BLB Feeder Leagues

[Ryan]

I could use the leagues I already tested for this, couldn't I?

[Riverman]

I will probably have time to do a test this weekend if someone would explain how to set up a league with feeders and how to get the game to sim without it stopping for messages that I don't want to read.

[Ryan]

I will probably have time to do a test this weekend if someone would explain how to set up a league with feeders and how to get the game to sim without it stopping for messages that I don't want to read.

I've got 2 or 3 leagues that mirror ours that I used for the testing earlier in this thread. I'll pull the info from them later tonight and post the results.

I may run another league later tonight/tomorrow to see what else I can find.

Everyone else, if your interested, feel free to run your own test leagues and we can all compare what we find.

[Ryan]

So I opened my most advance test league to look at the players that have been accumalated.

The league is nine years old and has the exact same set up as the BLB, except this league is using feeder leagues. FYI, there are 20 high school teams and 20 college teams.

I have scouting turned off, so I'm able to see actual ratings. I am using the same 2-8 scale we do.

After looking through the entire list of players in the league, I haven't found a single player similar to the guys we've been discussing.

I'm going to continue simming each year until the draft pool is released and check accordingly.

Please keep in mind though, that players are created randomly in this game. Players are not created any differently whether you are using a feeder league, or whether your players are created out of thin air like our leagues players are.

Its also my belief that the players that end up 5-2-2-2-2 or 6-2-2-2-2 are created that way from the beginning, and that they dont develop into these types.

I'm going to check the incoming players for college and high school teams to check this, but I wont know for sure in there arent any of these guys created, as like I said, its a random thing.

I'LL BE BAAHHHCK!!

[Ryan]

Just an update:

I'm 13 years into this league, and I have yet to find any of the guys we're looking for. I also checked a solo league I've been messing around with, and there arent any in there either.

But, I have had solo leagues in the past that have had this type of player. That was using OOTP 8 though.

[Andrew]

chippered, what's your recommendation for the number of teams? It seemed fairly close at 40 teams if i remember correctly. We want about 360 players a year in the draft class.

Also, anyone have data on how many players in the MLB draft are college age vs high school age?

[Andrew]

Also, I'm about ready to put this to a vote so if anyone is strongly against it please raise your concerns now.

[Clay]

I'm strongly against changing anything when things are working because this software is flaky.

[Pat]

My only problem with it is if it leads to issues with the league. I think we are really building great momentum (thanks Andrew), and I wouldn't want to slow that down.

[Ryan]

chippered, what's your recommendation for the number of teams? It seemed fairly close at 40 teams if i remember correctly. We want about 360 players a year in the draft class.

Also, anyone have data on how many players in the MLB draft are college age vs high school age?

40 feeder league teams were producing about 350 players a year on average.

Now, if we want less feeder league players fed into the draft each year, we can just lower the number of teams.

The remaining players will be created at random. I believe you will have to check the box for this in the game setup screen.

I'll look around and see if I can find some info about the HS/College split.

[Ryan]

Here's some info about college versus high school players:

This year 485 high school players were taken out of 1504 (about 32%).

This seems to be the norm over the last 20 years or so.

This came from MLB.com.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...2008&fext=.jsp

So, if we go forward with this, and we want to mirror MLB, we would want to cut the number of high school teams and ramp up the number of college teams.

[Andrew]

Good stuff. So that would be about 12 teams if we had 40 feeder league teams.

chippered, any thoughts on the age limits. I know most people do 15-18 for high school and 19-22 for college. However, I think this sometimes results in players who spend 5 years in a feeder league depending on their birthday. Would we be better off making them 16-18 and 20-22?

[Riverman]

Would we be better off making them 16-18 and 20-22?

It seems like 19 year olds should fit in somewhere. Or does everyone in the BLB world take a year off to bum around before entering college, like I did except it was for more than one year?

[Ryan]

Good stuff. So that would be about 12 teams if we had 40 feeder league teams.

chippered, any thoughts on the age limits. I know most people do 15-18 for high school and 19-22 for college. However, I think this sometimes results in players who spend 5 years in a feeder league depending on their birthday. Would we be better off making them 16-18 and 20-22?

I've actually been reading that most people go with 14-18 and 18-21.

Thats how I've done it in my solo leagues, just to give guys more background as far as the early HS age, and it allows guys the opportunity to come into the league at 21 instead of 22, giving the league a one year start on advancing the player. But it really shouldn't matter, I don't think.

If in fact we do implement this, I would suggest putting a couple of things to vote, the age limits being one of them. This way everyone's on board.