First Sim

OK, the first sim is underway. The following teams were successfully imported:

Cleveland
Houston
LA
River Cities
Walla Walla

The sim's not done yet. I'll update when it's done.

Zev

EDIT: OK, sim's done. I advanced the game one day. I uploaded a new league file (see below) but did NOT upload the league reports.

I checked all the players mentioned in the previous comment thread and, of them, none had their major league/minor league contract status changed, and none had their service time changed. Therefore, I just moved anyone in the big leagues back to AAA (where the owner didn't do it himself).

The league file has been updated. To download the league file, you don't have to download the compressed file, unzip it, etc. as you used to do. All you have to do is go to your manager home page and click on the Check For Updated League File link. The game should do the rest. If, when you're done, the game date is 1/2, then it worked.

As for the scouting, I'm in favor of going to individualized scouts as well. However, I'm concerned about the fact that some people may be stuck with inferior scouts for a longer period of time (i.e. contract status) than others. One possible solution, I suppose, is to give any owner the opportunity to opt out of his current scout contract during the next year if he thinks there is a better scout out there. This way, he can get out of a long-term scout contract if he has a bad scout (which he got through no fault of his own), or he can keep the scout. The last day to excersize the option could be one year from today (1/2/2014).

Of course, I'm open to other suggestions as well.

Zev

Zev

Welcome to OOTP9!

The league file has been converted to OOTP9. It is currently available at the following link:

Download the League File

Download the league file, put it in a directory somewhere and unzip it. Then start OOTP9 and load the game.

In the future, you will not need to download, unzip, etc. as you have been doing in the past. The game takes care of this. All you will need to do is go to your Manager home page, and click on the "Check For Updated League Files" link.

Game Version

I remember in the past, we had some problems with players not using the same version of the game. Please make sure you're using the latest version of the game, which is 9.2.2. You can check to see if you are using the latest version by going to Game -> Check For Updates in the game. If you are not using 9.2.2, please download it and install it.

League Rules

Below are the rules that I've applied to the OOTP9 league. Where a rule was covered in the old game, I simply applied the same rule. Where there was a new rule opportunity, I applied what I thought was the best rule (for example, I disabled drug suspensions). Of course, if anyone wants any of the rules changed, I'm always willing to listen to arguments and put the matter to a league vote.



Password

I've assigned a new password to all team owners and will email them to you separately. Of course, you're free to change the password once you've logged in.

League Date

The conversion process put the league date at Jan 1 2013. This gives us some time to iron out any bugs, make roster changes, etc. The season begins Apr 1. Since we already finished the amateur draft, I omitted it for the 2013 season.

League History and New League Site

The conversion process pretty much wiped out much of the league history. However, any major league stats are still available. In addition, I'm going to keep the old league site (ootp.izev.com) up for historical reference. The new league site is here. For the moment, it's still a work in progress. If there are any reports that you'd like to see that aren't there, please drop me a line.

Rosters

When the game imported, it only imported the major league teams. The minor league teams were NOT imported. I recreated all the minor league teams (for those of you who did not name your minor league teams previously, I left the ones that the game generated randomly). The players that were on those minor league teams, however, were left in a sort of limbo -- they weren't on any team and you could not reassign them through the transaction screen. There were two ways out of this: (1) you could go to your individual team rosters, select all the players in your organization and then assign them one by one to the appropriate minor league teams. After about 25 players, I found this very tedious. The other option was to simply have the AI assign everyone and then allow the owners to adjust them as they will (since they would then be availble through the transaction screen). In the end, I opted for the second option. So, please go through your minor league systems and re-assign anyone whom you feel should be at a different level.

What Can You Do and What Do I (or Michael) Have To Do?

According to the game manual, here's the scoop: Individual owners can:

• Change Scouting Assignments
• Change Lineups, Depth Charts, Pitching Staff, or other team settings
• Offer contracts (free agents and extensions) to players and team personnel
• Player transactions (promotions, demotions, DL, releases, etc.)
• Coach firings and new jobs/assignments
• Waiver wire claims
• Human manager player and staff shortlists
• Mail message status
• Manager options

Things that must be done in commissioner mode:

• Simming
• Trades
• Team Options (relocations, renamings, etc.)
• Writing news articles (feel free to write them and I'll submit them in the game)
• Game setup and commissioner rules

So, Where Do We Go From Here?

Well, the first thing everyone should do is download the file and make sure they can get into the game. The next thing is to look over your rosters and see if there are any problems that may have occured during conversion (missing players, etc.). Once we have a list of things that need to be attended to before the season starts, Michael and I will draw up a schedule for them. If possible, I'd like for all owners to make sure that they can use the game no later than Thursday. Please either email Michael and myself or else post a comment here on whether or not you can download the game file, use it and export your changes to the FTP site.

