Settings For Historical Minors

[BrewCrew29]

Hey all! Curious if anyone plays games using historical minors. If so, what settings do you use for the "make bad" settings?!?! I noticed from researching other threads that Garlon recommends:

Hitters: 200/67
Pitchers: 25/8
5 Year Recalc

But this is for a league that has no historical minors. I have noticed by trying these in a historical minors league that sometimes minor league players are too good when imported. My goal for the league is to create a league in which I let player development take over after the initial import of players. The initial import would set the stage for the league to evolve, but would ideally have mainly players on MLB rosters who played in MLB. Player potentials would be set to "remaining years of career".

Any advice would be appreciated for settings for the "make bad" settings.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by BrewCrew29

I have noticed by trying these in a historical minors league that sometimes minor league players are too good when imported.

In that case, increase the numbers for "weaken" (aka, "make bad"). But I'm guessing if you're seeing too many minor leaguers that are too good, it'd be more important to increase the "adjust" numbers (or both).

Originally Posted by BrewCrew29

My goal for the league is to create a league in which I let player development take over after the initial import of players. The initial import would set the stage for the league to evolve, but would ideally have mainly players on MLB rosters who played in MLB.

A lot is going to depend upon the Talent Change Randomness setting you use. You'll probably want a pretty high number if you want to see a lot of minor leaguers make the majors (and a lot of major leaguers flame out)... And you likely won't want to use Recalc. Otherwise, players will revert to ratings based upon their stats for the upcoming year, with any development that occurred the previous year having no effect on upcoming seasons.

Originally Posted by BrewCrew29

Player potentials would be set to "remaining years of career".

My understanding is the Potential setting is merely how the game views the player's future at any given moment. But it doesn't have any effect on how players actually develop. For example, if the game is looking at Babe Ruth in 1918 and you've selected "Remaining Years of Career," it's going to look at his actual stats for the next 15 years and indicate that he has tremendous potential. However, given settings of a high TCR and no Recalc, Ruth could turn out to be a nobody, a beast, or literally anything in-between.

Finally, best piece of advice would be to test this out using settings that you think will work, let the game sim ahead for several years (without immersing yourself in the game), and see if you're getting the results you want... (i.e., the right balance of minor & major leaguers, etc.). Then, once you land on the right settings, dig in

Good luck!

[BrewCrew29]

Thank you, thehef, for your detailed response. Many things here that I will implement in future leagues.

I think the part that I am struggling the most with is the default import settings. All of the other threads that I've read on the subject, it seems the experts don't use historical minors. I like the premise of historical minors and am cool with some players flaming out and others becoming stars in an alternate universe.

I guess what I am most trying to do is import players similar to what they were in the historical year that I begin and go from there. I've tried a ton of different numbers for the adjust/weaken but am struggling to find the "digital blueprint" for how to import them. I will continue testing but am hoping maybe someone who uses historical minors frequently may be able to chime in some settings they use

[luckymann]

I'd DM Garlon if I were you - he'll have the answer you seek and as pretty good at responding.

I use 120/100 and 25/18 across the board but have never used historical minors, sorry.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by BrewCrew29

I have noticed by trying these in a historical minors league that sometimes minor league players are too good when imported.

After re-reading, I'm wondering: When you are seeing minor leaguers who import with ratings that are too high for your taste, are these exclusive to guys who didn't play full seasons? IOW, guys who you might be able to affect with the adjust & weaken settings? Or are they only/also guys who played full seasons? If it's the former, then ya, tweaking your settings should be the answer. If it's the latter, though, the adjust & weaken settings aren't the issue/solution.

[1991Twins]

When setting up a league in the wizard, for historical minors, I use 3 year recalc, double weight on current year to import (but I uncheck recalc prior to starting the game). I enjoy playing with the player development engine on with TCR on 100. My make bad settings are:

Hitters: 1250/1000
Pitchers: 120/40
Player Potential: Remaining Years of Career
Base Fielding Ratings On: 3 Year Period
Base Pitcher Stamina On: Career

These make bad settings may sound kind of high, but after a ton of tests, your players import pretty realistically statistically. You occasionally have a career minor leaguer in the bullpen or on the bench, but they are quickly beaten out for a job once you get past year 1.

[BrewCrew29]

Thank you to everyone who chimed in with ideas. I am truly grateful for a community that is so helpful.

