Setting Up a Historical Game

This is a guide for setting up a historical league in OOTP. There are many options that can affect the way the game plays. Whether you are new to OOTP or a seasoned player, you may find something in this guide useful.

Part I: Main Menu and League Creation

Select “New Historical Game” from the OOTP Start Menu. Do not enable Challenge Mode.




Historical League Settings

Select Season: You may begin your game in any season from 1871-present

Import complete history up to 1871: If you start in say 1901 this gives you the option of having OOTP import the stats for every player before 1901, providing you a complete record book starting in 1871.

Import real minor leagues (1915+): Keep this disabled

Use random players from all eras instead of real rosters: Keep this disabled.

Show Advanced Options: Press this button to show more options

Base Current Ratings On: Real Stats

Base Potential Ratings On: Remaining Years of Career
This will give you an idea if a player is going to improve or decline when you are in the game.

Base Fielding Ratings On: Entire Career

Base Pitcher Stamina On: Entire Career

Import real L/R Splits: Off. Disable this feature.

Now we will set up the import options for hitters and pitchers.

Adjust Hitters with fewer than X At-Bat: 100
Weaken Hitters with fewer than X At-Bat: 70

These values may seem too low, but we will be using 5-yr recalc, so we have really set this up for 500 AB and 350 AB as the samples for determining ratings.

Adjust Pitchers with fewer than X innings: 12
Weaken Pitchers with fewer than X Innings: 9

These values may seem low, but we will be using 5-yr recalc, so we have really set this up for 240/180 IP for SP’s and 60/45 IP for RP’s as the samples for determining ratings.



Select “Next Step”.


Keep everything on this screen disabled, then select “Advanced Mode”.





Enter Game Name: This will be the file name for your saved game. Do not select Start Game yet though.




Select the “Settings” Menu

Use Complete Scouting: Off

Player Rating Scales
Current Ratings: 1-100
Potential Ratings: 1-100
Other Ratings: 1-100
Show Ratings>Max: Yes
Show Potential<Actual: Yes

Coaching Staff Settings
Use Complete Coaching System: Off. Disable this option.
Enable Owner Goals: Off. Disable this option.

Player Injury, Fatigue & Suspensions
Enable Injuries: Off. Disable this option
Position Player Fatigue: Average
Enable Suspensions: Off. Disable this option.

Player Personality Settings
Use Player Personality Ratings: Off. Disable this option.
Show & Use Player Morale System: Off. Disable this option.

Player Development Settings
Keep everything at 1.000
Disable Player Development: On. Turn this on. This is one of the most important options and it is set to off by default. By turning this on you will prevent player ratings from changing during the season, but players will still get their ratings updated at the beginning of each season based on their real stats. It is important for player ratings to remain constant during the season to get the best results.

Player Evaluation AI Settings
Ratings Weight: 90
Current Year Stats Weight: 5
Prev. Year Stats Weight: 3
2 Years Ago Stats Weight: 2






Select the “Rules” menu and set it up like this:



Select the “Financials” menu
Enable Financial System: Off. This is on by default, but if you are new to playing historical games managing the financial system may be a bit of a burden.



Select the “Options” menu

Inaugural Fantasy Draft: This is up to you if you want to build your first team from a draft of the players in the league the year you are starting. I suggest turning this on.

Allow Rainouts: Off

Number of Games:
1871-1874: 32 games
1875-1878: 64 games
1879-1882: 84 games
1883: 96 games
1884-1885: 112 games
1886-1887: 120 games
1888-1897: 132 games
1898-1960: 154 games
1961-present: 162 games
These are my suggestions. You can use this as a guideline, especially before 1901.

Schedule Spring Training: Off



Select the “Historical” menu

Use real historical transactions: Off. Keep this disabled.

Automatically Expand League: This is up to you if you want to have the expansion automated. I tend to handle this manually during the appropriate seasons.

Base player roles/positions on: AI evaluation.

Automatically Adjust League Strategy: Off. I will provide the strategy settings.

Retire Players According To History: On. You must enable this option. This is off by default. You do not want players in your league playing past their final real season. This will cause a variety of problems in the game.

Players miss seasons according to history: Off

Automatically import historical rookies: On
Use random rookies from all eras: Off

Automatically adjust league totals modifiers each season for historical accuracy: On. Keep this on, otherwise you will not get realistic results.

Recalc player ratings based on real stats after each year: On. Keep this on. This is how players develop over their career in your game.

Ratings recalculation base: 5 years. The default is 3 years, but 5 gives us more stable samples and we have set up the import process based on this.



Select the “Stats & AI” menu
Rotation Size: Here is my suggested rotation sizes for different seasons.
1871-1874: 1
1875-1882: 2
1883-1897: 3
1898-1960: 4
1961-present: 5

Rotation Mode:
1871-1960: Strict
1961-present: Start highest-rested

Allow Starters in Relief: No

Number of Relievers: You will need to set this up for non-DH and DH leagues. I suggest setting this value to always two more than your rotation size.
If you are using 1-man rotation, then use 3 Relievers
If you are using 2-man rotation, then use 4 Relievers
If you are using 3-man rotation, then use 5 Relievers
If you are using 4-man rotation, then use 6 Relievers
If you are using 5-man rotation, then use 7 Relievers

Number of Position Players: You will need to set this up for non-DH and DH leagues. I suggest using 16 position players in any season, even though this will put you over a 25-man active roster. I like to have 16 players so that I can have a dedicated backup player at each position on the roster. If you use 16 position players, then you will need to the “Rules” menu and increase the roster size to 26 or 28 if you are using 10 or 12 pitchers on your team. If you want, just keep the roster at 25 and use 15 position players when you have 10 pitchers and 13 position players when you have 12 pitchers to keep your roster at 25.

