Historical minor leagues

[thehef]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Do you know whether the new minor league feature can be used with the real transactions feature. I know all the minor league transactions aren't included, but one of the biggest drawbacks of real transactions in earlier years is a lack of players. I want to be able to play with injuries set to normal or high. Retire and miss seasons according to history have to be on when using real transactions and that's why I wonder whether it will work or not

Along these lines, does anybody know if the "feature" - as described here: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...e-problem.html - that was introduced with the version 13 historical transactions file has been addressed?

The problem is that this bug can essentially rob you of players (who might be needed to fill out rosters, depending upon how you're playing) by retiring them prematurely, and making your Retire According to History and Miss Seasons According to History settings meaningless.

(I've been using the v12 historical transactions file in all versions since, due to this bug.)

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by Daletiel

Historical minor leagues are totally a game changer for me, and will probably push me over the edge to pre-order as opposed to waiting for a sale. So exciting!

One quick question that I don't think has been addressed in the discussion thus far: if an existing historical team gets relocated, since the historical ID doesn't change will the automatic changes to the minors continue, or will it break it because the team isn't where the system expects it to be?

Actually the ids, while maybe not that u see in game, do change and control things as affiliation/relocation change. There in the minors db. That is unless, (as I believe it to be), they change from affiliated to unaffiliated teams. Ootp currently doesn't support non-affiliated minor lg. teams.

[TribeWarpath]

Originally Posted by Bigrod

1. Players won't import for the yr. they missed, but should reappear when they did in real life.
2. I created the 2007 season and No Liriano didn't import as he didn't play in 2007, but should reappear in 2008 on either Rochester, Fort Myers or Minnesota as I'm quite sure there's an error in the MLB/MILB timeline as the dates played overlap and not sure how Spritze or Markus handled this.
You can always import and move any player in the db though.

Thanks for the response. Yeah I've typically imported players in the past just always seems to forget someone. Does anyone know of any sites that might track players who missed entire seasons? I'm sure nothing like this probably exists, but never know.

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by thehef

What ballpark names are given to the minor league teams? As-best-as-can-be-determined accurate ones, decent fake ones (like the game does for fictional, etc.), or some combination?

Thanks in advance.

The ballparks are real when that data was available...and will be updated as time goes on..as I have a list of most all ballpark names, but they are associated with cities so they have to be cross referenced to the correct team. All things in due time I guess

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by TribeWarpath

Thanks for the response. Yeah I've typically imported players in the past just always seems to forget someone. Does anyone know of any sites that might track players who missed entire seasons? I'm sure nothing like this probably exists, but never know.

The only way I know of is to lookup the player on bbref's site and look at his teams played for data...and if they missed an entire season, that year won't show..

[mitchkenn]

This may have been addressed, if so, i apologize, but i haven't seen it ....

Does it matter which data base you use? The one that comes loaded with the game, or will Spritze's work as well?

Just cuirious. Thanks.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

This may have been addressed, if so, i apologize, but i haven't seen it ....

Does it matter which data base you use? The one that comes loaded with the game, or will Spritze's work as well?

Just cuirious. Thanks.

You'll have to use the db that comes with the game if you want all the new features.

[mitchkenn]

sort of thought so, but wanted to be certain .....

anticipation runs high!!

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

sort of thought so, but wanted to be certain .....

anticipation runs high!!

Remember you can still "use" both databases at once. Set the default database up as your default database, and then import the players you want (like Mr. Charleston for example) from the Spritze database through the historical player import tool. To do this, you need to embed the Spritze database inside the default database (stats folder), and then point to it when you go to use the historical player import tool (which you have to be in commish mode to use). When you point to the Spritze database, be sure to load it from the historical_database.odb rather than the master.csv in order to get all the stats to import.

[JaBurns]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Remember you can still "use" both databases at once. Set the default database up as your default database, and then import the players you want (like Mr. Charleston for example) from the Spritze database through the historical player import tool. To do this, you need to embed the Spritze database inside the default database (stats folder), and then point to it when you go to use the historical player import tool (which you have to be in commish mode to use). When you point to the Spritze database, be sure to load it from the historical_database.odb rather than the master.csv in order to get all the stats to import.

