GWJ OOTP League Thread

garion333 wrote:

I think it's just that most of us are new (or new-ish) to the game. I also think that using a thread for all things makes it harder to have conversations and whatnot.

That said, first place! Finally over .500 and in first. I may have overpaid for that pitcher, but I'll spend $8 mil/season if it means I can win since my starting pitching was, ah, pretty terrible earlier in the season.

True. But picking up on what you just said, my financials are in the red. I look at other teams, green. I have the draft coming up and I have no clue wether I should, or actually can go after what I need. I 'think' I've got 7mil for the draft. Well what happens if I go over a bit? Should I use it all for a serious hole I have? And when they say, '...incrediably hard...' for the Surfers to draft, is that because the game is looking at my financials and laughing? Or...? Do I even worry about being in the red?

And as I mentioned a couple times, I've looked around the league and seen very good scouts, thus very good farm teams and MLB roster. Mine are mediocre at best. BUT, is it too early to can them. Can I 'can' a pitching scout only (which brings up something I've not figured out. When I go to staff, I just see the Head Scout. No way I could see the individual scouts for batting, pitching etc. Yet when I go to the BNN League Home page and click on available scouts I see all the individual scouts pop-up for the above mentioned individual scouting jobs. If I hire (or can I) from this menu, does that just can the one I have? Etc. etc. etc.

Maybe I'm just too anal lol, (and need to let things go for awhile).

Breadmanben wrote:

Thanks all for the welcome. I looked at the league website and I can't find the league file. I'm thinking it might be because I need to have a league sign in?

Yes, you're right. You should be able to register quite easily from the league webpage.

Donan wrote:

1) Several of us are new, so we ask things that might be labelled, 'RTFM', but still, it would be nice to have everyone's input for surely not everyone has all aspects memorized of such a complex game. And usuall different viewpoints lead to new understanding.

2) Discussions on the game, the stat's, the financials etc. are minimal. Pred does a good job at keeping this going and it's really should not be up to him to answer or discuss all the questions etc. So again, it's either the
'RTFM' syndrome, or folks are a very competitive here and are keeping things close to the chest to make sure their teams do well regardless of the rest of the leagues.

The catch is that i'm new to a lot of this too. OOTP 12 is the first OOTP i've put myself 100% behind to try and learn, and of what I know, a lot of it I've gleaned from RTFM. Now, the statistical material takes research. I didn't realize until a while into this game about the importance of FIP vs. ERA (if your pitcher is has a great, low ERA, but a high FIP, his defense is bailing him out) and that was while gaining information from several other sites, including Wikipedia and the Baseball Tonight podcast. I'm still not sure about WAR or VORP or ERA+, so I use them to judge players generally when i'm looking to sign them, versus other players in the league. Failing that, i'll check Wikipedia and see if that helps me at all.

Another way that I learned this was by playing it. Our league is a 10-minutes, twice a week involvement essentially, especially in this first season it's all a lot of feeling things out. I cannot overstate the usefulness of starting your own SP season, and tooling around in there for a little while. It'd actually answer your question RE: judging scouts abilities.

OOTP isn't an engaged game like Madden or NCAA where you're talking directly to your opponent each time you play, and it doesn't have a "every-game-counts" kind of mentality to it. Right now, people are happy if they're sitting at .500 with many, many more games to go, so there's less reason for chatter, especially since we just arrived at June. Everyone's pretty much beginning to figure out their team right now.

But picking up on what you just said, my financials are in the red. I look at other teams, green. I have the draft coming up and I have no clue wether I should, or actually can go after what I need.

Now, regarding the game's financial system, it's pretty much like this. The owner sets your budget based on how much money the team has taken in the previous year and how much of a spendthrift he is, and everything flows accordingly from there. Your primary expenses are player salaries,
your primary income is from gate receipts and media revenue. Your income will change based on your team market size and fan interest (both of which can change over time). The better your team plays, the more money you can bring in to sign new players. Of course, you need money to get money, and if you have an impatient spendthrift owner, you're boned, and "Moneyball" will be your bible.

Your team, it seems, has gotten screwed by the Scouting bug that had people racking up astonishing costs for yearly scouting, to the tune of $44M a year (for comparison, Boston's spending $4M). That, and you have your scout set (currently) to look at every single one of the "Excellent" baseball quality nations. Those nations cost $968K a pop to scout, so tweak that and you'll save a little. In the close season, I will personally tweak the budgets of anyone who got screwed by the scouting bug so they have a fair shake in the off-season. If needed, I may even make these tweaks in time for the draft, so noone's drafting people they have no chance of signing.

