There are probably a few people I can still upgrade. It is just a matter of finding the deals on the AH like that Doolittle I grabbed for 1999. I tried some packs at the end of last season, and it is also painful to watch 6000+ pp go down the toilet with pretty much nothing to show for it. I need to go back to running my laptop while I am working and keeping an eye on the AH.
Nice, I went to work this morning and had like 2800pp, came home and now I have 6700! 2500 was a reward from getting my question read on the podcast but still my team got like 1500 so far today!
Forum effect has drawn me in. I was a huge baseball stat geek in the 90’s and actively followed baseball up through about 2010 but I haven’t been really following things over the past few years (outside of the Braves and Astros).
It’s frustrating to know that my team is playing away while I’m working. After purchasing last night I managed to upgrade a few spots such that I have two golds and only one bronze on my starting lineup. Pitching isn’t in as good a shape as I needed to get to sleep but the starters are ok. Now I just need to make some PP to actually afford to do anything else.
What is everyone’s feeling of old players versus LIVE!? I like the older cards (especially ones that have meaning to me from Strat leagues in the past) but the live ones are cheaper on the AH.
A couple of specific questions -
Do cards change between simulated seasons? In other words do the players age in the simulation? It seems unlikely but you never know.
Is there any way to see ratings on cards you don’t own or that aren’t in the AH? Basically is there a searchable, sortable database in or out of game?
Can you see the L/R splits for players and did they attempt to include them for older players? Did they use historical splits for players that had historically big splits (during the time for which we have data on such things)?
Has anyone developed a feeling for how important defense is?
I personally like historical players more. I’m not sure yet how live is going to impact perfect team in ootp19. In ootp20 and possibly ootp19, the live cards will change at certain intervals to reflect how the player is performing.
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No players do not age. I think the only thing that really changes is a player can get a rating from playing another position and that will stay with him. Other ratings don’t change though.
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I don’t know of a way other than finding the card on a team in your league currently.
Cards don’t change/age
There is an unofficially database that isn’t fully complete but has most of the cards. There is no way in game to find that info unfortunately. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y2to9fyUP39hPVpq7F--2Tb9LKfCYknXve6oYOseMQA/edit#gid=0
You can see rating splits if you click on a players card and then go to ratings. You can’t do this with players in the AH though.
I like how you scored exactly 5 runs in 7 of those games.
@Bismark, just some random thoughts:
–I rely on OBP because it is simple, and then ensure I have some power and speed. I try not to overthink lineups.
–I think defense is often overlooked. I place a lot of emphasis in making sure I have good defense up the middle, and will overlook a poor bat if they bring solid D, particularly if they can cover ground to make up for the poor defense of a corner guy. Among the defensive stats I focus on zone rating.
–Most of all, everyone develops their own way of gauging players, and that is part of the fun. Develop your gut and you’ll be extremely satisfied when it pays off.
This is intentional, and it is actually meant to mimic the unpredictable and often bizarre nature of real baseball. The devs intended that we will never fully know what is going on behind the curtain. There is always going to be a mystery to the performance of players that we, as ‘owners/GMs/managers,’ will never find explained.
That, over the years, has frustrated many, but the devs are adamant about not revealing too much of what is really happening. So when your ace starter turns to shit, and yet is not injured and maintains high ratings, you will never know why. (In Perfect Game, this will mitigate (and infuriate) the whales, just as real life owners who pay big bucks for a free agent and then the player turns to league average for no apparent reason).
I have always felt that because of that unpredictability, OOTP is not a great strategy game. It is too opaque. OOTP is, though, one of the greatest RPGs I have ever played, because characters and storylines come alive. In fact some of the best RGP experiences I’ve ever had have come in OOTP online leagues, where all the owners adopt a similar mindset of an alternate baseball world, be it historical, contemporary, or completely fictional. (I embraced that so much that I even wrote a novel based on one of my solo fictional leagues).
