AFBL Announces League Improvements!

[mstreeter06]

Hello AFBL members,

We are about to kick our 4th season as a league for the 2016 season. We have a new Oregon GM (Malek) for this season so welcome to him! We also have 3 future expansion team GMs (Paul, Frank, Matthew) and the 2017 Illinois GM (Raymond) who will take over for the club when Lawrence takes over the 4th expansion team.

I am pleased to have a few announcements about features in OOTP to enhance everyone's experience! Here is an overview on new additions to the league and some rule/options adjustments...

AFBL reaches an agreement with 20 High Schools and 20 Colleges as feeder leagues for its AFBL Amatuer Draft Pool!
20 team HS and COL feeder leagues to become AFBL Draft Pool selection beginning this year (2016) in 2017
100-game balanced schedule for COL
50-game balanced schedule for HS
Player Origin is same as AFBL (USA & Canada with 10% random)
HS player created age is 14; HS roster age limit is 14-17
COL player created age is 18; COL roster age limit is 18-21

AFBL Amatuer Draft Pool Updates
Ammy Draft Pool moves to 'Feeder League Players only' from previously game generation at specified date in 2017
Ammy Draft stays scheduled for November 15th annually
Ammy Draft Pool still announced 75 days before draft (Sept 1st each year)
Expansion teams will pick in between non-playoff teams and playoff teams for the 2016 Ammy Draft
Ammy Draft moves to 8 rounds (11 rounds generated) from 7&9 before in 2016 & 2017
Ammy Draft moves to 7 rounds (10 rounds generated) in 2018 & 2019
Ammy Draft goes back to 7 rounds (9 rounds generated) in 2020 and beyond

OOTP In-Game Option Update...
Enable "Overall rating based on all players, not positions" checkbox

AFBL Realignment With 20 Teams...
AFBL realigns to two leagues of two divisions of five teams in 2017



AFBL Playoff Format for 2017 and beyond...
AFBL votes to go with a playoff format of the two division winners and two wildcards decided by winning percentage. Division winner with highest winning percentage will play lower seeded wildcard. The other division winner would host the top wildcard seed.

[mstreeter06]

Here is the excerpt from the OOTP Manual about Feeder leagues...

A feeder league feeds players into its parent league. Feeder leagues have minimum and maximum age limits for players, and once players exceed their age maximum, the players go into the draft pool for their parent league. When a new season starts in a feeder league, the rosters are filled up again with players of the minimum age. As older players get drafted (or become free agents if undrafted), younger players get added automatically for the following season. Each feeder league can feed players into only one league, and you cannot have a 'daisy chain' of feeder leagues. That is, you can't have a high school league that feeds into a college league that feeds into a professional league.

There are two types of feeder leagues: college and high school. These two types behave identically. The names, like league levels, are mainly just for categorization.

Important: Feeder leagues are not meant to simulate real-world college and high school baseball. There is no early entry into the draft, recruiting, redshirting, or similar staples of college and high school baseball.

Feeder leagues add immersion, providing a draft pool full of players with several years of statistical history leading up to the draft, in addition to scouting reports. This gives general managers much more information on which to base draft decisions. This is particularly helpful in leagues that allow the trading of draft picks, because GMs can make intelligent decisions about how strong a particular draft class looks by scouting and researching the draft class in advance.

Feeder leagues behave very similarly to minor leagues. Players in feeder leagues have minor league contracts and share all the rules of the parent league.

Players in a feeder league will appear in the first-year player draft pool of the major league once they are no longer eligible for their feeder league. Your first-year player draft will also be supplemented with enough fictional players to fill out the draft, if necessary. High school players who are not drafted may continue on to college, or may become free agents. College players who are not drafted may become free agents.

I've been testing a ton over the past week to find the right balance of teams in HS and COL feeder leagues and the number round Ammy Draft rounds to keep enough talent with 4 additional franchises but also careful to not flood the league with talent. I feel as this is the right balance. The guide I followed in the OOTP forums each feeder team typically generates 6-9 players and we'll have 40 total for AFBL combining HS & COL which is seems to be the right team number balance.

[mstreeter06]

A bump for this announcement if you have overlooked it.

[fhomess]

It all looks good to me.  I thought it was funny that you announced this on November 15th.  I was all set for the draft!

