[ALB123]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Thanks bud, glad you are enjoying it. I'm still tinkering with the reportage as I want more colour to soften up the dryness of statistics. But there is so much that goes on it is hard to take it all in at times, so it is a work in progress. Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the updates?

Honestly, I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. So far, I really like what you've been doing.

Originally Posted by luckymann

I certainly was blessed with that 1901 season, what an absolute ripper it was. Wally sure did carve it up but I'm not 100% sure that wasn't also because I failed to ensure some of the modifiers and totals had taken effect. There were 7 .400 hitters as opposed to 1 IRL - Nap Lajoie, and the anomalies in the 2B / 3B / HR totals were huge. In the end, though, such is life. It is my first historical league and first RD league, so mistakes were bound to happen.

Did you happen to look at the page in OOTP called Historical Simulation Accuracy? Is there much variance - a lot of red numbers?

Originally Posted by luckymann

So the goal is to try and do 10 seasons per IRL year, which gives me about 5 weeks per. That seems to be about the Goldilocks Zone, but at 52 the though that I'll still be slogging away at this aged 65+ is somewhat daunting (not to say presumptuous!!).

That is quite ambitious, however, since you won't be spending a boatload of time adjusting lineups and doing all of that GM stuff, I think you'll probably be able to pull it off. It will keep you quite busy for sure.

Originally Posted by luckymann

I, too, dig the premise. As much as I love the big names their absence is a great differentiator and changes the whole tone of the league by promoting everyone else up the hierarchy of excellence. And I love doing the little Spotlight pieces as well, I think that adds some real flavour to the whole enterprise. With each one of them that I do I find myself keeping an eye out for news on those I have featured and going to check their profiles on a regular basis. A few big names have snuck through

Yeah, I think it's a great idea. I can't tell you how many times I said, "What a minute...I know that name. Do I? It sounds familiar, I must... Or does it remind me of someone?" LOL A quick google search on the name and sure enough, it was a name I knew vaguely. I thought that was kind of neat.

Originally Posted by luckymann

Rosters / MiLB are a huge problem. For 1901 I set up the Postscript League, an Independent League affiliated with the FL, so that each team had one MiLB franchise to promote / demote / replenish / develop players. But the AI just refused to staff the teams properly, leaving some teams with just one starter and non-filled rosters despite there being a plethora (tell me, what is a plethora?) of available FA from which to choose.

Ugh...I know what you mean. I created 3 original leagues and added 3 real foreign leagues to my Universe 3 years ago. I messed up somehow and had the same thing happen to me. Then I figured I'd delete that league and start over. At the time, I didn't realize all the players would become Free Agents. I thought they'd be deleted with the league. All the other leagues were fine. When I re-created the Japanese League, I did something stupid again and there were a ton of 5 Star players. Mostly Closers & RP, if I remember correctly. I had to turn off MLB interaction with the JPL because ever team was snatching up Japanese pitchers. LOL

Ya know, never thought about it before...what is the number that translates quantity into a plethora? hehe

Originally Posted by luckymann

My original plan was to introduce a new MiLB level every so often until I have AAA / AA / AA / R. But with the issues I mention I really don't know how to proceed now. So I'm just going to leave it as is for the next few seasons and see how things evolve, then react accordingly. The other aspect of this is the more MiLB levels, the more things to keep an eye out for, increasing the workload and almost certainly taking my attention away from the major league level, which of course is the main purpose of setting up this endeavour to begin with. Already I see myself cutting the Minor League reporting out of the updates, as I'd have to do so eventually if I was going to expand, so all I really need is a functional way of maintaining the right number and right qualitative spread of players available for the bigs.

I think that's the wise choice. Things will develop. New ideas will pop in your head. You'll figure out what you do or don't like after a few seasons. Doing a full reporting on a complete minor league system seems very unnecessary to me. That just seems like way to much work for you and it'd probably be a turn off to readers. Of course, a few blurbs here or there about a couple of the AAA or AA top prospects would be interesting, but personally, I'd try to keep it to a minimum. Like, once a month just a few notes of players to keep an eye on, or something like that.

Originally Posted by luckymann

Which brings us to the Draft. The temptation is to just keep pumping new blood into the system but that would be a mistake. For starters the players' longevities would be adversely affected and with expansion only happening a few times, and being a long time off from 1902, all it would do would be to increase the number of players sitting unused as FA. So I am doing a Rookie Draft with 10 Rounds in 1902 (and, yes, with random debut players from 1901 to 2000; I just feel that really adds spice to the league rather than keeping the various eras together over time) but then will only hold one whenever I feel the pool needs refilling or some new blood needs to be added. Does that sound sensible to you?

Yes, it does.

EDIT: Oops. I forgot to ask. What font are you using with OOTP? I opened up that attachment with player stats and it looks nice and clean. My big gripe with that, however, is how we can't adjust the size of columns. It drives me nuts.