On a side note, I am curious if Garlon does ever see this what he may have to say about importing settings for historical minors. I know that he has been integral in the database and is the guru for non-historical minor league settings.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by BrewCrew29

Thank you to everyone who chimed in with ideas. I am truly grateful for a community that is so helpful.

On a side note, I am curious if Garlon does ever see this what he may have to say about importing settings for historical minors. I know that he has been integral in the database and is the guru for non-historical minor league settings.

Like I said, DM him. He's very accessible in my experience.

[Brad K]

Garlon's recommendations are best for the way he plays. If they were universally applicable I think the game would use them as defaults.

[Charlie Hough]

After playing fictional historicals in OOTP 22, I've decided to get back to more conventional historical games, but I'm using historical minors for the first time, and I encountered some of the same problems as the OP.

For example, some minor leaguers have ratings that are far too strong given their real life minor league stats, so they end up on the Major League roster when they really shouldn't be. I'm seeing things such as a pitcher in 1979 who had a 5.00+ ERA in AAA, but he's rated better than relievers who had considerably better stats in the majors for that year. This guy is rated as one of the better relievers in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, which won the World Series that year, and that doesn't make any sense.

I'm using one-year recalc with 150 at-bats and 30 IP for adjustment, and my weakening settings are the defaults. But I can't figure out why this pitcher would be rated so highly.

I don't mind minor leaguers making the majors or deviating from real life based on the development engine, but these are ratings that were just created at initial league creation. No development has occurred.

If anyone has some settings you can recommend to prevent cases like this, I would appreciate it.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

After playing fictional historicals in OOTP 22, I've decided to get back to more conventional historical games, but I'm using historical minors for the first time, and I encountered some of the same problems as the OP.

For example, some minor leaguers have ratings that are far too strong given their real life minor league stats, so they end up on the Major League roster when they really shouldn't be. I'm seeing things such as a pitcher in 1979 who had a 5.00+ ERA in AAA, but he's rated better than relievers who had considerably better stats in the majors for that year. This guy is rated as one of the better relievers in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, which won the World Series that year, and that doesn't make any sense.

I'm using one-year recalc with 150 at-bats and 30 IP for adjustment, and my weakening settings are the defaults. But I can't figure out why this pitcher would be rated so highly.

I don't mind minor leaguers making the majors or deviating from real life based on the development engine, but these are ratings that were just created at initial league creation. No development has occurred.

If anyone has some settings you can recommend to prevent cases like this, I would appreciate it.

Pretty sure post 5 answers your question.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Pretty sure post 5 answers your question.

I'm not looking to do a 3-year recalc, but I tried all the other aspects of those settings, and they did not fix the problem. For example, I used those settings but with 1-year recalc, and Crucito Carvajal, a guy who played in class A in 1979, ended up on the Pirates' MLB roster as one of its top relievers. He had some excellent stats in A-ball, but those should not translate into a two-star pitcher at the MLB level, with better movement than all but one pitcher in the entire Pirates organization.

I am seeing many similar instances where players who were multiple levels below the MLB in the same season are on the MLB roster and have clearly not been adjusted or weakened properly.

In other cases, the AI is making bizarre roster decisions such as placing a guy who had a 6.00+ ERA and 1.7+ WHIP as the #1 starter for the Detroit Tigers, ahead of four other starters who all have better ratings.

There seem to be some really strange things going on with the historical settings and AI these days, so it's not looking good at the moment. If anything, 1-year recalc and the ratings settings for minor league stats should already take care of this, but it seems like something with the real minors is not working correctly. It seems like OOTP is not properly adjusting or weakening minors players and isn't properly applying the minor league modifiers in all instances.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

I'm not looking to do a 3-year recalc, but I tried all the other aspects of those settings, and they did not fix the problem. For example, I used those settings but with 1-year recalc, and Crucito Carvajal, a guy who played in class A in 1979, ended up on the Pirates' MLB roster as one of its top relievers. He had some excellent stats in A-ball, but those should not translate into a two-star pitcher at the MLB level, with better movement than all but one pitcher in the entire Pirates organization.

I am seeing many similar instances where players who were multiple levels below the MLB in the same season are on the MLB roster and have clearly not been adjusted or weakened properly.

In other cases, the AI is making bizarre roster decisions such as placing a guy who had a 6.00+ ERA and 1.7+ WHIP as the #1 starter for the Detroit Tigers, ahead of four other starters who all have better ratings.

There seem to be some really strange things going on with the historical settings and AI these days, so it's not looking good at the moment. If anything, 1-year recalc and the ratings settings for minor league stats should already take care of this, but it seems like something with the real minors is not working correctly. It seems like OOTP is not properly adjusting or weakening minors players and isn't properly applying the minor league modifiers in all instances.

