BLB Feeder Leagues

[spot]

You can say that again!

[Carlos]

Do you know how many feeder leagues he's running? I haven't used them much but if i remember correctly only a fraction of the players in a feeder league actually make it to the draft. Thus, you'd need an extremely large number of feeder leagues to get background stats, etc for the entire draft class.

http://betabaseball.com/exports/news/html/index.html

That should give you a general idea on what's going on.

I was going to mention this. He is forced into creating some players for the draft as the leagues still don't supply enough talent to fill the rounds. And from what I remember, Beta runs with less rounds than the BLB.

[Ryan]

I'm getting ready to create some test leagues that will help shine some light on this issue.

First league will mirror the BLB so we can get an idea of how much bigger the league file will be. I'll also add a Low A league to see how that works out. I'll do these separately so we can see what we have in both.

The second, I'll make a smaller league to see how the scouting reports are kept on HS/college guys.

If anyone want to see anything else, let me know.

[Andrew]

I added two 30 team feeder leagues to a test BLB file and it only increased the file size from 14.7mb to 17.9mb. Not a very big difference and still smaller than it was in OOTP 8. My thoughts:

- the formula most people use for feeder leagues on the ootp forums is:
# of teams (24) * # of rounds (15) / 6 (estimate of how many players per feeder team enter the draft each year). This comes out to 60 teams which should have generated ~ 360 players but it actually generated over 500. I'm guessing this evens out over time but from what I've read it's much better to have the feeder leagues create too few players (and let the game generate the rest normally).

- I'm much more willing to consider this than adding a 4th minor league. Reasons being are that feeder leagues don't require any more management by owners and it would provide a lot more information for us to use during the draft.

- the thought of injuries occurring in feeder leagues scares the crap out of me. Will all these players be injury prone and have taken talent hits before they reach the draft? I guess we could shut injuries off in feeder leagues, but this would eliminate another level of evaluation (ie deciding whether or not to draft a guy with high potential but had a few injuries). This will need extensive testing.

- I think the earliest this could be implemented is at the start of the 1986 season for the 1987 draft. Although I'm not sure how many games college and high school teams usually play, so theoretically we could schedule them to start later this summer.

My suggestion, if we do decide to implement feeder leagues.

- create enough feeder leagues for about 9 rounds of the draft. This would only be 36 teams and would be split between high school and college age.

- Make the foreigner percentage in feeder leagues extremely low. 5% maybe. This way the feeder leagues would be made up mostly of American players.

- Let the game create the remaining players for the draft, ~6 rounds. Make the foreigner % for these players very high. So almost all foreign born players would enter the draft without any college or high school experience.

[Andrew]

The second, I'll make a smaller league to see how the scouting reports are kept on HS/college guys.

I tested the file size for feeder leagues, but I'd be very curious about this. File size will increase as more scouting reports are generated.

[Ryan]

I tested the file size for feeder leagues, but I'd be very curious about this. File size will increase as more scouting reports are generated.

I'll get on this after lunch.

[Jistic]

Playing the role of Jistic.... Clay T. Shaver

I'm not sure I like the idea of feeder leagues. I think most of us would agree that the biggest bitching point in the BLB is the injuries. I'm afraid that giving these rookies wear and tear on their virtual bodies before they ever play a Single A game is only going to impact them negatively.

You've invoked my name three times.....and now you must die.

[Ryan]

I tested the file size for feeder leagues, but I'd be very curious about this. File size will increase as more scouting reports are generated.

Alright, so heres what I found after a few seasons:

-I created a 6 team 'major' league with 6 college and 6 high school teams for a total 12 feeder teams.

-College teams played 40 games, High School teams played 30

-Scouting reports are kept for all years in which a player is on a feeder league team. A player gets one scouting report a year, though I think all guys are scouted right before the draft as well. For example, the draft pool was revealed on May 16th. Guys are scouted then, and they are also scouted on June 1st. The draft was on June 15th, so I'm assuming since they were released by their feeder league teams into the draft pool these guys are now a part of the 'major' league, so they are scouted at the beginning of the month.

-However, past reports only reflect years in which the league is active. For example, two years into my test league, most guys had two years worth of scouting reports since they had been playing in feeder leagues for two years. By year four most guys had four scouting reports for the four years in which they played in feeder leagues.

-With my setup, stats were kept for just about all of the players, with the exception of guys that were added to the draft pool that didnt play in a feeder league.

Overall, I think this is a pretty nice feature to add to our league. It's interesting to see how the stats correlate to a players performance. It's also nice to see how, for instance, a HS'er progresses from his freshman year to his draft year (senior year).

I'll save this league, so if anyone has any questions about anything I didnt post, let me know and I'll check into it.

[Andrew]

So it's only 4 extra reports per player. The league file size increase would be minimal in that case.

If you're up for testing more chippered, maybe take a look at injury proneness for feeder league players. I'm curious to know if they start with the same spread of proneness as a normal draft class (in which case, it seems like injuries would increase because they would have more chances to get hurt) or if their proneness is developed over their time in the feeder leagues.

[Ryan]

So it's only 4 extra reports per player. The league file size increase would be minimal in that case.

If you're up for testing more chippered, maybe take a look at injury proneness for feeder league players. I'm curious to know if they start with the same spread of proneness as a normal draft class (in which case, it seems like injuries would increase because they would have more chances to get hurt) or if their proneness is developed over their time in the feeder leagues.

Just so i'm understanding you, are you wondering if guys get hurt thoughout their feeder league career if they are hurt earlier in it?

[Clay]

No... check their proneness in edit mode... see if it starts lower in the feeder league than a draft pool player.

[Ryan]

No... check their proneness in edit mode... see if it starts lower in the feeder league than a draft pool player.

Lol, alright. Do you want me to randomly pick a guy and check him when he's say, a freshman in HS, then check him again when he's in the draft?

[Andrew]

Lol, alright. Do you want me to randomly pick a guy and check him when he's say, a freshman in HS, then check him again when he's in the draft?

Yeah, check a few different players. I'm curious about their proneness as a freshman, any injuries they suffer during HS and their proneness when they enter the draft.

Basically wonder if we'll see more injuries in the BLB because players "exist" for longer.

[Ryan]

Alright, I'm tracking a team right now. I'm keeping track of overall proneness, back, legs, and arm proneness as well.

I'll see what I can get.

[Carlos]

Very cool.