As always, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

Zev

Edit: Hmmm... it's not so easy to cut and paste a Word table into the blog. I'll have the league ruleset up shortly.

Edit (3:06 EDT) -- I changed the league file from a tar.gz to a standard zip.

Edit (10:10 EDT) -- New league file with 40-man rosters. Also, please see Nate's note in the comments about Minor Leaguers who were brought up to the majors by the AI.

Zev

Spring training complete!

All right, now comes the fun part...

Spring Training is complete and the league date is April 1st, 2013, aka Opening Day. The league file is NOT updated, however, as there's no reason for anyone but Zev to download it now.

The web reports are uploading, so you can review your team from there.

The next step? I have no idea. Zev will take it from here. He will convert the league file to OOTP9 (I can't do that due to a bug in the Mac version of OOTP9) and we'll start the 2013 season in the new game.

Stay tuned for the schedule.

Palacio

OK, my first order of business as GM will be to solicit trade offers for 2B Timothy Palacio. He's a stud, and he's signed to a very reasonable contract. I am of course looking for prospects and/or picks in return. If there is any interest, please email me at guitar_shark@hotmail.com.

Los Angeles/River Cities trade

Los Angeles keeps chipping away at River Cities's rotation. Today's trade:

Los Angeles sends MR prospect Casey Erickson and a 4th round pick in 2014 to River Cities for SP Dennis Durand.

Los Angeles needs a pitcher

Even with the acquisition of Sherman Wheeler, I still need one more starter going into the season. If you have a middle-to-bottom of the rotation guy that won't cost me too much (in trade, not salary), let me know. Ideally, a RHP with 2 stars or higher, with an ERA under 4.30.

The best time of year!

Spring training is here! All across Florida and Arizona, players are stretching out and remembering how to hit curve balls. Spring fever is in the air as the addition of a Wild Card in each league has nearly every team in contention.

As for you, team owners, you need to upload your free agency plans by Thursday evening.

The Rule V draft is now complete. The following players were selected:

Round 1:

• Maui: CF Harold Freeman from Cleveland.
• Cleveland: P Pio Ramirez from Hickory.
• Houston: C Nicholas Cornwall from Cleveland.
• Saskatoon: 1B Fede Lozada from Houston.

Round 2:

• Cleveland: RF Jose Martinez from New York.
• Houston: P Jim Edgar from Saskatoon.

Round 3:

• Cleveland: P Agustin Vasco from Saskatoon.

The league file is up, and the web pages are on their way. Upload your spring training plans to the server by Thursday evening!

I've gotta say...

... so far, I'm impressed with the commissioner automater in OOTP9. It's going to make my life so much easier!

Rule V draft time!

The annual Rule V draft is upon us. The 40-man rosters are locked, and, if you have free space on your 40-man roster, you're able to draft players that are eligible for the Rule V draft.

A quick rehash of the rules:

1. Draft a player from another team.
2. Keep the player(s) you select on your 25-man roster (or DL) all season.
3. ?
4. Profit!

Please e-mail me and Zev your selections by Thursday evening. Please be clear about how you want to pick players if you want more than one. The draft order will be the same as the amateur draft.

A few administrative points:

• Matt Macario is now the owner of the former Hartford franchise, the Maui Mashers. I also took it off computer control. Matt: Let me know if you didn't get the e-mail with the password.
• I put the Hickory Huskers on computer control, and hopefully it won't be there for too long.
• I made the executive decision, too, to add the two stud prospects Hickory acquired prior to Mark leaving the league to the 40-man rosters. So, if you had your heart on George LaBarre or Alan Reuter, sorry. I did this to keep things fair (as everyone else in the league sent in an upload, and the team wasn't on CPU control long enough for HAL-9000 to do the move itself) and to have some attractive prospects for the new Hickory owner. I hope no one has any objections to that move I made. If so, keep them to yourself. :)

The league file is up, and the Rule V draft is, again, on Thursday, with Spring Training a week from Thursday. I hope you've all gotten your copies of OOTP9 by now!

New GM

Thanks for the invite, Zev.

Hi to all - I've agreed to take over the dormant Hartford franchise. For those who don't know me, I've played in the other OOTP league run by Nate and Mack for the last couple of years. Looking forward to playing in another competitive OOTP league!

Attempting to rebuild the Hartford franchise looks to be a considerable challenge, given the team's fan interest rating of 13. Hartford fans are obviously pretty unhappy, so this presents as good a time as any to announce a team relocation and name change. The team is moving to the tropics, a region not normally known for its baseball history (Shane Victorino and Kurt Suzuki notwithstanding). The franchise formerly known as the Hartford Hitmen will be whisked across the Pacific to Maui, the birthplace of its new GM, who apparently values nostalgia higher than the impact of a brutal travel schedule on his players. The new team name, at least until I think of something clever, will be the Maui Mashers.