General Strategy Settings

Use of Relievers: Normal
Use of Closers: Sometimes
Pitcher Stamina: Very High for rotations of 1 or 2 pitchers, High for rotations of 3 pitchers, Normal for rotations of 4 pitchers, and Low for rotations of 5 pitchers.
Pinch Hit for Pitchers: Normal
Pinch Hit for Position Players: Normal
Defensive Substitutions: Normal
Stealing Bases: Normal
Hit and Run: Very Often. This helps get scoring more accurate in any season.
Bunting: Normal
Infield Shifts: None


Select the “Create Game” menu again
Press “Start Game”
Select “Play in Commissioner Mode” and “Cannot be fired”
Select a team if you want. You do not have to if you just want to manage a team. You may always take control of a team once you start the game and during any season.

Part II: Settings Before Starting Your Season

You will begin on the “Manager’s Office” menu.



Select the “News and Mail” menu. Here you will see various options of new and mail you will receive. You may turn any of these off if you want.



Select the “Manager Options” menu
Here you will need to consider the “Exit Auto-Play” options. If you are simulating through entire seasons, then you may want to turn these options off to keep the game from stopping every time you get a notification or message.


At the top of the screen, Select a team from the menu. It will not matter which team you select. Once you are in that team’s home screen, select “Settings” then go to “Edit ballpark”, then select the “Actions” menu and select “Assign neutral park factors to all parks”. You will need to do this any time you expand the league as well as the new teams will get parks with park factors not set to 1.000.

Select the “MLB” menu and then “League Settings”. This is where you can see many of the settings you selected when creating your league, but we have more options to select.

Go to “Stats and AI” and disable “Allow two-way players”. This option was not available when creating the league.


Select the “Global Settings” menu and disable the “Storylines” option. This option is enabled by default and it is not something you can disable before creating your league. If you do not turn this option off you will end up with players retiring before they should occasionally. Sometimes they have 10 or more seasons to play and they will just decide to randomly retire.

Ok, now you can play your season.

Part III: How to Expand the League

Here is how I suggest handling expansion in your game.

If you start in 1871, select League Settings>Functions>Edit League Structure and delete teams so that you only have 2 in each league, then select “Generate Schedule”. You may want to rename your teams as well.

1871-1881: 4 teams
1882-1892: 8 teams
1893-1900: 12 teams
1901-1960: 16 teams
1961-1968: 20 teams
1969-1976: 24 teams
1977-1992: 26 teams
1993-1997: 28 teams
1998-present: 30 teams

If you are going to hold an expansion draft, wait until after the playoffs end (or after the rookie draft if you don’t want the expansion teams to draft rookies. The expansion teams will get the first draft slots by default if you allow them to participate in the rookie draft, but you can edit the draft order.) and go to MLB>League Settings>Functions>Expand League and Schedule Expansion Draft.


You will then be prompted to select the number of teams and provide the team information.

You will then need to select the number of protected players. The number of players to protect should be 8 + Starting Rotation. So, if you are expanding from 16 teams to 20 teams in 1961, keep in mind that you should change the rotation size to 5-man before the draft so that teams realize they need to protect an additional SP. So, in 1961 you want to have teams protect a total of 13 players. But don’t worry, not all of the players that aren’t protected will get taken by the expansion teams as we will decide how many rounds there are in the draft.

Auto-protect players with less than X Pro Service Years: No Auto-Protect

Limit of Picks from a single Team: No Limit


Here is my suggested number of players to protect:
1882: 11
1893: 11
1901: 12
1961: 13
1969: 13
1977: 13
1993: 13
1998: 13

Here is my suggested number of rounds for each of the expansion seasons. After you set up the expansion draft you must submit your protection lists and then proceed to the Expansion Draft. On the Expansion Draft screen, you will be able to edit the number of rounds in the draft.

1882: 24 rounds
1893: 21 rounds
1901: 17 rounds
1961: 28 rounds
1969: 28 rounds
1977: 30 rounds
1993: 35 rounds
1998: 35 rounds


After completing the expansion draft and rookie draft, select “Play>Next Year”. This will bring you to January 1st. Then go to MLB>League Settings>Edit League Structure and select Generate Schedule, otherwise no games will be scheduled for your new teams and you will ruin your league. Be careful when handling the expansion draft manually like this.

[jackack]

IS THERE A WAY TO GET THESE INSTRUCTIONS AS A DOWNLOAD?

[Billdozer]

Well made guide. Thanks for the tips.

[orcin]

Great guide! I have followed this setup before (from the OOTP forums) with excellent results.