I mentioned this a while back when I surveyed whether people would rather I do this or all-decade teams and this won. I said then that I wasn't going to talk much about it until significant progress had been made. Fortunately, I'm far enough along that I'm comfortable getting a thread going, as I HOPE for a complete Version 1 to be done by the end of the month.
I am a huge fan of cross-era matchups. I love history, but I don't like historical replays...I know what DID happen. I'm far more interested in the what ifs. As much I loved doing TotalMinors for High Heat, MVP and OOTP, it's the cross era stuff from my old Franchise Stars roster set for OOTP that I had the most fun with.
Briefly, what this will have:
At least 55 players per team: I created a list of each franchise's best players based on Wins Above Replacement. I set up the top 4 at catcher and the four infield positions, top 10 outfielders, top 15 starters and top 10 relievers. I wanted teams to include relievers, like real teams, rather than be loaded with 10-12 starters. That's not a team to me. It also gets some sleepers into the set, which is fun.
One player, one team: Any roster I've ever made I think of being used in a season/franchise setting. So I don't like, say, Reggie Jackson playing for the Yankees AND the A's or Tris Speaker playing for the Red Sox AND the Indians. I think of it as a universe. Players were assigned, however, not based on their WAR, but based on their position ranking (i.e., where they are on each team's depth chart). A case is Torii Hunter, who despite having a higher WAR for the Twins, is on the Angels because he ranks 5th on the Angels ALLTIME outfield WAR ranking but 10th on the alltime Twins WAR ranking.
Alltime MEANS alltime: This is an observation over years of doing this...most (not all!) "alltime" sets I have seen seem to be "Hall of Famers and then the best since 1970" or so. I love baseball history. So this set will have a lot of the great, forgotten pre-war players for the franchises that go back that far: Travis Jackson, Stan Hack, Heinie Groh, Dixie Walker, Cecil Travis, etc.
Level playing field: All players will be rated using Baseball Prospectus' Davenport Translations, which adjust for era. This lets players like Frank Home Run Baker of the A's be a 30 homer guy as opposed to a 10 homer guy as he was the deadball era. Pitchers are adjusted the same way, obviously.
Real splits: All ratings will have proper, real-life split adjustments for hitters. My spreadsheets run their translated stats through their real-life R/L splits.
One drawback...I am a terrible face maker, and honestly don't care too much about that (though I respect greatly the guys here who are good at it). Hair color and such will be right, but getting face shapes right is far more time than I have, and the gameplay means far more to me.
Recognition goes to KCRoyals, whose first set is what I started from, and all the guys working on bedwardsroy18's set (him, PJSnell, Chisox, Mysterioman, Maizeblue13...smack me if I missed anyone) for any player who I lifted as a base. While I'm redoing ratings for everyone, any one of those guys that I started from saved me time, and thus they deserve appreciation and credit.
There will be plenty of revisions after the first release, but the main goal is the "WAR 25-man Roster" for each team (though there will be 40+ guys per franchise at the start, I want to make sure the top 25 are included for all), with the hitting and pitching ratings adjusted accordingly. I will then create a revision list and tackle one thing per version.
At this point I have more than 30 players for each team, batting ratings entered for 20 teams, pitching ratings entered for 10. Should have another 10 of those entered by Tuesday, which will put us 2/3 of the way to Version 1.
I realize this is a niche project, but hopefully some others will find it enjoyable.
GH
I am a huge fan of cross-era matchups. I love history, but I don't like historical replays...I know what DID happen. I'm far more interested in the what ifs. As much I loved doing TotalMinors for High Heat, MVP and OOTP, it's the cross era stuff from my old Franchise Stars roster set for OOTP that I had the most fun with.
Briefly, what this will have:
At least 55 players per team: I created a list of each franchise's best players based on Wins Above Replacement. I set up the top 4 at catcher and the four infield positions, top 10 outfielders, top 15 starters and top 10 relievers. I wanted teams to include relievers, like real teams, rather than be loaded with 10-12 starters. That's not a team to me. It also gets some sleepers into the set, which is fun.
One player, one team: Any roster I've ever made I think of being used in a season/franchise setting. So I don't like, say, Reggie Jackson playing for the Yankees AND the A's or Tris Speaker playing for the Red Sox AND the Indians. I think of it as a universe. Players were assigned, however, not based on their WAR, but based on their position ranking (i.e., where they are on each team's depth chart). A case is Torii Hunter, who despite having a higher WAR for the Twins, is on the Angels because he ranks 5th on the Angels ALLTIME outfield WAR ranking but 10th on the alltime Twins WAR ranking.
Alltime MEANS alltime: This is an observation over years of doing this...most (not all!) "alltime" sets I have seen seem to be "Hall of Famers and then the best since 1970" or so. I love baseball history. So this set will have a lot of the great, forgotten pre-war players for the franchises that go back that far: Travis Jackson, Stan Hack, Heinie Groh, Dixie Walker, Cecil Travis, etc.
Level playing field: All players will be rated using Baseball Prospectus' Davenport Translations, which adjust for era. This lets players like Frank Home Run Baker of the A's be a 30 homer guy as opposed to a 10 homer guy as he was the deadball era. Pitchers are adjusted the same way, obviously.
Real splits: All ratings will have proper, real-life split adjustments for hitters. My spreadsheets run their translated stats through their real-life R/L splits.
One drawback...I am a terrible face maker, and honestly don't care too much about that (though I respect greatly the guys here who are good at it). Hair color and such will be right, but getting face shapes right is far more time than I have, and the gameplay means far more to me.
Recognition goes to KCRoyals, whose first set is what I started from, and all the guys working on bedwardsroy18's set (him, PJSnell, Chisox, Mysterioman, Maizeblue13...smack me if I missed anyone) for any player who I lifted as a base. While I'm redoing ratings for everyone, any one of those guys that I started from saved me time, and thus they deserve appreciation and credit.
There will be plenty of revisions after the first release, but the main goal is the "WAR 25-man Roster" for each team (though there will be 40+ guys per franchise at the start, I want to make sure the top 25 are included for all), with the hitting and pitching ratings adjusted accordingly. I will then create a revision list and tackle one thing per version.
At this point I have more than 30 players for each team, batting ratings entered for 20 teams, pitching ratings entered for 10. Should have another 10 of those entered by Tuesday, which will put us 2/3 of the way to Version 1.
I realize this is a niche project, but hopefully some others will find it enjoyable.
GH
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