AFBL Amatuer Draft Pool Updates
Ammy Draft Pool moves to 'Feeder League Players only' from previously game generation at specified date
Ammy Draft stays scheduled for November 15th annually
Ammy Draft Pool still announced 75 days before draft (Sept 1st each year)
Expansion teams will pick in between non-playoff teams and playoff teams for the 2016 Ammy Draft
Ammy Draft moves to 8 rounds (11 rounds generated) from 7&9 before in 2016 & 2017
Ammy Draft moves to 7 rounds (10 rounds generated) in 2018 & 2019
Ammy Draft goes back to 7 rounds (9 rounds generated) in 2020 and beyond

You might want to validate that "Feeder League Players only" and the 11/10/9 round generated line up.  My guess is that the feeder league output will be consistent from year to year, regardless of how long the draft is.  If the feeders produce too few players, we'll need to add a few.

[mstreeter06]

It all looks good to me.  I thought it was funny that you announced this on November 15th.  I was all set for the draft!

AFBL Amatuer Draft Pool Updates
Ammy Draft Pool moves to 'Feeder League Players only' from previously game generation at specified date
Ammy Draft stays scheduled for November 15th annually
Ammy Draft Pool still announced 75 days before draft (Sept 1st each year)
Expansion teams will pick in between non-playoff teams and playoff teams for the 2016 Ammy Draft
Ammy Draft moves to 8 rounds (11 rounds generated) from 7&9 before in 2016 & 2017
Ammy Draft moves to 7 rounds (10 rounds generated) in 2018 & 2019
Ammy Draft goes back to 7 rounds (9 rounds generated) in 2020 and beyond

You might want to validate that "Feeder League Players only" and the 11/10/9 round generated line up.  My guess is that the feeder league output will be consistent from year to year, regardless of how long the draft is.  If the feeders produce too few players, we'll need to add a few.

In my testing I found that there was enough players generated with the round increase. I feel like the league should have some extra players generated to compensate for the expansion teams and allow for everyone to keep full minor league levels if they wish while still having a good amount of FAs available at any time.

I did find that the feeder teams generated about 6-9 players per feeder team (20 in HS and 20 in COL = 40*(6,7,8,or9) ) per draft pool.

[fhomess]

My point was that the feeder leagues aren't going to start reducing the number of rounds generated from 11 down to 10 down to 9.  They will produce a roughly consistent number of players for the draft each year.  It's not a problem, we'll just have more players pass from the draft into FA as the draft gets shorter.

[mstreeter06]

Updated to reflect change to not implement feeder leagues until 2017 season (create in game on 1/1/2017). I have deleted all players in the COL and HS feeder leagues.

Draft pool will be generated by the game 75 days before the draft (Sept 1) for the 2016 season.

[mstreeter06]

Also note that Expansion Teams will not be part of the 2016 Ammy Draft like I originally planned. It doesn't work out with our draft in November and plus allows me to expand the league on 1/1/20xx instead of in November.

[mstreeter06]

My point was that the feeder leagues aren't going to start reducing the number of rounds generated from 11 down to 10 down to 9.  They will produce a roughly consistent number of players for the draft each year.  It's not a problem, we'll just have more players pass from the draft into FA as the draft gets shorter.

I definitely saw your point in my testing but the FA pool never seemed too full with franchises stocking minors and players retiring and such. It's something I'll keep my eye on as we gain history. It was brought up that we could delete players from the FA pool with some sort of criteria.

[LT]

My point was that the feeder leagues aren't going to start reducing the number of rounds generated from 11 down to 10 down to 9.  They will produce a roughly consistent number of players for the draft each year.  It's not a problem, we'll just have more players pass from the draft into FA as the draft gets shorter.

I definitely saw your point in my testing but the FA pool never seemed too full with franchises stocking minors and players retiring and such. It's something I'll keep my eye on as we gain history. It was brought up that we could delete players from the FA pool with some sort of criteria.

I think any FA who is just lingering for 3 seasons should retire - it is clear by then that none of our teams have any interest...

[fhomess]

I think any FA who is just lingering for 3 seasons should retire - it is clear by then that none of our teams have any interest...

I think we can let it run its course and see what happens.  If there's too much bloat, we can delete some.  I haven't seen too many FA's stick around after failing to get offers for a few seasons.

[mstreeter06]

AFBL votes to go with a playoff format of the two division winners and two wildcards decided by winning percentage. Division winner with highest winning percentage will play lower seeded wildcard. The other division winner would host the top wildcard seed.