Donan wrote:

And as I mentioned a couple times, I've looked around the league and seen very good scouts, thus very good farm teams and MLB roster. Mine are mediocre at best. BUT, is it too early to can them. Can I 'can' a pitching scout only (which brings up something I've not figured out. When I go to staff, I just see the Head Scout. No way I could see the individual scouts for batting, pitching etc. Yet when I go to the BNN League Home page and click on available scouts I see all the individual scouts pop-up for the above mentioned individual scouting jobs. If I hire (or can I) from this menu, does that just can the one I have?

Alright, so looking at my own game, Coach/scout/trainer abilities are rated like so (you can sort coaches/scouts/trainers abilities in the "Available Personnel" screen by clicking on the related tab. So if you wanted to sort Scouts by ability to Scout Majors, you'd click the "View" drop down menu, select "Scout Ratings", click the "preferred occupation" drop down menu and click "Scout", and then click "S MAJ". That will sort scouts by their ability to scout majors. One click for highest to lowest, another for lowest to highest): Fair-OK (in orange)-OK (in yellow)-Average-Decent-Good-Excellent-Outstanding-Legendary. That's going from worst to best, so a sh*tty scout is "Fair", and the greats are "Legendary".

Now, a great scout does not mean a great minors system. All the minors systems we have at the moment are the product of a scattered fantasy draft that threw talent all over the place. All a scout can do is evaluate talent, and scouts in OOTP are not infallible and each one is subjective. Their judgments of players can be well off their actual talent, and one scout can rate a player a can't miss blue chipper while another says he's destined for bench work, at best.

If you want to fire a scout, you can do so whenever you want, just note that you will have to soak his contract (if you've got him signed through 2024, say). You almost hit it, but you missed it. When you're at the scouting screen, you'll notice the tabs at the top noting all the different things you can do with your team (Home/Roster/Transactions/Pitching/Lineups). Just below that (just below Home/Roster/Transactions really) you'll notice two more buttons, one reading Scouting and the other reading "Team Personnel." Click it, and that should show you all the different personnel currently working for you. You should have a Manager, a Bench Coach, a Pitching Coach, a Hitting Coach, and a Team Trainer (the scouting director is listed on the "Scouting" screen). If you want to fire any of them, at the bottom of each of their little profile cards is a button called "TheirName Action". Click that, and a dropdown menu will appear, giving you the option to (among other things), offer that personnel member a contract extension or fire them.

Only when there is an opening on your personnel staff can you hire someone to fill the position. So if you don't have a pitching coach, you can hire a new one. If you already have one, you can't offer a contract to someone else to fill the position, you've gotta fire the first guy.

I 'think' I've got 7mil for the draft. Well what happens if I go over a bit? Should I use it all for a serious hole I have? And when they say, '...incrediably hard...' for the Surfers to draft, is that because the game is looking at my financials and laughing? Or...? Do I even worry about being in the red?

Drafting players is a risk-reward scenario. The Nationals spent huge on Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper, but there's no guarantee they'll pan out (and there's no guarantee a draft pick in OOTP will pan out either). So its up to you and your scouts to judge a player and his abilities. Consider his age (someone 17 is not going to be ready for years if you need a immediate fix, while someone 21 might be able to slot right in), consider what your scout says about him, consider what his stats are (he's a SP who went 9-1 with a 1.62 ERA. Great! But it says the competition level for his college was really easy. That should temper your enthusiasm a bit), consider how much he's asking. Some guys may just be out of your price range. And players aren't just listed as "Easy" or "Hard" to sign on one thing. Players have wants and demands to, they may want to play for a winner, or they may not want to play for you because you've got a 28-year old perennial All-Star at 1B already and they don't want to sit on the bench for seven years, platooning and waiting for their chance. They may not want to because you're a tiny team with a tiny fanbase. "Extremely Hard" doesn't mean "Impossible". It just means "very, very hard". Remember that once you draft a player, for several months hence only you have the right to negotiate contracts with that player. If you haven't signed him by a later date (generally around the trade deadline, August 31st), he'll go back into next year's draft.

I hope this missive answered most of your questions. I still don't have a handle on everything myself (I doubt anyone here does), but most of what you asked can probably be answered by, as I said, sitting down for a bit, and creating a new league of your own, and getting up to your elbows in it for a little while. It's overwhelming at first (it certainly was for me), but it's all there. The game is deep and complex, but very user-friendly.