Gotcha.

Can't disagree with you on this. Too many people saying similar things. I have steered clear of historical minors for different reasons, so don't have my own experiences to go by. Would be interested in doing so at some point, but certainly not until the apparent issues have at least been addressed and hopefully resolved.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Gotcha.

Can't disagree with you on this. Too many people saying similar things. I have steered clear of historical minors for different reasons, so don't have my own experiences to go by. Would be interested in doing so at some point, but certainly not until the apparent issues have at least been addressed and hopefully resolved.

Yes, it's gotten even worse as I reached the 1979 draft pool reveal. Doug Potestio, a minor league rookie, has been given astronomical ratings of 9/9/5 on a 10-point scale and, with scouting turned off, the sim has declared that he has 5 stars of current and potential ability relative to MLB talent. This despite him having no stats for 1979 and pitching only 67 innings of class A ball in 1980. Yes, he put up some great numbers in limited action in rookie A, but this is the craziest thing I've ever seen in OOTP. There are similar problems all over the draft pool, with class A and AA players being rated way too highly.

Something is badly broken with the historical minors. I'll have to figure out what the process is for reporting bugs these days, because this is an absolute show-stopper.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Yes, it's gotten even worse as I reached the 1979 draft pool reveal. Doug Potestio, a minor league rookie, has been given astronomical ratings of 9/9/5 on a 10-point scale and, with scouting turned off, the sim has declared that he has 5 stars of current and potential ability relative to MLB talent. This despite him having no stats for 1979 and pitching only 67 innings of class A ball in 1980. Yes, he put up some great numbers in limited action in rookie A, but this is the craziest thing I've ever seen in OOTP. There are similar problems all over the draft pool, with class A and AA players being rated way too highly.

Something is badly broken with the historical minors. I'll have to figure out what the process is for reporting bugs these days, because this is an absolute show-stopper.

Have you got the latest patch applied? Pretty sure I saw something about this being addressed in the most recent build.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Have you got the latest patch applied? Pretty sure I saw something about this being addressed in the most recent build.

I just installed OOTP 23 for the first time earlier this week, so I should definitely have the latest patch. I downloaded and used the latest installer, which I would assume is updated. I have opened a support ticket, and hopefully we can get all of this working better.

[Brad K]

Did this problem exist prior to 23?

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Did this problem exist prior to 23?

This is the first time I've personally played with real historical minors, and I think this was a new feature added for OOTP 23. Prior to this being added to the game, you had to use the Spritze or Garlon database to get minors players and debuts based on players' first year in the minors. I don't know how well the ratings calculations worked in those cases.

I've certainly never seen problems like this with ratings calculations, but previously I've only had OOTP create or import players based on the historical MLB stats database. In that case, minors stats and players who never reached the majors are excluded.

I'm also encountering a major problem where the game is importing players one year too early. For example, in my 1979 saved game, players who were drafted in the June 1979 amateur draft were created during saved game creation, and they were assigned to the minors. They should not be imported until the 1979 draft, when they should be created and placed in the rookie draft pool. Instead, players who were drafted and made their minors debuts in 1980 are imported for the 1979 draft pool.

[Brad K]

I checked and historical minors are in both 21 and 22. Not mentioned in the manuals that I could find. I went through the new game setup to confirm.

I set it up for 1967 on both and did a quick lookover. Looked at the Pirates since that's my main familiarity. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Guys like Richie Hebner, Al Oliver, and Dave Cash were at minor league levels rated 1, 1.5, or 2 stars on current.

Looking at the Pirates major league roster an unfamiliar name jumped out at me, Jack Damaska. Clicking on his real stats in game all that showed was St Louis in 1963. Baseball Reference agreed with that but its transactions showed he was traded to the Pirates before the 65 season and the Pirates traded him away before the 69 season. Doesn't seem like he should be on the 25 man but whatever.

[Charlie Hough]

The ratings issues are sporadic. They don't happen with a large number of players and only occur in select cases. They're not always consistent between saved games either. But most teams in my saved games have a few players throughout their organizations where the ratings aren't calculated correctly for the minor league level where they produced their real life stats.

OOTP Developments responded to my support ticket and is working on it now. I also submitted a video where I walked through a number of examples from one of my saves. It sounds like they're aware of issues with historicals and are trying to fix them, so I'm hoping this leads to some improvements.