This may seem like a lot to ask. Could you walk me through the steps to embed the Spritze database inside the default database and then how to import?
Thanks in advance.

[mitchkenn]

i'm a-gonna have to look at this really close when i get some free time (i thought retirement meant more free time???? ) But thank-you!!! It looks really promising. Probably play with it a bit before i try to stick it into 17 when it rolls out.

You guys here are simply a marvel. Again, thank-you.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

This may seem like a lot to ask. Could you walk me through the steps to embed the Spritze database inside the default database and then how to import?
Thanks in advance.

Ok...

1) You have the zip file (probably in your downloads folder or wherever it went when you downloaded it). You want to extract it to your "Out of the Park Developments" folder. From there change the name to anything but "stats" because you have that folder in your "OOTP Baseball 16" folder already. I believe the name of the folder (posted to his Dropbox sometime in December) upon extraction is "SpritzeOOTP16HighSchoolStats". That will work, as long as it's not "stats".

2) Drag the Spritze folder over to your "OOTP Baseball 16" folder. It will ask if you want to move it into the "OOTP Baseball 16" folder. All you have to do is Drop it in and it'll go. Now it's inside your "OOTP Baseball 16" folder.

3) Locate it in there and Drag it over to the "stats" folder. Do the same thing, Drop it in there, and now it's embedded in your "stats" folder. It's in there, but it's separate from the default database, so it won't be updated by patches during the year, only when Spritze updates his database (if he does it this year - he's done a helluva lot already!), and you repeat this procedure.

Ok, so now you've got the Spritze database right where you want it. So how do you use it in game?

4) First off, put yourself in commish mode, and then either on the "free agents" page or on the "Draft Pool" page (we're gonna use the free agents page here because it's not draft time in my game, but I can confirm that it works on both), a box will appear near the top right hand corner that says "Available Actions". Click on that.

5) Up will pop a box with three options: "Create fictional player(s)", "Import historical player(s)", and "Delete all free agents". Click on "Import historical player(s)"

6) Up will pop a box with the contents of the stats folder, which should have your Spritze folder at the top. Click on the Spritze folder to open it.

I'm gonna leave off at this point. Illustrations for steps 4, 5, and 6 are below, and I'll continue in the next post. Click to enlarge the illustrations as needed.

[actionjackson]

From above...

7) Click on the Spritze folder to open it. You should see all the various .csv and .odb files now. Click on "historical_database.odb".

8) The "Confirm" button will light up at this point. Click on it.

9) Now the "Historical Player Import Options" box will pop up. This is where things will get tricky.

Illustrations for steps 7, 8, and 9 are below. To be continued in the next post...

[actionjackson]

...As I said above, this is where it gets tricky. You need to know the Historical Player ID for the player you want to import, and the year you want to import him in. This is where you need to crawl around in the Spritze master.csv file. It's very well organized and completely alphabetical from David Aardsma to Tony Zych (yes that Tony Zych who debuted in MLB in 2015), once you get past line 57, which is a bunch of historical managers and other sorts who never played the game.

Let's say we want to import Oscar Charleston (mitchkenn's guy). He's on line 3769 of the master file (I'm cheating I have it open). Word to the wise, the historical player ID is nothing more than the first five letters (or less, if that's the case) of the player's last name (in this case charl), followed by the first two letters of his first name (so building on that we have charlos, charl for Charleston, os for Oscar), followed by two numbers that are some sort of league designation. In the case of Negro Leaguers who never played in MLB it's usually 00. So put it together and we have charlos00. Enter that on the Historical Player ID line of the "Historical Player Import Options" box in game. (This is Step 10, even though there were some other steps with the master.csv file that you're gonna have to fumble around with for yourself).

11) Navigate along the line of the player you're trying to get into the game in the master.csv folder until you find his Debut (Column Z) and his Final Game (Column AA). In Charleston's case he played from 1915 through 1941 according to Mr. Spritze and we want a fresh Mr. Charleston, so let's bring him in in 1915. Enter 1915 in the Enter Season Year column in the "Historical Player Options" box in game.

