Baseball Mogul 2006 Preview Thread (Yes, Virginia, there ARE lefties and righties!)

[Jeff Olsen]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

so Every player's the same differential?

well, that's not as bad.

But it's nowhere near good or acceptable.

Not much different from OOTP, in which groups of players are the same differential.

[Suicane75]

I wish the damn thing would go on sale already.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

See I dont agree with that, running the Yankess shouldnt necessarily be easy. You will have alot of money to work with but, especially with prospects it should be a crapshoot. Scouting veterans should be dead on. This wont make running a small market team impossible but it would require smart moves and some luck similiar to the situation with the Twins and Athletics.

[Ben E Lou]

SP Gene Conley's contract is up. He's a 29-year-old 9th-year player. He was 11-12 with a 4.82 ERA this year. He is rated 79 overall, and made $6.0M this year, has his top friend on the Phils,ma nd his personality is "self-centered."

INITIAL REQUEST: 6 years, $5.94M.
INITIAL RUMOR: Gene is willing to be flexible to stay in Philadelphia. (flat-mouth face)

WE OFFER: 4yrs/$5M.
RESPONSE: You'll have to put more on the table before we agree to that.
COUNTER-OFFER: 6yrs/$5.05M
RUMOR: Money isn't Gene's number one priority.

WE OFFER: 5yrs/$5M
RESPONSE: We like the basic terms but we need a bit more.
COUNTER-OFFER: 5yrs/$5.05M
RUMOR: same

Since he just came down a year, I offer him the same deal (5yrs/$5M), and he accepts.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by TheOhioStateUniversity

See I dont agree with that, running the Yankess shouldnt necessarily be easy. You will have alot of money to work with but, especially with prospects it should be a crapshoot. Scouting veterans should be dead on. This wont make running a small market team impossible but it would require smart moves and some luck similiar to the situation with the Twins and Athletics.

Have you played Mogul before? I was merely responding to the question within the Mogul system. I'm fairly certain that the financial/scouting system isn't going to be completely overhauled at the 11th hour now, so it is what it is. And, given the system we have to work with, if the Yankees weren't easy to run by an experienced Mogul player, then the Twins and A's would virtually never be able to sign FA's, or even re-sign their own prospects, or, for that matter, even see their prospects develop into good players (because you'd have to rachet down your minor league spending so low that even that wouldn't work very well.)

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

Actually I have played every version of Mogul. The twins and A's in real life are usually never able to sign more than middle or low tier free agents anyway. Also if you are using a small market team in Mogul the majority of your money SHOULD go to the farm team and this is quite effective. You can develop talent and eventually trade them away when they become too expensive. Thats not impossible thats reality.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by TheOhioStateUniversity

Actually I have played every version of Mogul. The twins and A's in real life are usually never able to sign more than middle or low tier free agents anyway. Also if you are using a small market team in Mogul the majority of your money SHOULD go to the farm team and this is quite effective. You can develop talent and eventually trade them away when they become too expensive. Thats not impossible thats reality.

I found it was difficult to keep BOTH scouting and farm system spending high in the new versions with a small market team. Without both being high, either your scouting is somewhat of a crapshoot and your development is good, or your scouting is great, but they don't develop. Now that there's an actual amateur draft, farm system spending impacts development, so both farm AND scouting become vital for getting a good set of young, cheap players. Used to be, you could just set your minor league spending high, not worry about your scouting, and count on several of your prospects to start putting up good numbers.

[dawgfan]

Wouldn't the best solution to the big-revenue/small-revenue and scouting accuracy issue be to cap the amount you could spend on scouting and even at that highest level of scouting retain some degree of inaccuracy? A big-revenue team could overcome that inaccuracy by simply being able to absorb more bad contracts than a small-revenue team.

This would model reality - the Yankees don't necessarily have a more accurate scouting department than the Twins or A's, but they can gobble up the best free agents without batting an eye, and if one or two of them bust, no biggie.

[MizzouRah]

Is there a reason you can download the beta and play it?


Todd

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by henry296

Skydog,

What are the demands that a 27 year old pitcher with current ratings in the mid to upper 80s. Assuming he develops that would be his situation after the contract he initially demanded expired.

A question. How does it work with a player and owner option. What comes first?

TOdd

OK. In the open market, I found a 29-year-old SP rated 88/88, who signed for $7.75M. That makes me feel better about the long-term deal for a little over $5M for an unproven guy.

[sovereignstar]

Just a quick reality check for all the BBM bandwagon jumpers.

