OOTP XX

[JasonM]

Since this thread got revived, I have been messing about with creating fictional non-US leagues a bit lately, it's a bit tricky since so much has a specific bias in the game to have things go a certain way, like USA/Venezuela/Dominica having a heavy influence in created players.

So with some fiddling around, I have set out to make a UK Baseball League (UKBL) with some football inspirations (20 teams, no divisions/conferences, Minor leagues are age-gated) mixed with baseball.

Despite some early hiccups, it works quite well! I had to go into the nation editor to change up baseball quality of certain nations to prevent the game from filling up the league with the usual nations, and up the quality of other nations to get a more specific balance of nations (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth + assorted nations). It still threw up some funkiness, like making Albania a baseball hotbed without my input. (I decided to leave that in).

Also made the drafts purely 1st years, no college players or anything. To give it more of a footie idea that players are trained from early age, and this was the youngest I could make drafts.

Anyways, if people want to try it out i'll drop the link below all this...
Link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/agjms7cfd6jn9i0/file

Some quirks about the league:
- Quickstart starts in Jan 2015, the database has existed since 2000 to give things some life and history.
- Auto Evolution is 100% off.
- 20 teams, 10 English, 4 Scottish/Welsh, 2 North Irish.
- 152 games a year, top 8 go into playoffs (3/5/7 game series)
- All leagues are DH leagues.
- 4 Minor Leagues, Age-gated. 27/23/21/19 respectively for the four levels (AAA/AA/A/R)
- The minor leagues have the same schedule as the Major League, 152 games. (8x19)
- Draft is held March 1, 16 round (players genned for 20 to fill up FA). Max 19 years old in the draft, so no 'ready' players.
- No draftee negotiation. Who you pick is who you get.
- Player gen and draft gen is set at 40/20/20/10 (based on the team balance, so 40% England, 20% Wales, etc.), 3% between the channel islands (because they're a thing for some reason), and 7% random.
- No arb, no option clauses, no FA compensation.
- 2 Years service time before FA, 3 Years Service for MiL FA
- Independent FA's, International FA's, Scouting Discoveries, international Amateurs are all enabled. (Origins are 100% random)
- International Amateurs are 1st of December.
- Some very minor pitcher strat changes for AI strat diversity (Some will use stoppers, some will use closers)

- There is an 8 team Irish League with 2 minor (U27 Reserves & U23 Youths) tiers. Kinda experimental.
- This league works with posting, leagues share FA pools but the IBC has less money and is a lower tier so players will prefer the UKBL. Kinda on the NPB tier.
- Only existed since 2011, so not much history.

Known Bugs:
- It might crash on feb 2 in the first year when generating draftees. Go into setting and manually set 'generated draft rounds' to 20. For some reasons I can't lock this in.

Have fun, I guess. Feel free to critique or report weird stuff.

[Bobfoc]

I wish Football Manager had some of the random incident events that OOTP does. Seeing your players announce that they're releasing an album cover and having a 17-year-old prospect out for over a year because their wife hit them with a frying pan is certainly something.

[Schlitzbrille]

So, 1985 MLB season in my watcher game, final Standings/stat leaders in the regular season:

Stats not covered:

• Strikeouts: Clemens (BOS) @ 257, Mike Witt (CAL) @ 195, Jack Morris (DET) @ 191 {AL}; Dwight Gooden (NYM) @ 307, Jose DeLeon (PIT) @ 247, Sid Fernandez (NYM) @ 233 {NL}
• Pitcher WAR: Clemens @ 7.4, Bret Saberhagen (KC) @ 5.9, Mike Moore (SEA) @ 5.6 {AL}; Gooden @ 11.7, David Palmer (MON) @ 7.9, Fernando Valenzuela (LAD) @ 7.6 {NL}
• Saves: Jay Howell (NYY) @ 43, Bob Stanley (BOS) @ 37, Mike LaCoss (BAL) @ 31 {AL}; Scott Garrelts (SF) @ 44, Tom Niedenfuer (LAD) @ 42, Bob James (MON) @ 35 {NL}

AL East was a fun one to watch, not being settled until the last minute. Pre-season storylines saw Sid Bream being a very good egg and retiring after 32 days of service in order to donate a kidney and the Dominican Republic being rocked by a 7.9 earthquake. Also, apparently this timeline the WNBA was implied to exist in 1985 because of Sam Sherwood dating a pro basketball player with a generally female name. 

