Basic questions that I think you guys can answer
 

(X-POSTED FROM NEW TO THE GAME as I think the best answer will come from historical simmers -- great thanks in advance for your help!)

Hi all!

Another question for you.

I’m kind of a historical simmer, but with fictional leagues and players. My overall objective is a league history that has a level of reality to it – even if that reality is only inside my little world.

My plan was to “pretend” a league was formed on the west coast in the late 40s as a competitor to MLB. At first the new league, which I’m calling the California Baseball League, has only eight teams – four at the ML level and four at the AAA level (each affiliated with a ML team).

As time goes on, the league expands – more teams at the ML level, and expansion of the farm system.

I am seeking to create this alternate universe and replicate the real world as if is league was formed. That means I want to adjust things like player names, foreign players, and finances (including things like free agency, the waiver rule, etc.) as time goes on.

I’m sensing that I’m being too ambitious for OOTP. But let me ask straight-forward.

1. I cannot add leagues once a game is created. How do others deal with this if planning on league expansion? Two options I see:

A. Add all the leagues now, but don’t associate the teams with the ML team until the appropriate time. The problem I see with this is that I have to create the teams, and the history records will show the leagues all being formed the same year.
B. Create different games every year a new league is formed. The problem I see with this is I lose continuity in the history files within the established leagues (such as the ML).
C. Another option? If I can add leagues and keep the historical data by messing with the .dat or other files, fine. Tell me how. Other options??

2. The only way to update names and financials seems to be by creating new games. Again, if I do this, I lose the historical records from game to game (lets say Joe Johnson hits .301 with 80 RBIs in 1949. Because I have to create a new game for 1950, I export the team roster with Joe from the 1949 game and import it to the 1950 game. I open up the 1950 game and see he’s there, but without any stats from 1949.

It seems to me that this challenge would most likely be faced by historical simmers who are looking to build the entire MLB universe (including minors) … if you are a historical simmer starting in, say, 1901, how did you handle the addition of the farm system? Addition of minor leagues? Updating player financials? … and all while keeping historical integrity and compiled stats?

Please help! Many thanks!!

cbbl
<!-- / message -->

I don't believe that the game is currently designed to do what you're seeking to do.

What I've been doing is to initially set up all of the leagues that you want to have at the end, and then associate the appropriate teams as time goes on. I'm a bit more lazy, so I went ahead and filled in all of the minor league teams so that they all have a history from 1901.

I suppose you could make up a minor league that had teams that would go away when your "legitimate" teams came onto the scene.

For instance, you have your major league and AAA levels. Create a AA league, but fill it with 4 teams that mean nothing. You can imagine they're a summer sandlot league that plays a simple schedule of say, 16 games, with a championship. Then, say, 10 years later, when it comes time to expand the minor league system, delete the teams, and create brand new ones, affiliated properly. You can rename the league if you wish at this point, but I dont' think that will show up in the history. But the teams will have histories from the time when you changed everything over, plus the AA league will have a neat little backstory about how the league started out as nothing, and then became the famed Carolina League (if there is such a thing...)

Just a thought...

An excellent idea, chimanbj, excatly what I think I'll do.

Thanks.

The only issue is that, from my understanding, when teams are in an affiliated minor league but are not affiliated with any major league teams, they don't make any transactions or changes. They don't sign players or trade players or anything else. So you will have to maintain them, adding players to replace those who retire and so on.

I am interested in a very similar sort of fictional-but-realistic form of historical simming. When I get the chance, I plan on testing out a potential way of adding leagues, which I've described here: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=132921

I have no idea if it will work the way I want it to. Feel free to try it yourself and let me know what the results are. I don't get much time to play the game, so I don't know when I'll be able to check this out.

I am doing something similar to the OP, simming a league from 1905 to about 1970 so that when I play it, it has a rich historical background. I have found that unaffiliated minor league teams DO sign players. They seem to sign them all in february after the majors have taken the ones they want.

The only problem with this approach is that some really good players get stuck in the minors, because they weren't well-scouted initially. I don't mind this too much, because it is somewhat historically accurate. However, it would be nice if transactions could occur between the minors and the majors, so that some of these players could be traded up (think Babe Ruth). I have considered doing this manually at the end of every season for a few of the best.