Historical Minors observation

[David Watts]

Created 1920 using historical minors. Playing with recalc off. Turned off the color barrier.

One thing I noticed right away is, minor league rosters are limited to just 20 players by default. This seems like a huge red flag, especially if someone started in say 1915 and played their way forward to 1920, as teams would easily have more than 20 players on their reserve roster. Only a few teams, have Texas League affiliates in 1920, but if rosters are limited to just 20 players in that league, those teams could have to cut quite a few players. Seems to me it should be changed to unlimited, by default to avoid teams with affiliates facing a huge disadvantage. I will have to remember to make sure the roster limit is turned off the minute the Pacific Coast League arrives in 1921.

So far I've had a handful of pitchers from the Negro League make their way onto Major League rosters. I'm up to August 15th and I've yet to see a position player break the color barrier.

I'm using 5 man rotations, always start the highest rested, starters can pitch in relief. Each team has 1 bullpen pitcher. I am flat out loving this setup. Not perfect, but it's the closest I've come to getting OOTP pitching to mimic the early no bullpen pitcher usage model. Wondering as the game progresses into the 20's and then 30's if using 6 starters with 1 bullpen pitcher will be the way to go. The high octane offense of the 30's will be tough on pitchers, but a week or so back I was playing 1934 with 5 starters and 3 relief pitchers and it was a huge turnoff to see guys pitching so many games out of the bullpen.

[thehef]

Cool stuff!

I'm wondering where those roster limits come from. In the milbleagues.csv file, which would seem to be a likely source, there are fields for active roster and reserve roster limits. However, those don't jibe with the limits you reported. For example, here are the the active & reserve limits for 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1922, per that file:

1919 - Texas League: 15, 11

1920 - Tx Lg: 15, 11
1920 - Negro Lg: 20, 13

1921 - PCL: 25, 10
1921 - Tx Lg: 20, 10
1921 - Ng Lg: 20, 10

1922 - PCL, Tx Lg, Ng Lg: same limits as '21

In addition, if you create a game starting with the 1920 season, OOTP does not reference this file; it pulls its league & structure data from its "game creation program" (for lack of a better term). It only uses this file (and others) for subsequent seasons... That said, the data in the game creation program should match what's in the csv file...

Overall, a bit of mystery, though...

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by thehef

Cool stuff!

I'm wondering where those roster limits come from. In the milbleagues.csv file, which would seem to be a likely source, there are fields for active roster and reserve roster limits. However, those don't jibe with the limits you reported. For example, here are the the active & reserve limits for 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1922, per that file:

1919 - Texas League: 15, 11

1920 - Tx Lg: 15, 11
1920 - Negro Lg: 20, 13

1921 - PCL: 25, 10
1921 - Tx Lg: 20, 10
1921 - Ng Lg: 20, 10

1922 - PCL, Tx Lg, Ng Lg: same limits as '21

In addition, if you create a game starting with the 1920 season, OOTP does not reference this file; it pulls its league & structure data from its "game creation program" (for lack of a better term). It only uses this file (and others) for subsequent seasons... That said, the data in the game creation program should match what's in the csv file...

Overall, a bit of mystery, though...

Until teams have complete farm systems, I would think any type of limit on minor leagues/Negro Leagues will only lead to problems. All the teams operating with a reserve roster will be able to stockpile players to their hearts content, while teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals would only be allowed 20 extra players total. At times like this, trying to mimic real life should not even be a factor. Even with full farm systems, I'm not sure minor league teams should have limits. These forums are full of people complaining about strange sign and release issues and often times roster limits are the issue. I don't want to see teams drafting Lou Gehrig in November and dropping him in December.

That being said, I've never seen a minor league team with a reserve roster.

[Tiger Fan]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Until teams have complete farm systems, I would think any type of limit on minor leagues/Negro Leagues will only lead to problems. All the teams operating with a reserve roster will be able to stockpile players to their hearts content, while teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals would only be allowed 20 extra players total. At times like this, trying to mimic real life should not even be a factor.

It is actually the reverse. Not having limits creates problems with player shortages for lower level teams.


I might be recalling incorrectly but I think the minor league roster limits were installed to prevent indy teams (and big league organizations) from stockpiling huge numbers on their reserve roster. Without roster limits when playing with full historical minors enabled you would run into a lot of problems with lower level indy teams not having enough players to field a team once you get into an era with a huge number of minor leagues since the upper minors were hoarding guys.

As a result it would stop your game and you had to find players to fill the rosters manually (assuming you are not playing with ghost players enabled). Using the minor league roster limits helped eliminate that issue.

If you don't like those limits and want to change them you can go to the stats folder of your OOTP23 files and open the Milbleagues.csv You will find a column for ActivePlayerLimit and ReserveRosterLimit. Adjust those up and the roster max will increase but you may run into issues with not enough players in the late 1930s when the number of minor leagues balloon.

[Tiger Fan]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Created 1920 using historical minors. Playing with recalc off. Turned off the color barrier.

This seems like a huge red flag, especially if someone started in say 1915 and played their way forward to 1920, as teams would easily have more than 20 players on their reserve roster. Only a few teams, have Texas League affiliates in 1920, but if rosters are limited to just 20 players in that league, those teams could have to cut quite a few players. Seems to me it should be changed to unlimited, by default to avoid teams with affiliates facing a huge disadvantage.

The independent minor league teams in a league should have the same roster limits an affiliated team does. In your example the 1920 Cardinals Texas League affiliate should have a reserve limit of 11 players, and the unaffiliated teams in that league should also have the same 11 player max reserve roster when using the default settings. If not, perhaps something is wrong in your league.

The remainder become free agents and can help fill roster vacancies on the new leagues as they are added to the game.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Tiger Fan

It is actually the reverse. Not having limits creates problems with player shortages for lower level teams.


I might be recalling incorrectly but I think the minor league roster limits were installed to prevent indy teams (and big league organizations) from stockpiling huge numbers on their reserve roster. Without roster limits when playing with full historical minors enabled you would run into a lot of problems with lower level indy teams not having enough players to field a team once you get into an era with a huge number of minor leagues since the upper minors were hoarding guys.

As a result it would stop your game and you had to find players to fill the rosters manually (assuming you are not playing with ghost players enabled). Using the minor league roster limits helped eliminate that issue.

If you don't like those limits and want to change them you can go to the stats folder of your OOTP23 files and open the Milbleagues.csv You will find a column for ActivePlayerLimit and ReserveRosterLimit. Adjust those up and the roster max will increase but you may run into issues with not enough players in the late 1930s when the number of minor leagues balloon.

Thank you. You may have just stopped me from wasting a lot of time on something that is doomed to fail. Ugh.