Alright! So, new league file is up, new reports are up. The in-game date is now 6/13, and the First-Year Players draft is in two days (in-game).

I NEED OPINIONS ON HOW WE SHOULD HANDLE THIS: If people are okay with leaving it to their Scouting directors, that's fine, if people want to e-mail me their top 25 picks (or whatever number you want), if people want to do it live, I just need to know it. I'm willing to push back the Friday sim to accommodate people, timing, issues, whatever, but I need to know. Got it? Great! If I haven't heard back from 2/3rds of the League's owners by Friday morning, i'll send out some e-mails, and then i'll make an executive decision.

Another week gone. I'd like to thank Boston for destroying our team ERA by dropping 11 and 20 on us while splitting a 4-game series. Did you know Miami is a ludicrous 14-3 in one-run games this year? Or that Boston really, really doesn't like extra-inning games (1-5 so far)? Otherwise, not much news on the individual front, we're 60 games in, and opinions are being formed, be they good or bad.

Thanks for the information Pred, I really appreciate. But again, I feel guilty that I seem to be the only one taking up your time and no one else is inputing much. Maybe were all chicklin's and your the mother hen getting us all thru the first year or so. I'll keep a low profile and just wait and do what I can. I've started some SP leagues with the, 'Quick' games. But I'll do like my Bro' is doing, i.e. exactly what you are recommeding get deeper into a regular SP game and learn. (and of course RTFM *chuckle*, which I have. But from a previous posts of mine, I do get lost in all the cool x-links of information and get everywhere...but nowhere. But I'll keep at it.)

Again, thanks so much for doing this. You've been great.

As far as Draft...good gawd, top 25? I may have only enough money for one or two if they are looking for multiple year contracts. I will give you maybe my top 5 and let the Scout Director (shudder...he sucks!). But really I'll just go along with the majority who may have more familiarity with this aspect. I don't think 'live' will be viable for I know what it's like to get together with a bunch of GWJ'ers on a console to play a game, let alone this kind of thing. But if folks think they can swing it live, I'm there (or any other technique).

Cheers

Whattup Baltimore? I'm that punk kid on a skateboard, holding on to your rear bumper. You can't shake me!

Slumberland wrote:

Whattup Baltimore? I'm that punk kid on a skateboard, holding on to your rear bumper. You can't shake me!

... And I just lost a (decent) SP for 7 weeks. Suck on that exhaust!

As someone who may be interested in joining the league, how much time do you guys spend per week on this? I've been lurking here and it looks interesting but time is a concern for me.

Prederick wrote:

Another week gone. I'd like to thank Boston for destroying our team ERA by dropping 11 and 20 on us while splitting a 4-game series. Did you know Miami is a ludicrous 14-3 in one-run games this year? Or that Boston really, really doesn't like extra-inning games (1-5 so far)? Otherwise, not much news on the individual front, we're 60 games in, and opinions are being formed, be they good or bad.

My pleasure for the runs scored- I just wish I could have spread them out a bit more across the series :).

On the draft- I really do not trust my scouting director's assessment and would prefer to rank players myself. I'd love a live draft, but if that isn't possible, I'd at least like to send a list in for picks.

Nightmare wrote:

As someone who may be interested in joining the league, how much time do you guys spend per week on this? I've been lurking here and it looks interesting but time is a concern for me.

I basically spend 15 or 20 minutes twice a week (the night of the sim) making sure my rosters are in order. I do need to sit down and really wrestle with the future of the team (scouting, extensions, etc.) for a couple hours though, and soon. Took this long to get to know my team a bit, though, so that's cool. Like I know I gotta lock up my black Japanese pitcher who's 7-3, making 400k and pitching to a 1.93 ERA.

Nightmare wrote:

As someone who may be interested in joining the league, how much time do you guys spend per week on this? I've been lurking here and it looks interesting but time is a concern for me.

Not counting commish stuff, 30 minutes a week, tops.

Nightmare wrote:

As someone who may be interested in joining the league, how much time do you guys spend per week on this? I've been lurking here and it looks interesting but time is a concern for me.

You can really spend as much or as little time as you want. I probably spend at least an hour per update breaking down stats and such, but you can easily let the AI take over a lot of the functions and spend almost no time at all on it.

From OOTP forums and Markus today:

'...