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=24418

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=18143

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Wouldn't the best solution to the big-revenue/small-revenue and scouting accuracy issue be to cap the amount you could spend on scouting and even at that highest level of scouting retain some degree of inaccuracy? A big-revenue team could overcome that inaccuracy by simply being able to absorb more bad contracts than a small-revenue team.

That makes sense, whether by a hard-cap or a house rule. For those (like me) who would prefer not to deal with player evaluation, it would need to be left in, but it would be easy to put in a "my scout variance must be at least +/- x points at all times" house rule, or "my scouting spending can be no better than y-highest in the league, and I must check on it to make sure that it isn't any higher than that once a month." That would take care of it quite nicely. Remember, an 80 is supposed to be an average starter type player (looking at a true 80 right now--.264-18-59), and there are *very* few players with an overall rating higher than 92 or so. (One league I'm looking at has 7 91's, 3 92's, and 1 96.) So, a +/- of even 3 points is pretty significant. Anything above five is pretty much unrealistic--a +/- 6 for a guy with a rating of 86 would mean that your scouting department can't tell you for sure if this guy is an average starter (80), or one of the top four or five players in the game today (92).

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Just a quick reality check for all the BBM bandwagon jumpers.

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=24418

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=18143

Quick reality check for you:

Originally Posted by SkyDog

1. How well do the new features work? Will I really have to pay significantly more money to sign a guy when a team with one of his friends is also pursuing him? Will it cost more to sign a guy who thinks my organization is heading in the wrong direction? Do team and player options make a difference on contracts? Do call-ups/demtions in the expanded minor leagues work well?

2. How buggy will it be on release? As always, I really hope Clay holds it until the obvious bugs are squashed. I've yet to run into anything monumental like a crash bug, but there are still some bugs present.

In both of those previews, I commented on *what the new features were*, just as I have in this thread. In neither case (nor in this one) was there ANY way that I could project how well the new features would work, or how buggy they'd be upon release--which is precisely why I put this caveat in this thread. If Clay decides to pull a Stallings and release this thing a good bit before it is ready to roll, then it'll surely go up in flames.

[sovereignstar]

All that I'm saying is how much did (or does) everyone still play those games? How much do you play those games?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Is there a reason you can download the beta and play it?


Todd

My interest piqued by the things I was hearing about the game, I contacted Clay and asked about doing a preview of the game.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Is there a reason you can download the beta and play it?


Todd

http://www.sportsmogul.com/vbulletin...threadid=69590

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

All that I'm saying is how much did (or does) everyone still play those games? How much do you play those games?

I still play OOTP6 a good bit. (Heck, I took the time to test and re-test settings that worked for me: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...&postcount=131). TPF, not at all.

[MizzouRah]

I've toyed with it some and really like the depth of the game as far as stats go and the ease to find just about anything you want. It feels like the old BBM, but has a lot more to it.

I'm hoping the bug reports get less and less as I can see the game has a lot of promise. It was a good great for posting dynasties, because it flowed so well and you don't have to worry about the tedious setup ootp has.


Todd

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Sorry I meant ANYONE, I just did.


Todd

Check your PM's.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

My interest piqued by the things I was hearing about the game, I contacted Clay and asked about doing a preview of the game.

Sorry I meant ANYONE, I just did.


Todd

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

SkyDog I for one would like to avoid the need for "house rules" so if a minimum variance could be coded that would be desired.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by TheOhioStateUniversity

SkyDog I for one would like to avoid the need for "house rules" so if a minimum variance could be coded that would be desired.

I seriously doubt that he'd do that, nor would I recomment it. As I said, I'd be someone who would prefer to play with the possibility of *no* variance.

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I seriously doubt that he'd do that, nor would I recomment it. As I said, I'd be someone who would prefer to play with the possibility of *no* variance.

ugh. I'll agree to disagree with that one.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

ugh. I'll agree to disagree with that one.

I hear ya, and COMPLETELY understand where you're coming from. I have just found that I like the GM-ing aspects more of these games. I *LOVE* watching player development, specifically.

[Dreslough]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I seriously doubt that he'd do that, nor would I recomment it. As I said, I'd be someone who would prefer to play with the possibility of *no* variance.

Even though this thread is about Mogul, I STILL haven't read every post so I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to.

If you want NO VARIANCE in the Simulation, you can check "Simulation Mode" when you start the game. This will avoid any random number calls used when the player matures and ages. So if Adam Dunn is probably going to hit 550 homers, he'll end up close to this number (although injuries will still occur randomly). The default mode of play has more variance. You might sign Dunn for $100 million, only to find his performance drop off the table (like Jason Giambi recently) or spike in his mid-30s (like Bonds).

If you want NO VARIANCE in the Scouting, you can turn on Commissioner Mode.