 

Post-season:
Championship Round:
ALCS:
Game 1: Yankees def. Royals, 10-4
Game 2: Yankees def. Royals, 3-2
Game 3: Yankees def. Royals, 3-2
Game 4: Royals def. Yankees, 5-4
Game 5: Yankees def. Royals, 6-4
MVP was CF Chet Lemon

NLCS: 
Game 1: Dodgers def. Expos, 2-0
Game 2: Dodgers def. Expos, 6-0
Game 3: Dodgers def. Expos, 2-1
Game 4: Dodgers def. Expos, 6-4
MVP was P Orel Hershisher

1985 World Series:
Game 1: Yankees def. Dodgers, 2-1
Game 2: Yankees def. Dodgers, 5-4
Game 3: Yankees def. Dodgers, 5-1
Game 4: Dodgers def. Yankees, 4-3
Game 5: Dodgers def. Yankees, 9-3
Game 6: Dodgers def. Yankees, 5-2
Game 7: Dodgers def. Yankees, 7-5
MVP of the 1985 World Series was RF Mike A. Marshall
 

For completionism, the Pirates were the '84 World Series champs, being the Blue Jays 4 games to 2.

[Meacon Keaton]

I like that you laughed at Chet Lemon, but not Orel Hershiser. 

[The Buscher]

Started another game from the beginning of the Mets franchise in 1962.  I invited 60 players to camp and based my inaugural roster entirely off of that.  Ended up with 6 minor leaguers making the team who never made the big leagues in real life.

Casey Stengel decided to pencil in one of them, centerfielder Grimm Mason, into the Opening Day lineup.  He led off the game by ripping a double off of Bob Gibson.

So a guy who in real life saw his career end in 1963 at age 24 is now in the record books as the first batter/hit in team history.

[Meacon Keaton]

I'm in 2045 in my game that started in 1997. I was with Toronto from 1997-2020 and won eleven championships. Then I took a year off and was with the Phillies from 2022-2036 where we won four championships. And took another year off before taking the Yankees job in 2038. The first three years were very rough, as they had a very old and overpaid roster. But then we won two division titles, only to be eliminated in the ALCS each time, and followed that up with back to back wildcard wins which led on to back-to-back World Series titles. So if we do well and win the division, we don't even make the World Series, but if we finish second in our own division, we win it all. 

I think my next game is going to start in the first year which is...1872 I think? I'm going to start from there and do what Maxx did with his fictional league and have random players show up in random years to re-write history. 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Meacon Keaton

[Mick]

The one thing I like about this game is just how much you can change history. Case and point: The Devil Rays don't exist in my game.

 

[Draevyn]

Has OOTP 22 been announced yet? I swear I buy them every year and end up giving them away so why should this year be any different  

[The Buscher]

1871 baseball:

[Mick]

Aside from a knuckleball, does the kind of pitches a pitcher knows actually matter? 

[Meacon Keaton]

15 hours ago, Mick said:

Aside from a knuckleball, does the kind of pitches a pitcher knows actually matter? 

In what sense? 

[Mick]

36 minutes ago, Meacon Keaton said:

In what sense? 

 

Let's assume every stat on Pitcher A and B is the same. 

 

Pitcher A throws: Curve, Cutter, Slider, Straight Change

Pitcher B throws: Four-Seam, Circle Change, Screw, Split-Fingered

 

....Would the difference in pitches mean anything? 

[Meacon Keaton]

8 minutes ago, Mick said:

 

Let's assume every stat on Pitcher A and B is the same. 

 

Pitcher A throws: Curve, Cutter, Slider, Straight Change

Pitcher B throws: Four-Seam, Circle Change, Screw, Split-Fingered

 

....Would the difference in pitches mean anything? 

Yes, I believe every pitch has a different swing-miss ratio, fly ball-ground ball ratio, and such. Like a sinker is going to get more groundouts than a fast ball, etc. i don’t get picky though. If I can find a pitcher with three or more above average pitches, I want them. I’ll figure out how to use them later.

[Mick]

Now if I can just find where these ratios are  

[Meacon Keaton]

Use your melon! I don’t know if they have ever released their coding for those ratios, but baseball logic will tell you a highly rated sinker will produce more groundouts and a slider or curve with highly rated movement will secure a lot of strikeouts.

[The Buscher]

1872 season which includes two expansion teams, the Brooklyn Eckfords and Washington Nationals.

The Nationals open their season with zero pitchers on their roster and the game's preseason predictions have them at 2-58.

[Neil_1113]

1 hour ago, B-li Manning said:

1872 season which includes two expansion teams, the Brooklyn Eckfords and Washington Nationals.

The Nationals open their season with zero pitchers on their roster and the game's preseason predictions have them at 2-58.

That doesn't seem like a valid game strategy... Lol

And wait, who loses to them? 😂

Edited November 5, 2020 by Neil_1113

[Lowerdeck]

My online league team (Arizona) managed to make the NLCS this past season (2038).  Was down 3 games to 2 heading into Game 6, was leading in Game 6.  My setup guy (5th starter for much of the year) coughed up the lead in the bottom of the 9th, then the winner in the 11th.

 

St Louis ended up winning the World Series, so I don't feel as bad.

[Meacon Keaton]

That’s just poor managing. 😛 

[Lowerdeck]

https://statsplus.net/clbsc/player/12013?page=ratings

 

Aside from a mediocre control, he's good enough to throw multiple high leverage innings.  Just was a bad night, that's all.

 

And can also play utility infielder in a pinch too.