The Plan

Okay, I feel a little like Moses on Mt Sinai here, but Zev has spoken, and this is the plan:

We are migrating to OOTP 9 for the new season. Before that, though, we will need to finish the pre-season in OOTP 6.5, which means the Rule V draft and Spring Training.

The Rule V draft will be done on Thursday night. Please upload your roster before Tuesday night. There will be a sim that evening and all players eligible for selection in the Rule V draft are fair game.

After the Rule V draft on Thursday, Spring Training (the best time of year!) will happen the following Thursday night. Once we complete that, the fun really starts, as we'll transit the league to OOTP 9 and reconfigure the league in the new game to match the current settings as best as possible.

For now, I'd suggest buying a copy of OOTP 9 if you haven't yet, and get used to the game. There are a lot of new features and bug fixes compared to 6.5, and I think we'll all be happier with the game play in it.

Don't forget to upload your rosters in 6.5 by tomorrow night, though, first!

(Oh, and we may have found a new owner to take over one of our free franchises, but if you know someone else who may be interested in either Hartford or Hickory, have them contact Zev and me.)

Is It Time To Upgrade to OOTP9?

As many of you have already seen, we lost another owner this today. This gives us two vacancies -- in the same division.

I think at this point, we have to seriously consider upgrading to OOTP9. Attracting new owners is going to be very difficult while we are using a version that is over three years old. I purposely didn't look for a replacement for the Hartford franchise because I knew that we were going to upgrade at some point soon, and I couldn't see asking a potential owner to fork out money for both 6.5 and then 9 a season or so later.

I would have liked to have had more time before asking for an upgrade, but I think Mark's withdrawl makes the potential upgrade more imperative. Going the entire season with two computer-run franchises in the same division is probably not a good idea, IMHO. If we upgrade, I think we'll have a much better chance of attracting new owners.

If you need a reminder, the new league would look like this on the website.

Anyway, I'd like to start a discussion on this. Please let me know what you think.

Zev

League status

Expect a post by Zev this evening about the future of our league. With Mark's withdrawal from the league, we're putting the offseason on hold for a few days while we sort things out.

So, no sim tonight or anytime soon, I think.

Withdrawing in Hickory

I appreciate that this isn't the greatest timing in the world, but any later would be worse timing -- I have to drop out of the league. Won't bore anybody with details, but don't have the time, don't have the resources, bla bla. I don't want to run this franchise into the ground by missing sims or not responding to emails, etc. and I think I'm definitely headed squarely into that territory.

So, sorry to say it, and I'm going to miss my squad, but you guys have another vacancy on your hands. I've enjoyed it, fellas. Take care.

Mark

Free agency finished, Rule V upcoming!

The free agency period is now complete. I don't think there were any non-MLC signings in the last five days.

The next sim will be an administrative one so you can lock your 40-man rosters in preparation for the Rule V draft. Please upload your team file by Monday evening. The Rule V draft will be held on either Tuesday or Wednesday night (I have to check with Zev), with spring training and Opening Day soon to follow after that.

The league file is now up.

New York Players on the market

I'm a little over where I want to be on payroll right now, and although I'm generally happy with my team, I'm always looking to improve.

So in the right deal, I'd be willing to move:
Brian Bingham, 2.5 star SS/LF/RF
Henry Diemer, 2.5 star 3B, 4 time all-star
Juan David, 1.5 star OF

and in a bit higher category,
Bill Turek, 3.5 star 2B
Hector Orozco, 4.5 star MR who can start in a pinch.

If you've got interest in anyone, let me know!

Days 21-25 complete

Two signings this period: CF Samuel Santos was signed by Hartford, and I got a LOOGY named Balta Riojas.

The remaining days of free agency will be simmed Thursday night, and then we can finally get ready for the 2013 season. As I've been flying solo this week due to Zev's non-OOTP life being busy, I haven't discussed anything with him, but I imagine we'll run the Rule V draft on Monday night (with a Saturday night sim to lock your 40-man rosters) with Spring Training a week from tonight, and, well, I'll let Zev decide the rest. :)

Oh, now that the draft is finished, I processed the first 2014 draft pick trade. It's part 2 of my acquisition of Sherman Wheeler from River Cities. I sent my 2nd round pick in 2014 and OF Dave "Don't call me Jerry" Steinfeldt to River Cities for IF Nathanael Burton.

The league file is up. Go and find those minor league scrubs that will fill out your minor league rosters!

Days 17-20, rest of draft completed

Just one signing these past four days: Houston signed 3B Joseph Michalski to a contract of $1,958,250 per year, for 2 years.

The amateur draft is complete. Please let me know if I screwed up anything in trading drafted players.

The league file is up, and the web pages will get there some time before the morning. Days 21-25 will be simmed Wednesday night.