(As for running a small market team without good Scouting, the challenge is in squeezing the most info from the stats. This is basically the "Small Ball" philosophy. Billy Beane doesn't care much if a 21-year-old is a "five-tool player". He looks at the stats. If a guy had a .500 OBP in college, you know he should be pretty good at getting on base on the majors, even if your Scouting isn't the best in the league.)

Clay

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

Even though this thread is about Mogul, I STILL haven't read every post so I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to.

If you want NO VARIANCE in the Simulation, you can check "Simulation Mode" when you start the game. This will avoid any random number calls used when the player matures and ages. So if Adam Dunn is probably going to hit 550 homers, he'll end up close to this number (although injuries will still occur randomly). The default mode of play has more variance. You might sign Dunn for $100 million, only to find his performance drop off the table (like Jason Giambi recently) or spike in his mid-30s (like Bonds).

If you want NO VARIANCE in the Scouting, you can turn on Commissioner Mode.

Clay

It was a discussion of should you be able to go all the way up to +/- 0 by spending enough on scouting. Some are saying they'd want a cap on how well your scouts could do, so that no matter how much money you spend you'd always have +/- {some number}.

[Dreslough]

Originally Posted by Jeff Olsen

Not much different from OOTP, in which groups of players are the same differential.

Just to clarify, Scouting of "+/- 7" means the "real" rating is anywhere from 7 points higher to 7 points lower. It COULD be exactly right or very close, and will be within 3 or 4 more often than off by 7.

Clay

[dolfin]

I've noticed when signing free agents after the game intialization, that their salary ends up being what they were initially demanding instead of what was negotiated. This happened for two players.

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

You might sign Dunn for $100 million, only to find his performance drop off the table (like Jason Giambi recently) or spike in his mid-30s (like Bonds).

So, steroids did make it into the game after all.

[Dreslough]

Originally Posted by dolfin

I've noticed when signing free agents after the game intialization, that their salary ends up being what they were initially demanding instead of what was negotiated. This happened for two players.

Cool thanks for the bug report.

[Dreslough]

Some folks have pointed out that our "Private Beta Test" isn't so private. The beta forum isn't locked and I've got better things to do right now than figure out why.

I'm OK with having more beta testers. So if you stumbled into a copy of the beta, you are welcome to try it. All I ask is that you keep it to yourself, and that you please reports any bugs in the Sports Mogul forums.

(I won't post the link here. If you'd like to be a beta tester you'll have to go find the link at www.sportsmogul.com).

Thanks for the interest and feedback!

Clay

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

Some folks have pointed out that our "Private Beta Test" isn't so private. The beta forum isn't locked and I've got better things to do right now than figure out why.

I'm OK with having more beta testers. So if you stumbled into a copy of the beta, you are welcome to try it. All I ask is that you keep it to yourself, and that you please reports any bugs in the Sports Mogul forums.

(I won't post the link here. If you'd like to be a beta tester you'll have to go find the link at www.sportsmogul.com).

Thanks for the interest and feedback!

Clay

Testing now. Been testing for awhile and have some feedback I'll send ya when I get a sec.


Todd

[CraigSca]

Clay,

Not sure if you're still around but I'll try anyway. When I was referring to variance, I noticed that if you have A+ scouting the variance ultimately becomes +- 0. As I said earlier, you could spend billions on scouting, but there's always going to be speculation when it comes to scouting a player. Therefore, it was suggested that there should be a "cap" on the variance in the counting reports. Meaning...no matter how much you spend on scouting, your variance could never become 0 (personally, I'd like to see it at +- 5 as the bare minimum, but that's just me).

[21C]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Not sure if you're still around but I'll try anyway. When I was referring to variance, I noticed that if you have A+ scouting the variance ultimately becomes +- 0. As I said earlier, you could spend billions on scouting, but there's always going to be speculation when it comes to scouting a player. Therefore, it was suggested that there should be a "cap" on the variance in the counting reports. Meaning...no matter how much you spend on scouting, your variance could never become 0 (personally, I'd like to see it at +- 5 as the bare minimum, but that's just me).

Even if you have A+ scouting, there is no guarantee that they will perform to that ability. You may have a player with a 93 rating ( based on a +-0 ) hitting .265 with 18 HR and a player with a rating of 75 hitting .315 with 35 HR.

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by 21c

Even if you have A+ scouting, there is no guarantee that they will perform to that ability. You may have a player with a 93 rating ( based on a +-0 ) hitting .265 with 18 HR and a player with a rating of 75 hitting .315 with 35 HR.