12) Now you've got a few more options to fill out. I recommend not checking the "Keep selected season's statistics in player career stats" because I think it makes things messy in your stats. Choose whether you want to import him into the draft pool or not (Ordinarily I would, but in this case I'm not in the draft period of my game so he's coming into the free agent pool for me). Choose Real or Neutralized Stats (Spritze recommends Neutralized, or as he calls them "Neutered"...I second this recommendation BUT you should match them up with the way you have them set for the rest of the players in your game [the ones that come in from the default database]). I choose "Remaining Years of Career" for the next setting, but again you should choose the same as you already have your game set up. I choose "3-Year Period" for both fielding ratings and pitcher stamina (the next two settings), but again set it up as you have it for the rest of the players. I then choose to generate random L/R splits because there are no real ones in game, but do as you've done with the rest of your players. Finally I choose Adjust Hitters with fewer than 200 at bats (default is 300), Weaken Hitters with fewer than 50 at bats (that is the default), Adjust Pitchers with fewer than 40 innings and Weaken Pitchers with fewer than 10 innings, but again you should set these as they are set up in your game. The third illustration in this set is how mine looks after I'm done filling all this out. You would then hit the Import Player button, and Oscar Charleston would be a part of either your free agent pool, or your draft pool, depending on what you selected. I'll save that for the next post. Illustrations for 10, 11, and 12 are below.

[actionjackson]

...Ok, I've hit the "Import Player" button, and what do you know...The historical player import succeeded and he's now in my free agent pool (but I'm gonna erase him because he's liable to get scooped up by the highest bidder, and I want him coming in via the draft when he comes in ).

[actionjackson]

There's one more thing you should know. You can batch import these guys too. However, I'm not the one to ask about that because I've only ever brought them in one at a time. But it's possible Bigrod or The Game can help you out here, as they seem to have experience in this area. You never know, maybe I'll learn something if they share their experience in this area too.

[mitchkenn]

WOW .... i'd figure i'd play with this sometime tomorrow barring life getting in the way, but your description and step by step looks like the guess work is pretty much taken away. What a GREAT write-up. VERY MUCH appreciated.

This place (and people) is simply incredible!!!!!! Again, thank-you.

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

There's one more thing you should know. You can batch import these guys too. However, I'm not the one to ask about that because I've only ever brought them in one at a time. But it's possible Bigrod or The Game can help you out here, as they seem to have experience in this area. You never know, maybe I'll learn something if they share their experience in this area too.

Not sure if it's any easier, but yes you can batch import a bunch of players directly to any team in your game including fictional.

1. You've got to know the bbref or lahman player id, year and team id.
Best way is to open the master.csv (file is in the stats folder) in any spreadsheet and use the search/find to locate the player you want to import. That will get you the lahman or bbref id and the years they played.

2. Now you need to find the team id if you want them to go directly to a team's roster. Easiest way to get this id is go to the league's setup page that contains the team you want to import player(s) to and open the edit league structure page. The team ids are there.
3.Once you got all this, simply create a text file with all the players in the following format:
player id,year,team id

4. On the import historical player page, select the master.csv file and then on the popup you should see something like "or select a text file containing numerous entries:" Next to this, click the "Click here to select file" and navigate to your saved text file.

5. Once located, click "Import Player(s) and let the magic happen as the players import to any team you select in your current game.
Attached is an example text file which will show the correct format for this procedure. This is an old one before the import to team feature introduced in v16 so you would just add a comma and the team id to the end of the year.

A simple explanation and hope it makes sense, but I'm sure you can figure it out.

[JaBurns]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

There's one more thing you should know. You can batch import these guys too. However, I'm not the one to ask about that because I've only ever brought them in one at a time. But it's possible Bigrod or The Game can help you out here, as they seem to have experience in this area. You never know, maybe I'll learn something if they share their experience in this area too.

Thank you very much I am in the process of trying to follow your write up, probably going to be some foul language soon! Great job thanks for the help!

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Thank you very much I am in the process of trying to follow your write up, probably going to be some foul language soon! Great job thanks for the help!

I can't recall, but there may have been some foul language involved in figuring this out. But it was always followed up with "Can this really be done?". I just kept picking away at it, and what do ya know...it works. I imagine you could do it with even more databases if you wanted, but why would you want anymore than the default database and the Spritze database in the upcoming OOTP17?