To that end, don’t pull your hair out when players (or your team as a whole) underperform compared to their ratings or past stats, or when you “don’t really know why that happened.” The ‘why’ is simple: because it is baseball. Through its intentional opaqueness, OOTP manages to capture that well.
It’s weird to me that they chose to go with no injuries. I am still running a 5 man rotation but just eye-ing things it seems like my players would always be recovered in time if I went with 4 and it’s not like I can blow out an arm.
I am torn between my desire to min/max video games and my desire to have a team that I consider still playing ‘real-ish’ baseball.
Injuries wouldn’t work when they are simming games every 30 minutes. My team basically plays 20 games while I am away at work. If a player went down for injury shortly after leaving for work then my team would be running down a man for 15-20 games which would suck.
I don’t know why the AI couldn’t manage injury replacements, it already manages fatigue to some extent. Or perhaps it is in-season fatigue where players can wear down. I don’t know the answer exactly, but it just feels shallow to me and the lack of injuries is a big part of it. For instance you could just have a 40 man of Cards and then every team could have a pool of the lowest trash 40ish players whatever that color is ?coal? available as the minor league AAAA replacement equivalent so there’s no risk of running out of people. There’s no way the existing AI that can handle multiple levels of teams and promotions couldn’t do that.
It’s fun to collect the players I love and build my team, but I feel like I’m going to have a team that I love with no real reason to change it sooner than later and then I guess I will just ignore it for a couple months and hope to come back to some pp goldmine or something?
This is mostly, I think, just criticism of how the game is not resonating with me versus being bad. I do applaud them that you can definitely put together a fun and solid team of players without having to grind or pay.
Yeah but then at the higher level you would have a 90+ rated player go down and be replaced with a 50-60 rated player? That wouldn’t be ideal. I guess you could change the rules based on level so say perfect league can use gold players as injury replacements? I don’t know, I’m sure the devs considered all this and decided it made things too complicated.
In online leagues, defense has always been very important, and I imagine it’s the same in OOTP. It’s a big priority for me when picking position players, especially middle-infield, outfield, catcher.
So do I! The devs have said that a few older cards may perform slightly better than their stats indicate. I haven’t really seen that, but I use lots of old guys, and they perform well on the whole.
My second-account team is supposed to be an all-Boston squad, but wow, it’s hard to find Boston players of any caliber on the Auction House! I’ve had to relax my rule to “Boston Braves, Bosox, or any player who once spent a season in Boston.”
My first-account team, meanwhile, is in first place in its Bronze division! As @triggercut mentioned, both our teams are hitting well.
So I am prepared to say that at least through qualifying and especially in Bronze leagues, the Southpaw gambit still works, and holy shit does it ever.
To reiterate, I have not spent one single thin penny of real world money on my Bronze league team. They are currently 63-26, and just wrecking everyone. I have only reinvested points the team has earned from performance back into itself. When I get a few, I’ll post my team.
But yeah. Consider the southpaws. It’s pretty fun. :D
My bronze bullpen is now full of nothing but lefties. So far it’s not working as they are ranked 10th in the AC and I’m in ranked in the top 5 of every other category. That being said, I am actually finding it difficult to find good right handed relievers in the AH. Every time I see a guy I might be interested in he ends up being a lefty.
I’m interested in seeing your rotation.
I did this for one of my teams that already had a few more lefties than usual, but I’m only 1 game over .500 and actually have a losing record at home. My frugal nature didn’t allow me to go hog wild on spending yet, just kind of dipped my toes in.
My bullpen ERA is 2nd in the conference and my hitting is doing well - 3rd in OPS and 4th in runs. But my rotation is struggling - 11th in ERA. I was hoping for more from Andy Pettite, he has 77 ERA+ and know I have to upgrade from Danny Duffy and his 76 ERA+, but I’m curious what pitchers are working well for those going the lefty route.
Isn’t the southpaw strategy focused on batters being lefties? I imagine you want righty pitchers.
What may have helped is spending a full week in the qualifier leagues. I was able to build up enough points there to stock a rotation.