Hey guys,

we're currently nearing the release of the final OOTP 12 update, version number 12.5 It should be ready late this week or early next week.

For this version the following new features were added:
• Added an "Offseason Summary" to the Offseason Center which lists players added/lost during the offseason for each team, along with WAR and team leaderboard for WAR added.

• Added a "GM Transactions History" section to the Manager History screen.
 It lists all major transactions made for the teams you were in charge of.
• Added a "Preseason Predictions Report", listing projected standings and a top 10 hitters & pitchers list for each sub-league. It gets generated on the first day of Spring Training and is available from both the league menu or the Spring Training screen.

On top of the features, we will introduce AI tweaks (mainly financials) and try to fix all the bugs which were reported recently. Also, it will include a usage tracker, which is explained here: Usage Tracker

After OOTP 12.5 is released, development will shift to OOTP 13, which is scheduled for a pre Opening Day release date 2012.

Cheers,
Markus
__________________
Buy OOTP Developments' Games ... OOTP is on Twitter now ... And, a Facebook page too!

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Last edited by Markus Heinsohn; Today at 05:39 AM.

...'

Huzzah! Obviously, once it's released, everybody update.

Btw Pred, I mean't to get back to you on the stat definitions. As you probably have seen, the OOTP manual glossary if helpful. But I find the following helpful too:

1)www.hardballtimes.com has a great glossary of acronyms and definitions;

2) www.baseball-reference.com: Good, but to me a bit hard to manuever around and find what you are looking for.

3)baseball.about.com: Pretty good and lot's of other informative stuff.

4) And of course, as you mentioned Wikipedia.

Sure there's ton's more, but these are the ones I found helpful with VORP, ERA+ etc.

I HIGHLY recommend picking up The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball to anyone who is having a hard time understanding the more advanced stats. I'd link, but I'm posting from my phone and am lazy. A quick Amazon search will turn it up, and it's available on Kindle.

Also, is there any ruling on the draft? With the 2nd pick I'm sure my director will pick someone I don't want. Can we send you a list of prospects via the upload? Folks who are uninterested can let the AI set a draft list for them for all rounds, and those who want to spend the time can do it manually.

Landshrk83 wrote:

I HIGHLY recommend picking up The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball to anyone who is having a hard time understanding the more advanced stats. I'd link, but I'm posting from my phone and am lazy. A quick Amazon search will turn it up, and it's available on Kindle.

A number of people have said that because of the charts and diagrams and whatnot that reading it on the Kindle is actually kind of annoying. So, take that into account.

Speaking of analyzing stats, here's something to consider in the off-season when the FA market gets going.

Wins don't matter.

Now, some sabremetricians think Wins don't matter at all, and I'm not totally behind that, but certainly, they're not as important as we thought they were. A 20-game winner is not immediately among the elite pitchers in the league, especially when Storm Davis went 19-7 in 1989, and did it with a horrendous ERA, ERA+, and WHIP (Davis's ERA was 4.36, the overall league average was 3.88).

So when you're considering a pitcher, don't think in terms of just wins, losses and ERA. Look at those other stats and consider what your scouts say, and you may save yourself from having a $20M albatross around your neck for the next 5-7 seasons.

Prederick wrote:

Speaking of analyzing stats, here's something to consider in the off-season when the FA market gets going.

Wins don't matter.

Now, some sabremetricians think Wins don't matter at all, and I'm not totally behind that, but certainly, they're not as important as we thought they were. A 20-game winner is not immediately among the elite pitchers in the league, especially when Storm Davis went 19-7 in 1989, and did it with a horrendous ERA, ERA+, and WHIP (Davis's ERA was 4.36, the overall league average was 3.88).

So when you're considering a pitcher, don't think in terms of just wins, losses and ERA. Look at those other stats and consider what your scouts say, and you may save yourself from having a $20M albatross around your neck for the next 5-7 seasons.

Yep, I have read the WHIP, FIP and even VORP (what I would think is more a batters stat) comes into play. (they actually were using VORP recently to show the best 10 pitcher/catcher duos.)

Also, when C. Schilling was posting, he was championing a stat he had created (can't think of the name of it now) and I believe OOTP incorporated it in their stats.

FYI: For those folks who subscribe to MLB.TV (not.com), they have a series called, "Between the Seams" . A most recent one that repeats here and there, is on 'history of stats'. Pretty interesting and they interview allot of folks you read about in Moneyball.

