If you are new here and you have already learned how to do this, please feel free to ignore this post.

But in a couple of recent sitemail conversations with newcomers I have found that some of you have not yet grasped a very important fact about your Open League teams:

THE "AAA" PLAYERS THAT YOU FIND IN YOUR GENERAL MANAGERS SECTION ONCE PLAY BEGINS IN YOUR LEAGUE ARE NOT MINOR LEAGUERS OR SCRUBS, NOR ARE THEY FICTIONAL.

They are REAL, HISTORICAL PLAYERS some of whom are quite good. You have to find out their true identities by using the techniques provided in the post in this Forum which we oldtimers regularly bump up the list so it is always easy to find, titled "AAA Just the Charts".

You will find that each of your AAA are real players with more than enough PA to be your real bench. So when you draft for your OL team, draft your 8 regular position players and if you want a pinch-hitter or low-cost defensive replacement or 4th OF, at the most. Fill the rest of the 25 man roster with your pitching staff as desired and then with a bunch of $200,000 players that you will send down to AAA and replace with these good AAA players once play begins.

But you need to know who they are: some can play more than one position but you cannot know that until you find out their real identities. Every once in a whie one is good enough to play full-time allowing you to consider WWing one of your drafted starters to get more money for another pitcher etc.

The same is true of your two AAA pitchers, but they are always of lesser quality than are the position players. The AAA Starting Pitcher will not have more than maybe 40 IP in all, so they could be used as a spot starter for resting tired arms during the season or used up at the very start of the season to take the pressure off your rotation when the early season DAMP effect happens. The RP will be good for mop-up and not much else, maybe in rare cases as a Long Relief B at best.

So some people here draft 7,8,9 really good pitchers, two scrubs worth very little whom they send down and replace with these two as spot starter and mop up. Others prefer to draft a fully functional staff and not have to rely on these two inferior guys except to rest the staff and use up innings, bringing those sent down immediately back up once they have used the two AAA guys as desired. That is all up to you. But again, you need to know who these players are.

So look in the Forum for "AAA Just the Charts" and get to work - it will be a half hour of your time to identify them all using the ratings that they AAA are given which make them each unique, so if you do it right you should get only one result from your research and that is your AAA player's real identity.

Be sure to put the games played to zero, and the same with IP, and to check whether they are right-handed, left-handed or switch-hitters, and to be searching under their primary position played for each position player but also including whether they are SP or RP.

If you get more than one result, check the part of "AAA Just the Charts" about the salary ranges. For OLs the AAA are all "average", so use that salary range for each position and for the kind of pitcher (SP or RP).

The rest is up to you. But this is a key part of play here and if you are not doing it, or have not quite understood what many veterans here have been telling you, this is what it means: the AAA are real historical MLB players and you need to use that post in the Forum to find out their real identities so you can best figure out given your managerial strategies how to use them for your team.

Also, a last note: in your Manager's Center for your team, on the right hand column are red-colored hyperlinks for setting your player hierarchies.

There are three: hierarchies for rest, defensive replacements, and pinch-hitting.

The first is where you set WHO you want to play at each position in which order. No one here knows for sure if it matters whether you put your regular starting player for SS or 3B or CF etc. first or ignore him since you have him in your lineups against RH and LH pitchers anyway so they will be the usual starter - but after that put all the players able to play that position in the order of preference you want for when the main regular at that position is rested. Remember that you will probably have some players, especially in the outfield that are set as alternatives for more than one position so be aware that if that player is already starting a game in LF or 2B and your RF or SS also needs rest and you have them as your first preference after the main starting player, the system will go to the next in line.

Same with defensive replacements: these are for in-game situations when you are leading in late innings or so far behind that you rest your regulars IF you check that box to rest regulars and use defensive replacements in the managerial strategy section. They will NOT ever start at the position if you did not put them into the player rest hieararchy. The defensive replacement list is only for replacing players in late innings during the game, The system cannot play a player at a position that you did not list in the rest hieararchy.

For pinch-hitters once you bring up your AAA you will need to also set your preferred order of pinch-hitting in different situations against LH and RH pitchers, just as you will need to redo your player rest hierarchy at each position. The system's algorithm (Sparky as we call him, though this is more often used when we are discussing the use of pitchers) will not do this automatically for you. If you bring up your AAA second baseman but don't put him in the hieararchy list as the go to guy for when your regular 2B is rested, the SIM will not know to put him in and you may find your regular being drained down every day and never rested because the SIM does not know there is an available replacement.

