Baseball family legacies in fictional leagues
 

I just started thinking about this a few minutes ago in relation to my current (and first) fictional league and then low and behold I see a new section here just dedicated to fictional leagues. So this seems like as good a time and place to bring this up as there could be.

One of the things I love about baseball is the way it gets passed down from generation to generation and that includes the propensity for professional baseball players to spawn more professional baseball players. I am fascinated by multi-generational baseball families like the Hairstons and Bells, etc. And the father and son combinations that reach way beyond the obvious Griffeys and Bonds and Fielders to also include brief MLB careers for the likes of Pete Rose Jr. and Bump Wills.

So I find myself thinking that eventually I would love to see some of the current players in my fictional league (the W.P. Kinsella League) with sons or grandsons (or nephews, sons-in-law, etc.) finding their way into the minors at least with the possibility of eventual major league (WPK) careers of their own. (Thinking ahead, if I play the league far enough into the future- the starting point was the 1965 season- I would love to have daughters and granddaughters, nieces, daughters-in-law, etc. also- but I guess that's another thread entirely.)

What I'm wondering is if I am the only lunatic who thinks like this or if this is something anyone else here has incorporated into their fictional league. And how you went about it. Also, is there any way in the game to indicate family relationships among the players?

Aaaand....crickets.
Okay, I guess I am a lone lunatic in this regard. Wouldn't be the first time. :D

The only way to see family relationships in-game at the moment iirc is if someone has the 'jr' designation attached to their name.

That really only works for players who have same first name as their pro-playing dad. Would be pretty cool if a family tree option was included.

I sometimes give players with same last names familial relationships in my dynasty report league. It's a nice way to add depth imo

Thanks Izz. I figured as much as far as the Jr. designation being the only current indicator. I was hoping perhaps there was some clever workaround that I hadn't discovered where this information might be added to a player's profile.
I guess I'm thinking more in terms of creating a few fictional characters each year including the occasional relative of an aging or recently retired player. Was wondering if anyone else already does this (so far the evidence says maybe not) and what method they might use to randomly (or otherwise) choose which players to give progeny. And then also how they decide what to name said progeny (since it wouldn't be very interesting or realistic to make them all Jr.'s.)
Not that it would be very difficult for me to create my own approach to this- I was just wondering if anyone else was already capturing this little bit of mirrored reality and how they might be going about it.

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I think one of the earliest incarnations of OOTP had the option of spawning descendants and relatives of ballplayers - my first experience with OOTP, though, was with version 8, so it predates that.

I'm not sure how the game handled sons and grandsons in fictional leagues. It's still something that people request from time to time, but the developers haven't shown much interest in restoring it to the game. In any event, it's relatively easy to go into commissioner mode and change a player's name to "Babe Ruth III" or something like that, so I can understand if it's not a big priority. As it is, such multi-generational baseball families are fairly rare in real life. It seems like most sons of superstar fathers flame out early in their careers or never pursue baseball.

Thanks joefromchicago! I am quite new to OOTP so did not realize that this was a feature in much earlier versions (or even that it has been requested since by other players.)
I agree that this is still relatively rare and certainly very rare is the situation where there are two good to great players in one family (again, Griffeys, Bonds, Boones, etc.) but I think not really all that terribly rare that there there are sons, grandsons, nephews, cousins, brothers, etc. of MLB players (including not terribly good MLB players) who also play pro ball but never make it to The Show. I think of examples like Al Kaline's grandson Colin who played a little A-ball in 2011-2012. This is really what I'm interested in more than the rarity of solid to great major leaguers in the same family. (Also, I find myself tuning in to random current MLB games and seeing a Bedrosian pitch to a Butera and feeling like I've stepped back into the '80's. My impression, with no data to support it, is that this sort of thing is quite a bit less rare in baseball than in other major professional sports.)
What I envision is creating relatives of players in my fictional league and then watching them as they try to make their way through the minors to the bigs. I would hope that most of them would not get higher than AA/AAA or maybe a quick cup of coffee stint in the majors. I would want it to be very rare, as it should, that one of them become a successful major leaguer and even more rare that one become a star or HOF'er. And I plan to set up a method where the players with relatives who become professional players are very random so it could happen that a mop-up reliever with only a season or two at the top level could have a son who becomes an All-Star outfielder or Cy Young award winning starting pitcher.
And I completely understand that in the grand scheme of things family relationships would not be a high priority for the developers. I have no problem keeping records of this sort of thing the old fashioned way.

It seems like reliable, everyday players who fall short of being stars have the strongest baseball lineages. I'm thinking of the Alou, Smalley, and Hairston clans, for instance. It's rare for a player to exceed his father (like Ken Griffey Jr and Barry Bonds). More common is the son or grandson who never achieves his illustrious ancestor's level of success (e.g. Dick & Dave Sisler, Dale Berra, Pete Rose Jr).

Hockey has a bunch of brothers who played in the NHL (the Sutters could have fielded an entire team), but I can't think of too many lineal families apart from the Howes.

Yeah, you'll need to make those edits to the player profiles yourself. The game won't do that.

