Out Of The Park 14

[sandman2575]

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but OOTP14 is my first go at this series.  I've been a baseball fan since I was a kid (and as a New York native who has lived in Boston for the past 14 years, have endured a bit of heartache for it.... the memories of the 2004 ALCS will never be erased...).  For whatever reason though, I've never felt the urge to plunge into the OOTP universe... until now.

I can't believe what I've been missing out on.  Just Wow. 

Just to JudgeDredd's point -- this is something I'm divided over myself:  what balance to strike between playing mainly as the GM, and how much micromanaging (or not) to do as Manager.  A big part of me wants to control everything, from when to lay down the sac bunt and use the infield shift.  Of course, even a single season at this level would take forever.  I've tried setting the *incredibly* detailed AI Manager strategy settings -- the ones that control all the scenarios "Game Tied, Innings 4-6" and the like.  But I can't get a read on how much this really influences the AI manager and whether it's worth all the trouble.  I think I'm going to have to let the AI manage my games -- but I don't really trust it.

[Nefaro]

Nefaro, do you play with financials enabled? In seven years I've never tried it!

Definitely!  I also leave the starting finances as they are estimated to be for the real MLB teams.

Couple, of things...for those that play

First off - I don't really get the "draft" thing. So I tend to steer clear and in fact I don't think I've EVER bought/sold/swapped a player before - and I've likely gotten away with that because I've never finished a season because I ALWAYS want to play the games out - though now with the real time playout, I just sti and watch that - very gripping at times.

Anyway - couple of things...

• Do you auto play through the seasons? I generally watch the real time feeds, as I've said
• And do any of you change your squad from the off? Generally because I'm starting a new season, I start with the squad I've got and check their stats as I go...but I only ever really got the the first (possibly second) draft before I've gave up because I have no idea what I'm doing
• Do any of you change your staff? I've always kept the staff I start with

Yes, I just auto-resolve the games, although regularly checking the box score info afterward.  I'm more into evaluating the stats and roster management (to include drafts & contract negotiations).  I've been having my AI manager automatically fill out the starting line-ups but will make adjustments via the individual Player Strategy window to tweak how each individual is weighted in use.  I'll eventually switch over to occasionally asking the Manager for line-ups then fine tune them myself once I'm more comfortable with it.

I haven't changed my initial team on the first season, other than a few trades.  If I see someone who's overpaid, or maybe even a player who will hit arbitration after this season & I can replace with a better performing one from the Minors,  I'll shop them around to see what trades are offered.  Unlike some of these games, the AI can offer up some reasonably balanced trades when you shop players around the league.  Other than that, the first year is just blasting through as the Free Agent list doesn't have many good picks at that point so you won't be able to pick up good veteran Free Agents until the end of the season when contracts end and the pool is filled up with new FAs.  Also.. it's kinda difficult to gauge performance until you get plenty of games simmed and get that backlog of stats built up.  While the game contains previous seasons' stats for most pro players, that doesn't necessarily mean their trends will continue since those are RL stats and the game engine is now running things.  From what I've seen it does a great job of simming outcomes (probably one of the best in the genre) but it also has those random streaks & player improvements.  Hell, I currently have a 1 out of 5 star-rated 36 year old bench outfielder who has hit .346 in 180+ At Bats.  Looking at all the scout ratings, you wouldn't expect that to happen.   So you gotta eyeball the actual stats too, not just the scout ratings.

As for the draft, I've not had enough experience to see how my picks turn out yet.  But I think it's one of the funnest parts of these games.  I wouldn't want to play one if it didn't have drafts.  I've read that you not only need to check both scout ratings (yours and the latest OSA ratings) along with making sure the prospect's Intelligence and Work Ethic ratings aren't below Normal (in the BNN Stats tab of the player's Overview page).  That's only the recommendations I've seen, and it should at least help you make decent picks.  However, once it gets down to only 1 or 1.5 Star prospects left to choose from, I tend to just let the AI pick those for me as they're all generally minor league filler at that point so there's not much to tell if one will shoot up later or not.  Evidentally they just added the Player Progression page to Player's stats so you can see how their scouted ratings have changed over time.  I can see that being a big help on gauging your Minors players' improvement rates.

