Farm System Suggestion

[jad9423]

Because we only draft a few players each season, I suggest letting us determine how we focus our drafting....do I want to try to draft a stud pitcher and take weaker offensive draft picks, or do I want to split it up evenly? Do I want to draft a guy that I project will hit for power, or draft a fast guy? Do I need middle infielders, or want to develop a catcher?

You can't build too much of this without making it too complicated, but we should have some say in our draft picks.

[Particleman]

I think I've figured out how the drafting works. If you lose a starting pitcher to free agency, then it's likely that you'll get starting pitchers, if you lose a 1st baseman to free agency, then you'll likely recieve a 1st baseman, etc... This seems to be the pattern that I've noticed throughout my time playing. You want a lot of rookies? lose a lot of ppl to free agency. I figured this out when I noticed that the teams that were getting the best rookie starting pitchers were the teams controlled by idle players, and I was wondering why my rookies were consistenly poor players. (I always resigned my best players before the season ended) Then I decided to try something, I didn't extend the contract of a high priced, soon to be free agent, pitcher. And voila I had myself a rookie ace as soon as the season ended. Of course now that I've figured this out, I'm going to let the occasional good player that I don't think will be highly contested go into the free agent market, and maybe even sign some 1 year deals on some free agents before every season ends. Personally, I don't like this system, if it is indeed the way it works, since as soon as this becomes common knowledge everyone will be exploiting this left and right.

[Clay Dreslough]

Particleman,

I'm pretty sure what you're seeing is just a coincidence. The engine doesn't try to replace players you've lost to free agency.

In fact, I was thinking about adding some code that gave you compensatory draft picks when you lost a free agent, similar to the pros. But I haven't gotten around to it.

Clay

[nevets72]

Clay,

Compensory Draft Picks are good, but might it lead, given the Mogul system currently, lead to a high number of teams just dropping players to unload slarary. I like the way you can hold players on your team for a lower price now and I think getting extra picks may sway more teams to just drop the players instead of signing them.

Steve

[baseballforlife]

Why dont we just make a Entry draft, so we can draft whoever we want, the most loses teams get to draft first and the good teams draft later. Then we can choose whoever we want, instead of just sucking rookies in ur team no matter the manager wants him or not. Like even a good team can get a AAAA rookie.

[Slugger222]

I, for one, hope that the "AAAA" rookies appear about once a decade. For the entire league. Everyone should grow to their max. potential. Once they hit tripple A ball - especially if they are young - there should still be some growth to go thru.

I have a question: Do the letter ratings change as the years go by? I would assume that they do. With younger players growing into their best possible ratings, injuries and age reducing ratings.

[Clay Dreslough]

The letter grades, in both the CD-ROM game and Baseball Mogul Online, reflect your scouts' opinions of a player's current abilities. So a AAA player that's all C's and D's could still develop into an excellent player.

I agree with the worry about too many players that are ready for the majors from day one -- and I'll try to tweak it without going overboard (and maiming all the rookies in the process)...

Clay

[Phlint]

how many years do you give a young player to develop? I leave all of my minor leaguers in AAA for one year, but don't see much if any change in their abilities.

[Slugger222]

I try to play the people who perform, since the scouts can be wrong. Aside from looking at the ratings, I look at how they are doing in AAA ball. If they are loving it, then I figure they deserve a shot.

I've had some pleasent surprises that way.

Clay has said numerous times that the ratings are estimates. that means that some can be right on, others can be way off. Personally, I like it that way. More like real ball.

[Bad_Ash]

It is annoying when your scouts aren't good at their job, but it is realistic. Mike Piazza wouldn't even be in the major leagues if the scouts were always trusted. He was drafted very late in the draft as a favor to his father by their family friend Tommy Lasorda.

Badash