And speaking of Storm Davis, this follows in the same vein as why Felix Hernandes won the Cy Young award last year. He was just 13-12, and the Mariners was rock bottom last in the standings. BUT he had a 2.27 ERA, WHIP: 1.057, ERA+: 174, WAR:2.9, etc.

mitchson wrote:

"The Draft"

I haven't seen any conversation regarding upcoming draft after Pred threw it out for suggestions. Here is mine....
I would like to be involved in the 1st through 5th Rounds. After that the A1 can do the rest of the draft. Curious if A1 would use our scout's potential rating to pick players for the subsequent rounds?
Do a live draft for 5 rounds with everyone having one minute to pick. Then if you don't pick, A1 picks for you for that round. That way it would take no more than 80 minutes for five rounds. Could be less if people pick quickly.
Not sure if feasible or how much work this would make for the "Commish."

If it is not feasible to have a live draft am comfortable with scout as long as we know the highest rated player available. BUT, what if we have needs at a few positions that we would like filled? So, I go back to the live draft for a few rounds so we have a little control.

Mitchson- Seattle Rain

I don't think the draft has to be live...if folks fill out their draft rankings within OOTP it should auto draft based on those lists. I'm new to this too, so I could be dead wrong, but there are options for each round to have your scout fill out the rankings, or to have him fill out rankings for all rounds.

Landshrk83 wrote:

I don't think the draft has to be live...if folks fill out their draft rankings within OOTP it should auto draft based on those lists. I'm new to this too, so I could be dead wrong, but there are options for each round to have your scout fill out the rankings, or to have him fill out rankings for all rounds.

Not sure I understand. Are those lists of players? And what are the rankings? Is there some place to read about this? I will check ootp manual for info, but if there is somewhere specific let me know.
Thanks
Mitchson

Sent a list of 8 in, rest can be handled by my infamous Scouting team

Tox Donan - San Diego Surfers

So, a bit off topic, but also on topic, is anyone going to see Moneyball?

mitchson wrote:
Landshrk83 wrote:

I don't think the draft has to be live...if folks fill out their draft rankings within OOTP it should auto draft based on those lists. I'm new to this too, so I could be dead wrong, but there are options for each round to have your scout fill out the rankings, or to have him fill out rankings for all rounds.

Not sure I understand. Are those lists of players? And what are the rankings? Is there some place to read about this? I will check ootp manual for info, but if there is somewhere specific let me know.
Thanks
Mitchson

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/docu...

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/docu...

garion333 wrote:

So, a bit off topic, but also on topic, is anyone going to see Moneyball?

Yes! This afternoon with Bro' (oh, and wives).

Here is my rant about draft.

I throughly enjoy all aspects of this game. I look forward to the sims sent twice a week to see results of decisions made.

I believe the draft also is a key part of team's future. I would like to take part because of the thrill of selecting those players that will be cornerstones on your team in the future. I know by the threads you are writing that you are trying everything you can to get best performance out of players. If you are investing that much time in your team then why wouldn't you want to invest time in the draft and do a live draft.

I would get up at four in morning or at whatever time to accomodate others who are interested in a live draft. As I pointed out 5 rounds would take about 80 minutes or less.
And we could do three rounds to keep it under an hour. Those who want to depend on scouts for those rounds can do so.

Would like to hear opinions.

Thanks
Mitchson - Seattle Rain

Prederick- I ranked my top 20 or so and copy/pasted that list across all rounds. Do you know if that was included when I uploaded my team via FTP?

And Mitchson- if Prederick can confirm that my rankings were included with my upload, that would be my preferred draft method.

Pred

Haven't loaded any lists of players to draft list as of yet but exported file. As soon as I know which way we are going will do what you and concensus wants to do. Btw, if you loosen $ situation will that nullify the $ required by Extremely Hard players? On my shortlist I excluded all Extremely Hard players.
Thanks
Mitchson

I'm not that overly concerned with the draft myself. It's nowhere near as important as in football. For Front Office Football we do live drafts that usually last about a week. Some helpful individual (not the developer, it should be said) continues to develop a program to be utilized with FOF sites to hold drafts outside of the game.

Anyway, I'm just going to submit a list and if we do a live draft, I'll attempt to make it (probably can).

Edit: Actually, my scout is really smart and putting the players in an order that I like. I'm just going to upload his list with a couple tweaks.

My internet is down at home till tomorrow. So I've run over to Starbucks to ftp my game files. So if this was premature or whatever, let me know and what to do.