Out Of The Park 14

[JudgeDredd]

Sorry - no can do. I'm an Anaheim fan.

I say fan - I'm using the term very loosely. What I mean is, since the very first time of playing baseball sims (Matrix Puresim I think) I have played Anaheim Angels. I have no idea why I started there - but I did. And it's my always go to team.

I'll weather it. It's a challenge and no point in shying away from the issues - I just guess I need to spend some money. I have a fair bit of spare cash, I'm sitting top of the table with an 18-15 and a last 10 of 5-5. I've got a .545 PCT

On the tables shown, what is the "Magic #" column?

[Nefaro]

Be aware that there is a bug regarding the extra alotted Draftee signing funds.  It doesn't show up.  So from what I've seen in my first draft, you have to use your extra funding available for Free Agents (which is normally just used as extra if you go over).  So money will be tight. 

Perhaps they changed the way this works in this year's edition but that was reportedly how it worked last year & doesn't now.

Also.. patch due tomorrow (Wed.).

[JudgeDredd]

Sorry - need some help

I have a player on the 40 man roster who was on the disabled list for some time.

I've been notified that he can now be activated from the disabled list.

I go to his profile and I can't see any option to "activate" him. There is a Designate Player for Assignment - but I can't select that unless he's been on Waivers. When I select Waive and Designate Player for Assignment, I'm asked if I'm sure because he will be put on Irrevocable Waivers (which doesn't sound great)...

So I guess my question is - what does "can now be activated from the Disabled List" mean? Do I have to put him on the Active Roster? My Active Roster is full! I simply don't know what to do with him

Any help appreciated (not sure I get the Waiver and Designate player for Assignment so I'm off to read a bit on it)

[JudgeDredd]

mmm...I'm pretty sure I went to add him to the 40 man roster and it told me he was already there...but I've just tried it (again I think) and it it let me put him on the 40 man roster...so that's what it means by he can be activated

Reading about the Disabled Lists and the 15/60 day - I guess I must've put him on the 60 day disabled list! I've been using the 60 day DL for players who might be out for longer than the 15 days...therefore moving them off the 40 man roster!

But I get it now...keep a good player who's injured (unless long term) on the 15 day DL and just keep him there - right?

[JudgeDredd]

Well...actually I'm still being told the player needs to be activated even though he is also now showing on the 40 Man Roster!?

He's stuck on the DL :-(

[sandman2575]

Is your Active roster full?  If so, you'll probably have to waive & DFA a player -- unless you can outright him to the minors -- to make room.

[JudgeDredd]

Hi Sandman

Yeah my active roster is full. Does that mean that "activate the player" means putting on the Active Roster?

I struggle quite a bit with all this Active Roster, Secondary Roster, DFA, Waivers, Disabled Lists.

So if a guy is on my roster and is injured he has to go back onto the roster he went onto the DL from? So a guy injured on the active roster has to go back on the active roster when he's fit and a player on the secondary roster has to go back on that and DOESN'T have to be assigned to the active roster?

I understand that the secondary roster is the "reserves"(?) of my active roster...my key players. But what happens to them moving them off either for any reason (DL, demotion, waiver etc) I am a bit lost.

[sandman2575]

Managing rosters can be pretty confusing... I thought I knew baseball inside out until I got ootp -- it has really educated me as to what goes into managing player contracts and rosters!

I don't know if this helps -- if this is already completely obvious forgive me -- but conceptually it's easy to misunderstand just what the 40-man Roster is.  *Every* player on the 40-man Roster has to be 'playing' at some level in the organization.  So a 40-man roster player must either be on the major league Active Roster, or must be playing somewhere in the minors.  It can be easy to confuse the 40-man roster for some kind of "pure reserve", but it's actually not that.  It's simply *all* the guys on your major league team (whether they are regular starters or not), plus a bunch of guys in the minors who, because they're on the 40-man roster, can be called up and down -- majors to minors and back again -- as much as you want, **so long as they have an option year left on their contract**.  If they are out of options, the only way to get a guy *off* your major league squad is to put the player through irrevocable waivers.  If they pass waivers, then you can do whatever you want with them (...unless they have enough major-league service time to refuse assignment to the minors...but that's another story  ???)

