Elmore Leonard was a wonderful writer.

What about TCR? What do you recommend as a good TCR setting if recalc and player development are both on together?

I use the defaults for TCR, development, and aging. I have used the defaults for all three of my HOF threads, and I think they work just fine.

Anyone noticed lately?
 

So I started a recalc league. In the future, for amateur draft purposes, will all players be of rookie age? Or will there be a variance in ages like the initial draft?

Players in the draft will be the age in which the player made his major league debut.

Anyone noticed lately?
 

Awesome, thanks.

Thanks to Mr.Watts for inspiring me to give random debut another go... I got a league going in v13, but for whatever reason it was always kind of a stepchild and I never really embraced it.

Just kicked one off starting in 1974 without any evolution on... I think 24 teams is a nice balance... Although league performance modifiers will kick in each year. Anyways, I think I'm pretty much running a similar setup to David. No minors, no free agency, 3 year recalc, player development on, etc...

I started out with 25 man active and a 20 man reserve, for no other reason than the inaugural draft was set at 45 rounds. What do you guys run your reserve roster size at long term? I was thinking that a 15 man should be sufficient.. but just looking for thoughts on the matter.

So far I'm enjoying myself... Landed a 19 year old Miggy Cabrera in the 2nd round... even if he's been a massive strikeout machine in the early going. A 24 year old Mickey Mantle will be patrolling CF for the Dodgers... Hank Aaron makes his debut as a 30 year old for the Padres... The man, the myth, the mullet, Dennis Eckersley is a 20 year old starter for San Fran... Curious to see how the recalc handles his transition to relief.

I have 30 man reserve roster, but teams don't always keep 30. Sometimes I see them get down to around 24. Miggy is my first 3000 hits guy. He's now 42 years old and gosh I hope he hangs up the glove this year. Should have retired 2 years ago when he got his 3000th hit. Miggy was also my first guy to hit 400 home runs. He is now riding the pine with his fingers crossed that a 43 year old Prince Fielder doesn't take his home run crown. Prince seemed to get a second wind at 40 years of age. Even if he does pass him it won't be long before Mantle holds the crown. He's only 60 behind at the ripe ole age of 32

On the historical page in your setup, what is the "base roles/positions on" setting: a) Real life stats or b) AI evaluation? That could play a factor in what the Eck ends up doing and when/if he makes the transition. If it's real life stats, I believe the change will happen at the same age it did historically. If it's AI evaluation, it may not happen at all. I can't imagine this would be the case though because his stamina rating will plummet around the time he went to the 'pen. This is another setting that determines how the player gets used in the game though. Just another thing to consider. ;)

I agree, the random debut mode is a blast (other than Ben Paschal always being overrated, see another post ;) ) and is a great intro to some forgotten players I may not have heard of otherwise. I play with recalc and player development on, which tends to give realistic results while also using the game's aging algorithms. It's a toss-up, but I use real stats as it tends to give greater advantages to players with longer careers IRL, and like to play without free agency as well as it puts more emphasis on the amateur draft. I also play with the default reserve roster (15-man); increasing it tends to give the user a bigger advantage as you can stockpile prospects because the AI isn't too aware of the real-life trajectory with recalc on.

One thing I would like to see since it was more common back in the day and will be cool in historical leagues to have a player-manager that would be cool and realistic

Are you using double weight current season for the 3 year recalc or not?

I am. But, I will be honest and tell you, I've never really quite understood what that feature is all about.

If you don't use it, then each of the 3 years are weighed 1/3 each in determining the player's ratings.

If you do use it, then the current season gets double weight. So, it is weighed as 2X and the other 2 years are weighed as X each. So, that means that the current season ends up counting for 50% of the players ratings and the other 2 years count for 25%.

But, I have also seen contradictory comments on what are the 3 years that are included. Let's say that it's Reggie Jackson and OOTP is going to use 1980 as the base year. I've seen a comment here on the boards that says that the 3 years would obviously be 1980, along with the previous year and the next year. So, it would be 1979-81. But, I've also seen it be said that it's 1980 plus the next 2 years.

Does anyone know for sure what's the answer?

I just checked the manual. It confirms that it's the former. It would be 1979-81. That was the answer that made so much more sense to me, but I could have sworn that I had seen comment(s) here that said it was the latter.

I made a dumb mistake and accidentally deleted my random debut game... I had forgot to give it a unique name, so when I saw "New Game1" in the list.. I just assumed it was the test league I made to goof around with player creation modifiers... and I nuked it. then about 7 seconds later I saw "test league" listed right underneath... Oh well, just went ahead and started a new one...

My favorite part of this is reading up on old timey players that I've never heard of. My first round pick was Pete Conway. He was a dead-ball era pitcher who will probably take a hit at the 3-year recalc, but was too good to pass up. In 1888 he had a record of 30-14... Exactly 80 years later, Denny McClain was the next pitcher to win 30 games... Both guys did it for a Detroit franchise (Conway for the Wolverines of the NL). Conway was also the first paid head coach for the University of Michigan baseball team. Still don't know the cause, but he died young at the age of 36.

I also drafted two guys that are apparently two of the greatest Jewish pitchers in history (Scott Radinisky and Erstine Meyer). I didn't know such lists were kept, but I'm not Jewish either...

I'm having just as much fun browsing the wikipedia pages of these guys as I am guiding them through the OOTP season. :)

Oh, THATS Elmore Leonard. well, lol, Elmore sure looked a lot like Phil Jackson. Spent many good evening with Elmore. Guess you have, too.

I'm having a problem with using neutralized stats in a random debut test league. I don't really want to hijack the thread with that problem, so I started a new one. VanillaGorilla and David Watts, I'm hoping either of you might some advice on what went wrong. The new thread is "random debut league problems."