I'm waiting until my current Staff's contracts run out before shopping around.  If there are some notable improvements available when that happens, I'll offer them contracts.  You gotta get the best you can here as your coaches & scouts have an effect on nearly everything.

I'm certainly no expert at this stuff, but I've dug up a fair amount of info since starting because I also have lots of questions.

[Nefaro]

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but OOTP14 is my first go at this series.  I've been a baseball fan since I was a kid (and as a New York native who has lived in Boston for the past 14 years, have endured a bit of heartache for it.... the memories of the 2004 ALCS will never be erased...).  For whatever reason though, I've never felt the urge to plunge into the OOTP universe... until now.

I can't believe what I've been missing out on.  Just Wow. 

Just to JudgeDredd's point -- this is something I'm divided over myself:  what balance to strike between playing mainly as the GM, and how much micromanaging (or not) to do as Manager.  A big part of me wants to control everything, from when to lay down the sac bunt and use the infield shift.  Of course, even a single season at this level would take forever.  I've tried setting the *incredibly* detailed AI Manager strategy settings -- the ones that control all the scenarios "Game Tied, Innings 4-6" and the like.  But I can't get a read on how much this really influences the AI manager and whether it's worth all the trouble.  I think I'm going to have to let the AI manage my games -- but I don't really trust it.

The AI Manager Strategy settings have been working fairly well for me, after I made some adjustments.  The problem is that it's not saving the different situations that I see.  When I make a change to one, it's the same for all of them.  Must be a bug.. or the situational part isn't implemented.  Still.. I've managed to take my home team to a better record than achieved in recent memory thus far, after adjusting the Strategy sliders and noticing an improvement, so it definitely has an effect.

[sandman2575]

Glad to hear the AI Manager overall can be trusted.  I like the idea of tweaking the AI situational settings, but it's hard to know how dramatically or not moving a bar over one or two clicks actually impacts decision-making.  I've been trying out different things, but I should probably just use the "Have manager set strategy" option and see how that works for, say, a whole season to get a better read.

One big question -- does the AI manager 'know' to manager rosters differently during Spring Training than it would during regular season?  It does seem to keep your starting pitchers on a very strict, low pitch count (which is good), but I haven't been seeing it mix up lineups enough to my satisfaction.  I want the manager to do split-squad type games on occasion, to get a look at the prospects, and also not overexpose my stars to injury risk.  My ace SP blew out his rotator cuff *in the very first game of spring training*...didn't even get through the 2nd inning, and now out for 5-6 months.  This makes me sad.

I totally agree about drafting -- I love to draft players and could just start up new leagues to have the fun of doing it.  In my last draft I got up to about Round 70, and then let the AI finish it... at that point you're just picking scrubs -- definitely no major leaguers or even prospects left that late in the draft, although it's only about halfway through (150 rounds).

The one thing that has really surprised me is how much more I prefer creating fictional leagues than playing with real MLB teams.  I just assumed I'd want to play with real-life players and rosters, but I'm finding creating my own leagues from scratch, and not having any preconceptions about players or organizations (because they're all fictional) is a lot more fun.

[Nefaro]

I'm sure the rather generalized Strategy settings aren't gonna be up to par compared to a knowledgeable human being micro-managing that stuff.  But it does make a difference.  I'd actually recommend you adjust some sliders from the default as that is set by your Manager's own style and you can tweak a few things to tailor your team's strong or weak points. 