So, if I am understanding you correctly, joefromchicago, if I just create a new player and name him (and a few other demographic items) but let the game randomly assign his ratings I am unlikely to get the array of results I am looking for? (I have not explored this part of the game at all so I am coming from a vantage point of complete ignorance.)

Do I need to edit the profiles a bit at the start to have a better chance of achieving this?

Nylanders would be a modern father and sons playing in NHL. Going back the Vail’s did the same, the father Sparky only played a few games but Eric was ROY. As a cross Ted McKaskill played in the NHL and Kirk was in MLB.

Well at least I am not alone. I always enter My Grandpa,Father and myself as players and try to enter them around the time they would be playing just to see what happens. I also go back and find some big names in my universe and add in sons just ot see how they do. Always a lot of fun.

Trevor L.

I'm curious about what method you use to add sons for players in your universe. Do you attempt to steer the path of the sons, assigning them ratings that you hope will produce desired outcomes and if so how do you decide who to assign what? How do you name them? Any other details would be much appreciated. (As much out of curiosity as anything. I have started working today on some methods of random creation of relatives for my league but am always looking for new ideas and things I didn't think of.)

For players in my league, I just create a free agent and assign them to one of the high school feeder teams i have. I usually make them raw but try to give them a lot of potential then just let the game go. I have a spreadsheet that I keep track of things like that and then I will usually shortlist them to keep an eye on their progress. I just kinda name them whatever sounds right. I tend to sim a lot of years before I start to play and I randomly add sons as the sims progresses. Sometimes they are still around by the time I play or if not I check back and see how they ended up. Trevor L.

Thanks Trevor.
That sounds like basically what I was looking to do. Although I was originally hoping that I could just create them and step back and not manipulate any ratings at all and hope a few of them eventually developed into major league players. Getting the feeling I might need to be a bit more hands on than that.

Yeah you can be real hands on if you want a specific result. I like to see what the computer can do with a raw talent.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out though is whether I can also just dictate some of the player's demographics and let the AI do the rest in terms of identifying the players skills/ratings/personality, etc. and still get results that will be more or less realistic (the majority of my created relatives topping out somewhere in the minors, a handful more having very minimal major league careers, a few having solid, average to above average major league careers, and a very, very few (1 every 50 to 100 years, maybe) becoming HOF type players.
Do I need to be hands on to achieve these kind of results?

yes I would think you would. I would suggest making very specific ratings higher than normal to achieve an ouitcome you want. Also in what context are you creating them? How many leagues are present? I have a total of 27 in mine so the players have other places to go and hone their craft then come back to the Majors and really shine, (or fall flat on their face :-) )

Trevor L.

A little bit of context: this was the very first fictional league I started shortly after purchasing the game. So it really is pretty darn basic. Fictional league, fictional teams, but modeled after the MLB of 1965 (to start). So just 20 teams in the majors and the usual complement of minor leagues. Not many places to go other than a minor league team affiliated with one of the 20 major league teams. Looking to only bring in one or two created players each season (and sometimes none, given that I am randomly generating relatives and sometimes they won't actually be ready for creation as players until many, many years later.) And since the league is called the W.P. Kinsella League (with sub-leagues called the Shoeless Joe League and the Moonlight Graham League), I was thinking also of occasionally creating a player named after a character in one of Kinsella's baseball books.

Sounds very interesting, Best thing to do would be to just tinker. Remember BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP. that way if it doesnt turn out how you want, just restart and try again.

Trevor L.

Thanks. Yes, I did take to heart the importance of backing up pretty early on so I am diligent about that. I haven't moved far into this little project but I've already become very fond of my Denver Brewers team and especially some of my young players who are starting to look quite promising. I wasn't convinced I could become invested in a fictional team with fictional players but I have become very invested indeed. Now, having laid the groundwork and found my passion for this league I am finding myself thinking about how to enhance it going forward.
But I'm also enjoying taking it quite slowly, playing out each and every game (which hasn't been my approach up to now in my short OOTP life) and loving every minute of it.

Well, if you want randomness, the game can give you that. Just create a player, give him a new name, and then let the game do the rest. Most youngsters in OOTP - even ones with a great deal of potential - don't end up in the majors. That, of course, is just like real life.

So (just in case this is of interest to anyone other than me), I have for the moment settled on an approach that involves randomness but is not completely hands off.
What I have done (or am working on) is a process involving the following steps, which has allowed me the fun of creating some charts and incorporating the beloved 20-sided die plus the use of online random name and number generators:
Step 1: Identification of which current players will have relatives created in this universe. For now I will use a random process to identify two current players per season who will have a relative in the W.P. Kinsella League universe.
Step 2: Identify what type of relative is to be created. Since I am randomly identifying whether the relative will be a contemporary (brother, cousin) or next generation relative (son, nephew, son-in-law) or even two generations in the future (grandson) this does not mean that two new players will be created each year but just that they will be identified, often for future creation. As the league progresses I will watch how this works and might alter Step 1 to have fewer new players identified if necessary.
Step 3: Identify age of created relative at Step 1- this will often be a negative number indicating that a relative will be created in 5 years or 15 years, etc.
Step 4: Identify month and day of birth using charts I created.
Step 5: Identify primary position of player to be created (die roll, charts.)
Step 6: Identify the type of player to be created (Player Type Chart-more about this below!)
Step 7: Based upon Step 6 above, use random number generator to identify player template used for player creation (again, more below.)