So, it sounds like with this injured player, once you put him back on the 40-man roster, you may have painted yourself into a bit of a corner.  He's now on the 40-man roster, so he either (A) has to play on your major league squad, i.e. the 25-man Active Roster or (B) get sent to the minors. If there's no room on your major league Active Roster, you only have one choice:  send him to the minors (or send someone else from the 25 to the minors to make room for him).  I would have to conclude from this that this player is *out* of options, yes?  If so, that's why the only way to Activate him is to get him on a minor league roster, and the only way to do that without having any options left is to Waive the player and hope he clears waivers.

Let me know if this clears it up -- if not, there's got to be a way to figure it out!

[JudgeDredd]

Thanks sandman for taking the time to post all that. I really don't get the "options" thing? By that I mean...I guess it means the option to use him in your active roster occasionally and then move out etc...kind of filling gaps? But how many options does a player have? No need to answer that - that isn't really my concern at the mo and I'll read up on that.

You've cleared up that and waivers and DFA...so if a player is out of options (I can't move him to minors) I have to waive and DFA hime...in which case he goes on the waivers list and if he's not "approached"(?) he'll stay with me and I get to DFA him to one of the minors? So I'm guessing I never really want to waive any of my decent players :)

As in this particular case the player is a CF and I've got one on my Active Roster but he's less capable than the one coming back from DL. So I guess I may have promoted the current CF player from the AAA (or AA or A - who knows but likely AAA) when the original CF was injured.

So I'll just demote the current CF.

You've really helped there...thanks a lot.

I love this game - but it's a minefield for anyone who doesn't know anything about it (I literally know about gameplay in RL - and not even that deep...the back office stuff in this is so in depth). I've got the draft occurring soon!

I wish PISD would do a rugby and American Football game - but I guess they're concentrating on what they know.

[sandman2575]

Thinking about OOTP is more interesting to me at the moment than doing my actual work  8) , so, regarding options --

"Options" are really just a license for the organization to do whatever it likes with a player.  "Brand new" players -- rookies you draft etc. -- start out with 3 Options.  It basically means you have 3 Seasons in which you can bring that player up to the Majors *and* back to the Minors, as often as you like.  The moment you promote a guy who has been in the minors to the Majors, you've just used 1 of the Options on his contract.  You now have all season to jerk this guy around without penalty -- bring him up for a few weeks, send him back down, whatever you want.  If you do the same thing the following season, you'll use up his 2nd Option, etc.   

Putting a guy on Waivers, even a guy you value, is not necessarily a dangerous thing to do.  Remember, if any other team claims your player while he's on waivers, they now get the privilege of paying his salary -- he belongs to them, and you are completely freed of his contract.  So, if you have a useful guy who, ideally, you wouldn't want to lose, but for whatever reason have to send him to the minors and risk Waivers, it's not a foregone conclusion that another team will claim him -- especially if he has a large contract.  In some ways, having a useful but mediocre player with a largish contract -- several million $, say -- is more protection for you when it comes to waivers.  Other teams will think twice about just grabbing someone off of waivers if they now have to pick up the tab of his $4M contract (esp. if it's a multi-year contract).

"Designating for Assignment" is kind of a formality.  It's only real benefit is that it *immediately* frees up a spot on your roster.  It's useful if you need to open up a spot on your 40-man roster right away.  You can "Waive and DFA" a player, which immediately opens up a spot on the roster, and gives you 10 days to leave the waived player "in limbo" while you figure out what his assignment will be (...unless someone claims him off waivers...).  I believe if you just Waive a player without DFA'ing him, you have to wait for him to clear waivers before his spot on the roster is opened up.


Completely incidentally -- I'm kind of amazed at just how many Europeans play OOTP -- and the fact that the guys who developed it are German!  I tend to think of baseball as quintessentially American game with *many* arcane rules that would seem completely uninteresting to folks beyond the Americas & parts of Asia who didn't grow up with it.  But maybe more Europeans grow up with it than I realized.  I know the Dutch have a solid baseball tradition, but beyond them, I would have figured that the overwhelming attitude of Europeans toward baseball is:  this is a very slow, very confusing game that has absolutely no appeal. 

Anyway, that just to say I think it's awesome OOTP has the international appeal it does. 

