How is your game going?

[NewNapkin]

I thought it would nice to have a place where we can talk about our current game setups and how our teams/leagues are doing!

Currently I am running a fictional American Baseball League, a 16 team league with a great logo and uniform set I found on the OOTP Developments forums. Also included in my game is two levels of minor leagues (including a rookie league based in North and South Dakota), high school and NCAA feeder leagues, and an independent baseball league based in the Southeastern US.

I am currently the GM of the Nashville Blues, and the first ABL season just concluded. The Blues made it to the American Championship (the finals), but were defeated in 6 by the 4th seed in the west, the Los Angeles Reign. Jody Knowles, our star 1B won the league MVP award, but turned down his player option and demanded a $44m/year contract at 34, which I balked at (or couldn't afford... ). Now I have a tough decision to make.. try to replace him with a big signing, or start stockpiling young talent to try to build upon our basically nonexistent farm system. Oh, how I love OOTP.

Anyone else want to share?

[ThatSportsGamer]

Re: How is your game going?

I'm just going through right now and running a bunch of historical sims just to see some things.

My main interest is seeing how things would have shaken up had we not sent a large number of players to WW2.

A recent sim showed Ted Williams would have lead the Sox to 3 titles and taken the career home run lead over from Babe Ruth. Interestingly enough, Joe DiMaggio didn't have as great a career having played those years.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: How is your game going?

It's about time this game got it's own subforum! Now, hopefully people start actually posting in here...

Although I've had a lot of fun with fictional universes in the past, I decided I was going to do a pretty plain vanilla MLB real world +2 team expansion at the start of the 2016 season and taking control of one of the expansion teams. The new teams will be based in Las Vegas and Charlotte according to some nice logo/uniform sets I found on the OOTP Developments Modding forum (Disclaimer: I don't at all believe expansion is going to happen within the next 5 years and highly doubt Vegas would be a first choice if it did, but whatevs). I decided to take on the identity of Bob Watson, former Yankees GM (at the start of the mid-90s dynasty) and retired MLB office exec. I also thought he had an interesting playing career in "scoring the millionth run in baseball history" among other things.

I decided to sim out the '15 season with no intervention (no Price, Tulo, Zobrist etc..trades) and let an alternative history start so I'm not worried about mirroring real life moves. Here's a little summary:



It looks pretty reasonable. The Royals missed out on Zobrist + Cueto for their playoff push and fell short. The Mets not adding Cespedes etc were a below average club. The Cubs never really caught fire, but still made the playoffs. The Blue Jays didn't get Price + Tulo, so naturally they did worse and the Tigers and Rockies did better.

Some teams that really outperformed were the A's (after holding onto Kazmir and Zobrist), the Padres (OOTP was drinking Preller's Koolaid), and the White Sox (again could be a "won the offseason" type of boost).

The Pirates, Astros, Yankees, and Rangers did a lot worse than in real life, probably because they were surprise teams somewhat. OOTP also didn't see the Nationals folding down the stretch, but it did treat the defending champion Giants as an odd year, not an even year.


Some of the bigger trades that OOTP made included...

**Gio Gonzalez (WAS) for Neil Walker (PIT) and Melvin Jimenez (PIT)
--early season trade, both were performing poorly. Nats filled a hole at 2B

**Charlie Blackmon (COL) for Ricardo Sanchez (ATL) + Kelvin Estevez (ATL)
--a sight for sore eyes for Braves fans. Got that CF sans Inciarte trade

**Adam LaRoche (CWS) and Tyler Barnette (CWS) for Ian Kennedy (SD)
--Sox dump LaRoche like they are trying to do IRL. SD adds a 1B'man + prospect and cashes in trading a SP they weren't re-signing anyway

**Colby Rasmus (HOU) + $3M for Chris Archer (TB)
--I can't really defend this one; TB got slaughtered. However, Archer was not having a phenomenal '15 season (7-7, 3.90 ERA) like IRL. Rasmus had been very Rasmus-ian at the time of the trade (.237/.293/.507, 15 HR 37 RBI in 237 PA)...then he went into the toilet for TB (.194/.273/.310, 4 HR 12 RBI in 146 PA) for a very Rasmus-ian final line (.221/.285/.433, 18 HR 49 RBI in 380 PA). Oddly, Archer was even worse for HOU and led MLB in losses with 17 (with HOU: 2-10, 7.22 ERA, 1.89 WHIP in 77.1 IP)

**Kyle Gibson (MIN) for Touki Toussaint (ARZ)
--lol. Even virtual Stew has no love for Touki. Not a bad baseball trade though. Gibson's arsenal is a good fit for Chase Field

**Mike Leake (CIN) for LeVon Washington (CLE) and Julio Cabrera (CLE)
--an intra-Ohio deal that sees a good CLE rotation getting stronger. Leake had a Leake-ian season if ever there was one (8-10, 4.01 ERA, 186.2 IP, 126:38 K:BB)

As for the headscratching deals, the Braves dealt Ozhaino Albies and Jim Johnson to reacquire...wait for it....wait for it.............................Evan Gattis from the Astros. Virtual Luhnow must not think Correa will stick at SS. The virtual Braves are not ready to rebuild.

In another head scratcher, the Red Sox basically did a salary dump onto the Phillies by sending them Rusney Castillo for over-the-hill AAAA fodder Jerome Williams. In his defense, baseball J-Will was 7-3 with a 2.83 ERA at the time of the deal. AL East, here he comes!

So, of all the deals, the Archer for Rasmus was clearly the worst, and there were a couple of others. But, by and large, it wasn't a disaster, and the deals mostly made sense in the context of what was happening.

==============================================

As for the playoffs, the Tigers defeated the Padres 4-1 (in an homage to 1984) to win it all and get Mike Ilitch that title.

[mike24forever]

Re: How is your game going?

I'm just going through right now and running a bunch of historical sims just to see some things.

My main interest is seeing how things would have shaken up had we not sent a large number of players to WW2.

A recent sim showed Ted Williams would have lead the Sox to 3 titles and taken the career home run lead over from Babe Ruth. Interestingly enough, Joe DiMaggio didn't have as great a career having played those years.

This has got to be one of the greatest ideas I've read. Amazing. If this was an actual novel, i would actually read it. Who benefited the most? What were their stats like?

[ThatSportsGamer]

Re: How is your game going?

This has got to be one of the greatest ideas I've read. Amazing. If this was an actual novel, i would actually read it. Who benefited the most? What were their stats like?

I'm working on writing up something that will go up on OOTP's Facebook page next week. https://www.facebook.com/ootpbaseball/