When I refer to type of player I am perhaps even referring to archetypes. I created a list of pitcher player types and position player types and from these will then be creating a number of ratings/personality type/etc. templates to choose from for each created player. For pitchers my player types (at this point) are 1- Flame Thrower 1 (control struggles) 2- Flame Thrower 2 (hard but straight FB) 3- Control Artist 1 (junkball pitcher) 4- Control Artist 2 (corner painter) 5-Deceptive and consistent (side-armer/submariner) 6- Deceptive and inconsistent (knuckleballer, primarily) 7-Lifer (mediocre to poor talent, future pitching coach/manager) 8-Workhorse 9-Steady Eddie 10- Super-Star! Some of these are probably pretty self-explanatory. Basically #1 will have great velocity but be very wild, #2 will have great velocity but very poor movement, #3 will throw decent off-speed stuff but very mediocre velocity, #4 will throw okay fastball with not great velocity but with very good control and probably decent movement, #5 and #6 are more about arm angle and pitch type, #7 is intelligent leader with low ability who will perhaps one day be coach and/or manager, #8 is average to below average starter who can eat innings, #9 is average to below average reliever who is durable and has stable personality, #10 is, well, obviously, the guy who could become a great to HOF type player.

For position players I am creating the following types: 1-Speedster 2-Defensive whiz 3-slugger (1-tool mostly) 4-Utility man 5-Mr. Steady 6-Scrapper 7-Lifer 8-Walking Man 9-Super-Star! Again, mostly self-evident. First guy has good to great speed, base-stealing and base-running ability and not a lot else. #2 is very good to great defensively at at least one position, #3 is great power hitter but has big weaknesses elsewhere, #4 is stable, multi-positional player with decent defense and not entirely atrocious bat who could fill a role, #5 is potentially average major league player, #6 is firebrand (think Billy Martin), #7 is probably below-average to poor player with high leadership, high work ethic, high intelligence and has good chance to be future coach and/or manager, #8 has a great eye and good to great avoid K but not a whole lot more, #9 is well, you know.

A note about the Super-Star category: this will require a roll of 20 on the 20-sided die but even then this guy actually developing into a true superstar should be rare as I will be building the templates for this type with most of them having some potentially serious flaws that could and probably will restrict their development. None of the other categories should have much chance of having significant major league careers other than possibly some of the Mr. Steady position players or Workhorse and Steady Eddie pitchers.

I suggested something like this as a low priority request/idea for a future version. My thought was a field in the player editor for family relation (son, brother, nephew, etc). My thought was more that I wanted to see any relations to the owner be more sought after (drafted/untouchable in trades).

In my past leagues - fictional - I have often created the 3/4/5 variant of generations. I'd also indicate in their player history if they were related to some other star, but that got tedious over time. It was still fun when there were a few prominent baseball families in my fictional leagues over time.

Wanted to revisit this thread due to something I found while going through the just released draft list for my W.P. Kinsella League.
Spotted a kid named Chris Cardin, Jr. among the players eligible for the draft. Now, as it happens, Chris Cardin is the name of a player who was a star in the WPK who retired at the end of the 1967 season. We are now in May of 1969. Chris Cardin is 42 years old. Chris Cardin, Jr. is 18 years old.
Gotta be father and son, right?

But I didn't create this player. He is not part of the process I am using to add relatives of current WPK players to the WPK universe. The game made this guy.

Is this something that happens in OOTP Fictional leagues? This can't just be some crazy coincidence of naming, could it?
If this is built into the game, that makes me so happy.

I'll still be adding relatives, including brothers, cousins, and grandsons, but I love that the game seems to be creating the occasional junior.

It does appear that the game is creating some family lineage. ;)

Yep, this is something built into the game :)

Nice!
I'm sort of glad I didn't know about this beforehand so that it could be a fun surprise.

OOTP used to do Jr. for fictional players, then sometimes you'd see Jr. Jr. which obviously was a bug, but no longer. Now just fictional Jrs happen at times.

I often create generational players for my leagues, and when they go on for 100s of seasons, it's not odd to see III, IV, V players from time to time.

I had one series of families where the greatest player of all-time had so many legacies that another family name (via his great granddaughter) spun their own dynasty. It's a lot of fun for me and a good way to remember certain players.

I move pretty slowly with this particular save and am only entering the sixth season of play now. But already I have a few cousins/brothers of current players who have entered this baseball universe through my created players process and I'm finding it great fun.
I actually ended up drafting the game-created Jr. I referred to above. He isn't much of a prospect and will probably never make it to the major leagues but I didn't draft him prematurely- at some point he was just basically the best player available and it was my turn, so what the heck.
The process I built for creating legacies is quite random. I can only hope that over time it will spawn at least one multi-generational (beyond father and son) family of ballplayers.

Speaking of Jr. Jr.- there is an indie rock band out of Detroit by that name. They used to be called Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Neither here nor there, but I think it's kind of funny.