Expanded Rosters
 

In my historical league, I have noticed that the AI seems to go a bit overboard with September call-ups. For instance, in the heat of a pennant race, it will suddenly put a couple rookies in the rotation of a contending team or even into the World Series for no apparent reason.

Is there a way for me to counter that? I thought of making the expanded roster only 30 players or maybe not having expanded rosters although I don't see a way to turn that off only a way to change the date?
This is for a league currently in 1915 by the way.
Thanks!

You can turn off expanded rosters under Rules I believe, or reduce the number to 28, as I do. I use Spring expanded rosters through April. No other sport expands rosters at the end of the regular season. It really makes no sense.

Yeah, this is an issue. I saw the AI using AAA pitchers in a game 163 tiebreaker to make the playoffs in a 1960s sim. I have no idea when expanded rosters were actually implemented. It seems like the setting defaults to on, 40-man expanded roster in some historical years, 28-man expanded roster in 2023. The setting to adjust this manually is League Settings, Rules tab. You can change the size of the expanded roster, or just disable it. I thought the historical settings might overwrite it when a new year is loaded in, but it seems like it doesn't when I tested just now.

Think the rule was added, so non-playoff teams could call up potential starters from AAA, to get a look at them at the major league level.

The rule has existed forever. There's the excuse (look at young players) and the reality (contenders can strengthen their team in Sept with waiver trades).

Just goes to show not all stupid rules were introduced by Manfred.

It seems to have started around 1910, when a limit was imposed on how many players a team could have under reserve. The new rule specified a 25-man active limit for May 15 through August 20th, and a 35-man limit outside of that period. The reserve limit was increased to 40 for 1921.

The one thing historically that OOTP does not do is early season roster expansion, which is something which was present in MLB from at least 1910 up through 1967. Originally, teams had an early season active limit equal to that of the reserve limit (although clubs typically carried about 32 players for early part of the season). This lasted up to a specified date or the first 30 days of the season, depending on the year.

Starting in 1957 the early season active limit was reduced to 28, which was in effect for the first 30 days of the season. This lasted through the 1967 season. After that, early season roster expansion was eliminated (with the exception of the labor dispute-affected seasons of 1990, 1995, and 2022, and the pandemic-shortened season of 2020).

I read many of your posts but am not sure if you play v24 or not?

I only ask because OOTP did, in the settings, add early season expansion of rosters option with up to 40 players, and dates that can be user defined. It may have been there in v23 too, I'm not sure?

I haven't used it in my game, and I assume it is off by default for historical game, but it is now there.

Waiver trades past the trade deadline are no longer allowed.

I was away from OOTP for several years. As of that time, early season roster expansion was not included. So it got added? I'm somewhat surprised.

That's something else which in historical leagues is not really recreated as it was. (At least it wasn't as of a few years ago.)

Initially, waivers were not required for trades. Starting in 1917, league waivers were required for trades within the league and between leagues after the trade deadline. Waivers were not required before the trade deadline or during the off-season.

Starting in 1934, interleague trading was made more difficult by requiring league waivers for the entire season and off-season. In other words, every team in the league had a chance to claim the player before he could be traded out of the league. Starting in 1952, interleague trading was further restricted by requiring interleague waivers after the trade deadline. That meant every team in both leagues had a chance to claim the player before the trade between the leagues could be completed.

The above was softened somewhat beginning in 1959, when a waiver-free interleague trading period was established. This period ran from Nov. 21st through Dec. 15th. This waiver-free period was lengthened starting in 1970, with it beginning on the 5th day after the World Series was completed. In subsequent years the ending day was moved forward slightly, with the period finishing on the next-to-last day of the annual winter meetings. Starting in 1977, a second waiver-free interleague trading period was established in the spring, running from Feb. 15th through Mar. 15th. Beginning in 1981 the period was extended to April 1st.

Finally, for the 1986 season, the waiver rules were overhauled. The interleague trading periods were eliminated, along with the distinction between league and interleague trades. All trades, whether within the league or between the leagues, would require interleague waivers after the trade deadline. Before the trade deadline, and during the off-season, no waivers were required. (I suspect the trade revisions were part of the 1985 CBA agreement, in order to allow greater movement of players between clubs.)

I'll try to turn it off. The issue isn't so much with late call-ups which I guess serves that purpose of seeing young talent. But a number of contending teams have switched to the young guys in the pennant race and even World Series which is obviously unrealistic.

But were for most of history. It all works out. They substituted some other stupid rule for it.

It got added when the rule was reimplemented for the 2022 season in response to the delayed start to the season after the lockout.