I specifically recall adjusting Hook Starting Pitcher down a notch or two, although I would've gone further if I had more than one good Reliever.  Another was 'Hold Runners' as I had started getting a steady increase in stolen bases against me before doing so.   I didn't do any drastic slider adjustments, the biggest being moving the Defense-Offense slider to neutral and the Speed->Hitting slider up from pure speed (because my team has both good hitters and some speed and it was set fully to speed).  I had moved them maybe a quarter to a third of a bar at most and it seemed to make a difference in the stats I was seeing after every game.  Probably not perfect but I really don't want to micro-manage every game.. that would take forever!  Hey.. I have a firm hold on a Wild Card spot (with the Royals even) so the AI must be somewhat capable of calling the plays.

[JudgeDredd]

Ok - another question.

I think I get the draft....loads of players are up for grabs and you get to bid - but what is the "draft order"? Is that where I am in terms of being allowed to bid? So if my order is 16th - then 15 other teams get to bid for players before me? Do the players take the offers there and then and therefore are removed - so the list that I eventually get is considerably less than the team in position 1 in the draft order?

Also - I guess the order is based on...? Success of the team? Position? Wins?

[Nefaro]

Ok - another question.

I think I get the draft....loads of players are up for grabs and you get to bid - but what is the "draft order"? Is that where I am in terms of being allowed to bid? So if my order is 16th - then 15 other teams get to bid for players before me? Do the players take the offers there and then and therefore are removed - so the list that I eventually get is considerably less than the team in position 1 in the draft order?

Also - I guess the order is based on...? Success of the team? Position? Wins?

Yes, the draft order is based on the previous season's wins.  A lower win percentage means that teams gets an earlier draft position.  So the #1 position gets to take it's pick first and each team gets to choose one player in order.  After they've all chosen one, it moves on to the second round and proceeds in the same order until all rounds are finished.  IIRC there are 40 rounds in MLB now?  I don't know details for sure as I'm more familiar with american football but this is how it generally works.  I believe the MLB places them by Win Percentage.

There are also optional League-wide drafts you can initiate when you begin a new career.  Some people enjoy doing this to mix up the player base or even have completely new fictional players created to fill it too.  There are usually also options for "serpentine" drafts in such initial mash-ups and those types of drafts proceed from team 1 to 32 (or however many are in the league being created) and then the second round picks from position 32 back to 1 and so forth.  This way it supposedly helps average out the perceived values of the highest and lowest positions a bit better.  That's something preferable in just such an Inaugural Draft if you choose to use one. 

I've only initiated a current historical MLB league so I've not experimented with all the different options yet, but they're pretty standard fare in modern text sims and I read that some of these options are also in OOTP.

As for drafted players - once they are drafted by a team, then that team is the only one who has the rights to negotiate a contract for them that year.  It's one of many things that helps equalize all teams' chances at having good players, and not just the richest ones.  It also helps give a leg-up to teams having poor seasons with favorable draft position to (ideally) help get them back to being competitive.  IIRC the top 8 or 10 rounds of draft picks can demand a contract signing bonus and that's what you'll still have to negotiate after the draft is over in order to actually get them to sign a Minor League Contract with your team.  If you can't come to an agreement on signing bonus with any of these few players, then they will often be available in next year's draft and the team who lost the pick gets an extra equivalent pick spot next year as compensation.  The rest of the many rounds after that first decisive set just go straight to a minor league contract.. no bonus.  Your team basically gets the rights to them for a number of years after they sign with you.

I believe a short summary of contract progression is something like:

1) Minor League up to 6 years before the status quo changes a bit.

2) Minor League players become eligible for Rule 5 Draft if they're still on a Minor Contract after doing their 6 years of "Professional" service time (aka Minor league) and still haven't been signed to a Major League Contract or place on your team's 40-Man roster (which automatically gives them a league-minimum Major contract anyway IIRC).

3) Your team still has a few years of Major League contract rights to this player.  When you first give them a Major League contract, they'll be paid the base Major league salary and the contract will renew every year, for a few years.

4) Arbitration.  After the initial Major league contract years are over, the contract screen will mention that the player will (or can possibly) go to Arbitration after this season.   If you can't come to an agreement on a new contract extension, it will go into Arbitration and both the player & team submit their proposals to a 3rd party who decides which is the more reasonable offer.  This can piss off your prospective player, so try to negotiate with the player directly before it gets to the Arbitration period and try to make it work beforehand.  If you don't want to offer them anything, you can let them go to an early Free Agency. 