Cool, 21c. In last year's version I never really noticed that.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

If you want NO VARIANCE in the Simulation, you can check "Simulation Mode" when you start the game. This will avoid any random number calls used when the player matures and ages. So if Adam Dunn is probably going to hit 550 homers, he'll end up close to this number (although injuries will still occur randomly).
Clay

What about other factors besides injuries? Would playing in a pitcher's park reduce that number? How about overall quality of pitching in the league? If I were to bring in the historical NL pitchers from 1960 for instance, would that measurably limit his production throughout the decade?

[MizzouRah]

I'm seeing way too many goofy trade offers between games. Does this level off?


Todd

[MizzouRah]

How do you watch just "your" game?

Also, I really like the headlines and how you can click on the stats and cycle through them right there, nice.


Todd

[Jeff Olsen]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

How do you watch just "your" game?

I think it's in League Options where you can set it for all games or just your team. You'll need to switch it back to all if you want to watch the All-Stars.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

The default mode of play has more variance. You might sign Dunn for $100 million, only to find his performance drop off the table (like Jason Giambi recently) or spike in his mid-30s (like Bonds).

I hope that's rare.

[jbmagic]

i dont understand how the scouts expense Budget work?

i pick a high amount and it shows i am #1 among the other teams.

but it shows i am a D+ in scouting for my team (News, Finances section). and if i change the expense amount on scouting lower or higher it still shows a D+

also i notice when changing my scout expense amount up or down, the +/- Number is still the same when i scout my player.

[21C]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

i dont understand how the scouts expense Budget work?

i pick a high amount and it shows i am #1 among the other teams.

but it shows i am a D+ in scouting for my team (News, Finances section). and if i change the expense amount on scouting lower or higher it still shows a D+

also i notice when changing my scout expense amount up or down, the +/- Number is still the same when i scout my player.

It's not an instant change. You have to be #1 in scouting over a period of time - something like a season but I forget how long. As you sim, you should see a change to the scouting grade.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Jeff Olsen

I think it's in League Options where you can set it for all games or just your team. You'll need to switch it back to all if you want to watch the All-Stars.

Thanks!


Todd

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I have no idea how to post pictures, but I will relate my findings.

Ran a historical league on simulation mode last night beginning in the year 1901.

148 total hall of famers. 107 of those are pitchers. It seems a bit pitcher heavy to me. No Mickey Mantle in the HOF, no Babe Ruth, no Ty Cobb etc. So even on simulation mode there seems to be great variance.

Also only one hitter has gotten to 3000 hits. Care to guess who it is? That's right, the immortal Shaun Dunston.

And only 4 hitters have reached 500 home runs: Cecil Fielder, Gary Carter, Bob Robertson and Harmon Killebrew.

[Buccaneer]

Thanks, LWSFS.

[TLK]

After finally making it through the whole thread, it sounds like Mogul will be worth a purchase. Never thought I'd be saying that....

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by TheLionKing

After finally making it through the whole thread, it sounds like Mogul will be worth a purchase. Never thought I'd be saying that....

Have you tried the beta yet?

[FBPro]

All the links to the beta I found were dead, can anyone help?

[Barkeep49]

How does one put someone on the DL?

[Ksyrup]

The game looks really nice. A lot of new stuff that really makes this a completely new game for me (5 years later). A couple of notes after simming in simulation mode from 1901 until 1919:

1. The biggest issue I've seen so far is the worrisome trend of players spending way too much time in the minors in the middle/end of their careers. Nap Lajoie made the HoF, but only played in the majors through 2008. He spent all of 2009, part of 2010, then all of 2011 through 2015 in the minors, getting 7 ABs in 2015 before retiring. He hit well over .300 in every minor league season, although admittedly, his averages had begun to decline around 2007. Still, he probably should have retired earlier.

Another strange one is Eddie Matteson, a reliever who pitched in the majors for 6 seasons, compiling a career ERA of 1.32. 1909 was his last season (1.64 ERA); he then spent the next decade in the minors before retiring in the spring of 1920. I don't get that one.

2. Since I mentioned Matteson, another thing I don't get is the all-time leader board. Matteson and his 239 career IP are atop the ERA leader board. Don't tell me a bunch of relievers and pinch-hitters are going to populate the Avg and ERA leaderboards. A bunch of guys from pre-1901 (I assume) lead the league in average, well over .300 each. Speed Kelly has a lifetime average of .410 in 527 ABs, and he's 6th in all-time average. Those aren't still there in 1980, are they?! Why are they even there now?!?!

3. FYI, it appears Babe Ruth comes in as a pitcher, so if you want him as a hitter, you probably need to begin around 1919 or so (haven't checked that specifically, but he did just win the 1919 Cy Young Award).