2034 S3SL Trading Deadline and Sim: 2/13 at 4 PM EST

[Impossibles]

Does OOTP allow you to mess with the playoff format? It would be cool to either go to the old format with 2 divisions and 2 or 3 wildcard teams and no interleague, or go to the probably new MLB format with an additional wildcard team and short series....imho

[Porter]

Mission,

Will there be a slight change to the development of the prospects at all? Not asking for a crazy change like the other but its extremely slow and if you draft a guy at 24 and hes not nearly developed, its impossible to get to his talent.

[missionhockey21]

Does OOTP allow you to mess with the playoff format? It would be cool to either go to the old format with 2 divisions and 2 or 3 wildcard teams and no interleague, or go to the probably new MLB format with an additional wildcard team and short series....imho

Not really, unfortunately. Which is a shame, because it would increase the competitiveness, forcing many teams away from the rebuild, and therefore increasing the market activity.

Mission,

Will there be a slight change to the development of the prospects at all? Not asking for a crazy change like the other but its extremely slow and if you draft a guy at 24 and hes not nearly developed, its impossible to get to his talent.

The Cody rule? Haha. Yeah, I was actually thinking about increasing the development speed about 20% and see how it goes. But I would do a change like that in the offseason and not middle of the season.

[missionhockey21]

Sim y'all.

[Providence A's]

We all have DHs already. They're just playing 3B for most of us. My #9 hitter has 20 homers, too. It's my #8 hitter that needs help.

[Kingdom]

I think the lack of trades is more about there are only a few teams in the hunt and those teams are pretty content with what they have. There are very few bad teams with tradeable players, all the good SP's are on teams in the hunt, the few good players that are on bad teams likely play positions where most teams are set (LF/RF/1B).

Sim away!

I think that's somewhat true. There is no market for older players on their way down. But I also think the number of teams with the same old I am rebuilding story out weigh everything. They seemingly rebuild every season.

There's also not many flexible GMs out there. You are a good example of someone that is, thus you've made several veteran for veteran deals. If people just stick to the crap they list in their threads, then not much is going to happen. Also, having been on trade council, there exists some ugly favortism amongst GMs, leading to horrible deals we typically veto. Basically, some GMs give others an overly friendly discount.

[OrioleMagic]

I am not opposed to it, but I would prefer to wait a bit longer before making another league change like that. Yes the 9th spot in the lineup is a black hole, but its a black hole for all teams. Adding a DH would put some of these other bats to use, but again, its not like every team has a lineup of studs. I think the core issue is that the league has not yet readjusted. Its easy for me to do so, I set all this up, but I don't think proper perspective has yet been paid to the defensive qualities of players, by most teams, either purposefully or just due to unawareness. On the flipside, if you have a stud bat with no range or glove, maybe your demands need to come down to what he is worth in this market and not the market with a DH.

Again, I don't expect the DH to be gone forever, but I want to see how things shake out before changing it all again. I'm still working on draft class tweaks, and those take some seasons to show (for instance, next year, we should have a deeper pitchers draft.)

My point is that in this league a hitter with no defense or arm is at worst, completely worthless, or at best a defensive liability to his team. Maybe double checking arms and defensive ratings when tweaking the draft class might alleviate this issue to some degree, only if you choose to do so... I respect and support the concept of waiting to see how things look further in the future. I see your point regarding all of us dealing with the same "black hole" in the pitcher's slot in the batting order.

I think the lack of trades is more about there are only a few teams in the hunt and those teams are pretty content with what they have. There are very few bad teams with tradeable players, all the good SP's are on teams in the hunt, the few good players that are on bad teams likely play positions where most teams are set (LF/RF/1B).

Sim away!

I think I agree with this.

Does OOTP allow you to mess with the playoff format? It would be cool to either go to the old format with 2 divisions and 2 or 3 wildcard teams and no interleague, or go to the probably new MLB format with an additional wildcard team and short series....imho

It does with some conditions. There must be three playoff series that can be labeled whatever one wants. You can add divisions and delete divisions. To go to two divisions one would need to create new teams in the first and second division and exchange them with the real teams until only the "new teams" are in the division that one wants to delete. Then delete that division. The kicker is that when it creates a new team, it fills it's roster with created players. So when those new teams are deleted, it automatically dumps them into the FA pool. I am wondering if one goes to the financial setup page and sets the roster to 0 instead of 25 if it will alleviate that problem. Either way, it could be done even if one had to delete a whole bunch of FAs, either by deleting all FAs and then creating a certain number to fill out a reasonable FA pool, or deleting FAs singly which could be a royal pain. I think I'd delete all FAs and just create enough to have an FA pool, which will increase as the seasons go by anyway.

We all have DHs already. They're just playing 3B for most of us. My #9 hitter has 20 homers, too. It's my #8 hitter that needs help.

This is a creative tactic! Do you find that it has measurably helped you capitalize on scoring opportunities? Is the difference even visible?

I think that's somewhat true. There is no market for older players on their way down. But I also think the number of teams with the same old I am rebuilding story out weigh everything. They seemingly rebuild every season.

There's also not many flexible GMs out there. You are a good example of someone that is, thus you've made several veteran for veteran deals. If people just stick to the crap they list in their threads, then not much is going to happen. Also, having been on trade council, there exists some ugly favortism amongst GMs, leading to horrible deals we typically veto. Basically, some GMs give others an overly friendly discount.

I agree about the Houston's of the league!

Sounds like collusion to me... I have always felt there are cliques in this league. It is a very old league with GMs who have been around from the start. This is a compliment on one hand, but could be a problem IF it affects "free trade" so to speak.

[Kingdom]

I agree about the cliques (they exist as much in Molina's league as this league, for example), however, from what I have seen, it goes beyond a clique factor. Fortunately, we have swiftly shot down these trades because they're so blatantly poor, but it's the idea that the GMs even tried those deals is bothersome. It's just all part of the destructive pattern of leagues no longer being any fun.

[Kingdom]

The 3B's suck in Hybrid too, we should get on that commish to fix that as well.

[OrioleMagic]

The 3B's suck in Hybrid too, we should get on that commish to fix that as well.

Yes, but only defensively. I will look long and hard at the defensive percentages of the draft classes coming up.

Shewmaker, Ruiz, Pujols, ARam, Pickerel, and Stone are all examples of RBI leaders that can play 3B...

[Kingdom]

Well that's what I meant. I don't think the 3B's suck in this league offensively either, just the majority have .940 fielding or lower, just like Hybrid.

[Providence A's]

Well that's what I meant. I don't think the 3B's suck in this league offensively either, just the majority have .940 fielding or lower, just like Hybrid.

In other words...DHs!

[OrioleMagic]

Well that's what I meant. I don't think the 3B's suck in this league offensively either, just the majority have .940 fielding or lower, just like Hybrid.

In other words...DHs!

The difference is... at least in HSL they have an arm and range. Boswell on my S3SL team has nothing.

[Kingdom]

You need a better example. If Boswell had defense, at best he's a useful utility guy. He's not an attractive hitter. It is one thing to say a guy has other skills to make up for a lack of defense and live with him at 1B or RF, but if they're relatively mediocre elsewhere, then no one is going to have a real interest regardless

[General]

For what it's worth, I'd like to go back to the DH...I think having an additional spot in the lineup to fill will definitely generate more activity, especially in a league where nobody trades pitchers.