Historical Managers
 

Has anyone ever come up with ratings for historical managers? I think it would be a nice touch to actually have McGraw, Mack, LaRussa, Lasorda, Weaver, and Martin in the game.

Its been brought up before but how would you rate them?
Some managers took over midseason, Some changed according to the team they had. Plus how would it effect the historical accuracy?
Is the players performance off because the game is not accurate enough or would it be because John McGraw didnt manage like John McGraw.

Just change the names of the managers that the game creates to match history for that year, or whatever. Don't worry about the ratings. What I have done a number of times is change the strategy preferences to these managers once I've renamed them. Then I use the option to have the team strategy slider match the strategy preferences of the manager. When a manager gets fired and rehired by a new team, the sliders for that new team will automatically adjust to agree with those strategy preferences. So, for a small amount of work, you can get have managers that add an extra dimension to your league.

How is this accomplished?

Tell me which step you didn't understand. :)

The part where you make every team's strategy match their manager's strategy. Are you saying you have to go in and manually force this in each time a team changes managers? It just sounded like you activated some "option" that made it happen every time. If that is the case, I'm wondering where you find this "option", since I am not finding it.

Well ive done the renaming before but thats just it. Its historical managers in
name only. Youve changed the strategy for the managers but thats part of a historical manager. If you change strategy to hit and run and the manager ends up with Babe Ruth i just dont see that working out so good. Plus are the managers gonna adjust to diiferent players? In the end i do kinda what you do and rename the managers but leave strategy totally to the AI.
im really not sure if its possible to have historical manager ratings.
Its like trying to offensive linemen in football.

It's in the Action menu at the bottom of the Team Strategy Page. Get familiar with the menus down there. They can be very useful. :)

The managers have two functions: 1) one is player development; and 2) strategy. The ratings are only about player development. The strategy preferences can influence what happens in games when the AI is in control. But those preferences matter only when the team strategy sliders are aligned with the manager preferences. This alignment can happen three ways: 1) when the game is first created; 2) when a new manager is hired by a team; and 3) when you tell it to make that alignment using the Action menu. All of this is only useful to know about if you understand the function of the team strategy sliders. If you do not understand the sliders, then none of this is useful information.

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Oh i know that but if you set a preference is it still an even field?
What i mean is are you giving a boost to manager you rate high.
So you tell the manager to hit and run on slow team. Does the manager overide those strategy settings? I would like historical managers but i just dont see how you can do it and historical league because changing strategy might be favoring one team whereas with original AI it should be even for every team.

What I do is edit all the managers in the league, so no one team gets an advantage or a disadvantage. Does that answer your concern?

Yeah but do you edit all the managers the same. if so then wouldnt it be better to just rename them and leave it to the AI. If you edit them differently does it give a team too much of an advantage?
I guess they should have a slight advantage with a good historical manager but im not sure how you would measure that. Unless maybe you had a formula for say when to bring in a closer and you looked at all the teams the managers managed and figured out what was good, average, bad etc.

Could you run 2 sims both with same exact settings but one with the managers edited and the other without? Just to see how much effect it has.

When I've mostly done this, it's been when I've been studying stats and game logs from RL seasons, so that I have a feeling for how RL managers called plays for their respective teams (e.g., some called more SBAs than others). Then I would use that to modify their strategy preferences accordingly. It was simply to give the teams more of a distinctive character that would come a little closer to mimicking what they did IRL.

You could also doing it by simply looking at the makeup of the teams, or watching what happens in games, to better align the AI managers with their teams.

It might make a difference in the standings at the end of a season, but you would have to run a lot of test sims to even guess at how much of a difference. I just do it to add a little extra dimension of interest to a league.

Well i guess it doesnt matter what the strategy settings are since players are still gonna have to perform. But my main concern is will the team or manager adopt to each other's strengths? Would Earl Weaver's strategy work if he had then 85 cards? Or will the game adapt? How does it effect the teams draft and trade offers?
Then again how much effect does a real manager have on a team.
I mean even if you have slow but power heavy team would pass over a Tim Raines or Vince Coleman for an average power hitter.

I guess thats why i just rename them only. I just dont think a manager's skills & strategys can be rated fairly and some may have benefited or not from the teams they had. Was Casey Stengel a great manager or was it those 50's Yankees? Would any other manager have had the same success?

If we could rate the managers for each season and the teams still preformed close to what they did in real life for that season. Then maybe average the ratings for every season a manager managed then maybe i might see the historical managers working with the historical leagues.
Otherwise im not sure if they are really historical managers other than name only.

Though i sure would like to have them

I would call this paralysis by analysis. :) I also think you are over-estimating the influence of the managers on ultimate outcomes. But you should do what you feel comfortable about. I just wanted to an alternative to the randomized characteristics of managers in OOTP. Nothing more than that. :)

Yeah thats what i ment. Is it a managers skills or just plain luck?

Well, the manager who get paid millions every year (think Torre or Cox or LaRussa) could probably give you a strongly felt opinion about that. :)

I would say that in OOTP, it could make some difference in a close pennant race, but you'd be hard pressed to prove it.

OK, I am a little confused (at work without the game in front of me) If I match the strategy of the team to the manager, these strategies change when a new manager is brought in? Do I go in and synch the team up again with the new manager or is it automatic?

Im sure they would but was a manager like miller Huggins really good or was it because he had Babe Ruth.

Its not the pennant race that im really concerned with. Its after you get your league setup to where you have historical players playing with results close to what you think they should be. Of course everyone may be a little different. Some may expect Ruth to hit 55-65 homers for 1927. Others may be ok with 50-62. Anyway im afraid changing the strategy settings may effect their performance too much.
I dont want a carbon copy of the real league but i do expect a player to perform close to what he did.
I changed the settings on the 1927 yankees and had them steal and Hit & run more. They still won the pennant and they had more steals but their team hr's dropped to 115 and Ruth only had 44 hr and Gehrig only had 140 rbi's. Yeah i know you would expect to lose some power and i think changing
the strategy changes the balance of historical accuracy.
Thats why i prefer to let the AI do the strategy settings for the teams.
Not sure if explained that right.