[JudgeDredd]

^Thanks for all that

It is a slow game - but I do enjoy watching it. A few hours whilst reading a book, a manual, surfing the web or playing a computer/board game - but I enjoy the commentary and the game.

I actually get to watch some games on ESPN America on Virgin Media TV.

I know for a fact I do not have an optimised roster. Nor have I dealt with my depth chart. I really need to have a look at them and sort them out. I might have too many players for one position but not another and I know there are gaps in the lineups

I currently have (on my active roster)
Batters
2 C
3 1B
1 2B
2 3B
1 SS
2 LF
1 CF
1 RF

Pitchers
6 SP
5 MR
1 CL

and I presume some are more taxing than others?

[sandman2575]

Overall that roster looks good, but having 3 guys whose primary position is 1B is probably not optimal.  1B is by far the easiest infield position to play from a defensive standpoint.  Can any of those guys play any other infield positions?  For my non-starters, I always want to have a guy who is a good defender at a couple of infield positions -- ideally 2B and SS, and 3B is icing on the cake.  Even if that utility guy is a bad hitter -- and he is almost certain to be -- it's essential to have a guy who can fill in and provide good defense in at 2B, SS, and 3B.  A utility guy who has good defensive infield ratings at multiple positions and who has some speed on the basepaths is a valuable player, even if he's a terrible hitter.  If he's a switch hitter on top of that, that's the trifecta in my book.

Are you going with a 6-man starting rotation?  If not, I'd ditch the 6th SP for another reliever.  If you are going with a 6-man rotation, well, I'd ask why -- if you have 6 guys good enough to start, I'd trade the excess SP for a decent position player, a good bat.

[JudgeDredd]

They can't do other positions. I'll look at my roster but I don't think there's any in the 40 man roster.

I do think I need to seriously look at my roster...check what I have, get rid of chaff.

I have a few more questions...
1. how do I go about buying new players. I know there's free agents etc - but how do I try and pinch someone...and can I at all if they are in contract?
2. the draft is coming up, but they are all n00bs - so only really any good for minors and future prospects
3. should I get rid of players? And if so - do I just drop them or is there a process?
4. How "popualted" should my minors be? I have less than 25 players in the AAA, AA and A

Sorry for all the wuestions...but you've been so helpful with your explanations it's been far better than searching the net

[sandman2575]

1. If a player is under contract with another team, at any level in their organization, the only way to acquire that player is through a trade, or wait until they become a Free Agent (although that may never happen).  You can pick up anyone on waivers with no strings attached, except that you now own that player's contract (and it could be a multi-year contract -- you'd still be responsible for it).

2. I don't have a really good sense yet of the Amateur draft.  Basically these are all young players who have to get developed in your minor league system until they are ready for the Majors.  The fist 10 players in the first round are the ones everyone wants and will they will cost you, since if they're that highly ranked they will come with a multi-million $ signing bonus.  If you don't have a high first round pick, I woudn't worry too much about the draft.  Maybe just draft a couple of rounds and then let autopilot take over.  It's all a crap shoot at that point anyway.  And some of those Top 10 prospects will never pan out.

3. You can always drop any player by outright Releasing him.  But you have to pay the entirety of his remaining contract up front.  So if you released a player who still had 3 years left on his contract at $2M a year, you'd have to cough up $6M right away.
- so as you can see, there's little incentive to release a player unless you just absolutely have to get rid of him and have the money to cover it.  It's almost always prefereable to try to trade that player or let his contract run out and let him become a Free Agent.

4. That sounds like a pretty sparse farm system!  I'd use the upcoming draft to fill in some of those gaps in your minors.  Also, you can always offer any Free Agent a minor league contract, which *costs nothing* -- so that's nice, and could be another way to pad up your minor league system.  But any FA who has any reasonable amount of major league experience is probably not going to want a minor league contract. 

edit - oh just one other thing -- if you sign a free agent to a minor league contract, and then put him on your 40 man roster -- ta da -- he now gets a one-year major league contract at the league minimum (which is, what $480K I think).  Minor league contracts only stay in effect as long as the player remains in the minors and is not on your 40-man roster.

[JudgeDredd]

^Brilliant. Thanks a lot.

I'm going to go messing about with my roster.  :D