5) Free Agency.  At this point, after the Arbitration period is over, the team has no more specific rights to the player.  So they can freely take bids from all teams and really rake in the dough (if they're still healthy and good or even decent at what they do).  This is where the proven veteran talents get the big bids. ;D

The International draft is supposed to be a new addition.  It's just a small ordeal that's pretty limited in scope and it has some tough limits on offers.  But you can scoop up some young international talent here & there in this small int'l draft, along with your scouts also stumbling across a few here & there.  These all get added to your "International" rookie list and you don't even have to give them minor league contracts until they reach 20, if you don't want to.

I'm no expert at this but as you may have noticed, I enjoy studying up on deep strategy games like this.  I've done more of that than playing thus far and still need to see if I've learned anything to my advantage.  :P

[JudgeDredd]

wow...thanks for that very detailed post. Though it's still confusing (the draft) in places.

The draft in my game starts in 4 weeks.

I looked through the draft pool as I'm looking for some pitchers to replace not so good pitchers - but I quickly got the impression these were "new players - players looking for a signing because I only saw 1/2 and 1 star pitchers...so is the draft a list of n00bies waiting to get their break?

If so - how do I go about replacing people on my team with better players? Do I have to approach other players in other teams? Or look at the free agent listing? Is there a "specific" time period where I can make a bid for a player on another team - or is it not allowed at all. Is there a specific time window where I can take on new players outside the draft?

In the UK (football) for example there are set windows (2 I think) where teams can buy and sell players called the transfer window - is there something similar in baseball?

I was watching one of my games (the box score) on 10 speed real time last night against Texas (I play Anaheim Angels) and it was top of the 9th and Texas had the bases loaded....I was biting my nails and the next up was Mark Napoli (I think that was his name) and he had already picked up a home run that game. Looking at his stats the pitcher would probably have liked to force him to walk...but he couldn't with the bases loaded...the play was 3-2 (balls to strikes) and he struck out!! They still won 4-2 but it had the potential to be 8-2

[sandman2575]

Nice summary, Nefaro.

Just to tout the usefulness of the online ootp manual -- if you can stomach it (it's pretty long), it's time well spent, especially regarding all the Contract rules that  you have to deal with as a GM.  It's critical to know exactly when you can and cannot (without penalty) move players around within your organization.  Once you elevate any player to the Majors, even to just the 40-man roster, contract rules start coming into play that are pretty darn complicated.  Nef's summary is good though.

But I tend to think of 'getting to the Majors' as a red-line in a player's development, from an economic standpoint.  Once a player crosses that line and acquires a major league contract, you have to start paying attention to how you can use him, if he's someone you care about and want to retain.  You can keep players entirely in the Minors for a long time -- 6 years, although potentially more depending on whether he's 'protected' on the 40-man roster and has Option years left on his contract. 

... it gets pretty complicated !

I think the thing about the rookie draft is:  keep expectations low.  You're drafting raw talent here, not developed players.  There are only a very tiny fraction of rookies who can get to the Majors and be a contributing force within 1-2 years -- these are the Big Time Prospects that everyone knows about and will be snatched up in the first picks of the first round by teams with lousy records.  And LOTS of even first pick overall super-prospects never pan out to anything more than completely mediocre major leaguers.  The Stephen Strasburgs are the one-in-a million exceptions (...maybe more like one in 50,000  :)). 

In short, don't depend on the rookie draft to provide talent for anything but the long term.  You'll need to sign free agents with an established major league track record (even if it's a completley unimpressive record) for more immediate needs.  ...and of course, you can always try to trade for a player... a fine art in its own right --

[JudgeDredd]

Nice summary, Nefaro.

