I can't see from the perspective of my 1962 game, because they get deleted (as discussed above). But even without creating a 1927 or whatever game, I can see that Bush needs fixing.

Same problem for Sad Sam "Sad Sam" Jones, who must be very Sad Sad that he's subject to that much despair. Sigh Sigh.