Just to tout the usefulness of the online ootp manual -- if you can stomach it (it's pretty long), it's time well spent, especially regarding all the Contract rules that  you have to deal with as a GM.  It's critical to know exactly when you can and cannot (without penalty) move players around within your organization.  Once you elevate any player to the Majors, even to just the 40-man roster, contract rules start coming into play that are pretty darn complicated.  Nef's summary is good though.

I have tried. I read the manual (parts I'm unsure of) pretty regularly. Unfortunately I hav e a pretty bad short memory and the information I take in seldom stays in - meaning when I pick the game up again, it's almost like a new game!

Still - you are correct in that it is helpful and pretty detailed.

But I tend to think of 'getting to the Majors' as a red-line in a player's development, from an economic standpoint.  Once a player crosses that line and acquires a major league contract, you have to start paying attention to how you can use him, if he's someone you care about and want to retain.  You can keep players entirely in the Minors for a long time -- 6 years, although potentially more depending on whether he's 'protected' on the 40-man roster and has Option years left on his contract. 

... it gets pretty complicated !

I think the thing about the rookie draft is:  keep expectations low.  You're drafting raw talent here, not developed players.  There are only a very tiny fraction of rookies who can get to the Majors and be a contributing force within 1-2 years -- these are the Big Time Prospects that everyone knows about and will be snatched up in the first picks of the first round by teams with lousy records.  And LOTS of even first pick overall super-prospects never pan out to anything more than completely mediocre major leaguers.  The Stephen Strasburgs are the one-in-a million exceptions (...maybe more like one in 50,000  :)). 

In short, don't depend on the rookie draft to provide talent for anything but the long term.  You'll need to sign free agents with an established major league track record (even if it's a completley unimpressive record) for more immediate needs.  ...and of course, you can always try to trade for a player... a fine art in its own right --

That's the impression I got from looking through the draft.

So - at the minute I have a 22 man active roster and a 35 man 40 roster. I have players injured. Do I just keep going until they get better? They are on the Dl list at the moment. But my SP's and MP's are struggling with stamina

[sandman2575]

That's the impression I got from looking through the draft.

So - at the minute I have a 22 man active roster and a 35 man 40 roster. I have players injured. Do I just keep going until they get better? They are on the Dl list at the moment. But my SP's and MP's are struggling with stamina

I'd definitely keep active roster always at the full 25 players.  Promote 3 players from the 40-man roster to the active roster.  Generally a balance of 13 position players and 12 pitchers (5 SP, 7 Relievers) is good.  You're definitely handicapping yourself if you don't keep a full active roster -- you'll be seriously screwed if a game goes extra innings.  For the 13 position players, I generally have:  my 8 starters, a secondary catcher (a must), a utility player who can reasonably play infield positions, another who can reasonably play outfield positions, another serviceable guy in some way (maybe a Lefty or Switch hitter if you're short on those), and a final guy who is good at running the bases and can act as a pinch runner. 

As in real life, when your roster is getting hobbled by injuries, you need to get 'warm bodies' on the active roster.  Pick up a player off waivers.  Sign a Free agent.  Trade. Promote minor leaguers.  Even if all your options are crap, fill out that active roster!

[JudgeDredd]

mmm...all my spares are crap. My 40 man roster is pretty poor. They are mostly 1 or 0.5 stars.

Best I get looking outside and cut some chaff.

[Arctic Blast]

mmm...all my spares are crap. My 40 man roster is pretty poor. They are mostly 1 or 0.5 stars.

Best I get looking outside and cut some chaff.

Out of curiosity, what team are you running? Might make it a bit easier to start with a club that's already fairly well set up, at least until you've really got a handle on drafting and roster management.

[JudgeDredd]

Mentioned above - Anaheim Angels

[Arctic Blast]

Mentioned above - Anaheim Angels

Good major league lineup, thin pitching staff. Not a bad team, though. If you're looking for a good team now that's set up for longer term success, you might want to look at the Washington Nationals. The Atlanta Braves are pretty set with a lot of young talent, too.