The rest is up to you. Check out the "AAA Just the Charts" post below in this same Forum and get started. Good luck and again, welcome.

very helpful info, thank you!

Posted by DougOut on 6/8/2020 4:13:00 PM (view original):
FAKE

What you talking about?

Trolling new players, real sportsmanship there buddy.

Good info Italyprof. Identifying AAA players is a must for success.

Good tips for all us brand nubians, italyprof. For any newbie who's interested in the type of AAA players you might get, here's the OPS# of my AAA players from my 2 leagues going on right now. As you can see, you can end up with some useful players and some not-so-useful ones.

League 1: .818; .794; .756; .730; .648; .639
League 2: .774; .688; .655; .643; .628; .558

Good info. The only part I disagree with is about drafting 200k players and burying them in AAA. I believe in using every roster spot efficiently. With AAA you have a 33-man team and can shuttle some of them back and forth from AAA.

good thoughts, rbow. I'm only a few seasons in, but the debate I've been having in my head (Herman's Head style for you 90's kids) is whether I'm better off with (a) five $200k players ($1m) total that I send to AAA, thereby leaving me more $ for my 8 starters, or (b) somewhere between 1 and 5 bench players that might cost me $2M - $10M that may or may not be any better than the AAA players I get. So far I've leaned toward spending the $ on starters and rolling the dice on the AAA talent I get. It's worked out ok in a few leagues, but has really screwed me in one.

rbow923, fair enough. I think you are probably right, I just don't necessarily have the time or patience to do that, but I don't disagree that it makes sense.

DCNats400, I won't say that it can't work - I once built a team of platoon players in an OL and used no or almost no AAA all season - I may have shuttled a couple in to deal with fatigue for a few games, but basically did not use them, and relied only on drafted platoon players on a 25-man roster. I came in a respectable second place. So it can work.

BUT...remember value - the more value you have on the bench and not on the field, the bigger the value advantage of your opponents. But that is a general rule. In practice many strategies may work.

Posted by italyprof on 6/8/2020 7:47:00 AM (view original):
If you are new here and you have already learned how to do this, please feel free to ignore this post.

But in a couple of recent sitemail conversations with newcomers I have found that some of you have not yet grasped a very important fact about your Open League teams:

THE "AAA" PLAYERS THAT YOU FIND IN YOUR GENERAL MANAGERS SECTION ONCE PLAY BEGINS IN YOUR LEAGUE ARE NOT MINOR LEAGUERS OR SCRUBS, NOR ARE THEY FICTIONAL.

They are REAL, HISTORICAL PLAYERS some of whom are quite good. You have to find out their true identities by using the techniques provided in the post in this Forum which we oldtimers regularly bump up the list so it is always easy to find, titled "AAA Just the Charts".

You will find that each of your AAA are real players with more than enough PA to be your real bench. So when you draft for your OL team, draft your 8 regular position players and if you want a pinch-hitter or low-cost defensive replacement or 4th OF, at the most. Fill the rest of the 25 man roster with your pitching staff as desired and then with a bunch of $200,000 players that you will send down to AAA and replace with these good AAA players once play begins.

But you need to know who they are: some can play more than one position but you cannot know that until you find out their real identities. Every once in a whie one is good enough to play full-time allowing you to consider WWing one of your drafted starters to get more money for another pitcher etc.

The same is true of your two AAA pitchers, but they are always of lesser quality than are the position players. The AAA Starting Pitcher will not have more than maybe 40 IP in all, so they could be used as a spot starter for resting tired arms during the season or used up at the very start of the season to take the pressure off your rotation when the early season DAMP effect happens. The RP will be good for mop-up and not much else, maybe in rare cases as a Long Relief B at best.

So some people here draft 7,8,9 really good pitchers, two scrubs worth very little whom they send down and replace with these two as spot starter and mop up. Others prefer to draft a fully functional staff and not have to rely on these two inferior guys except to rest the staff and use up innings, bringing those sent down immediately back up once they have used the two AAA guys as desired. That is all up to you. But again, you need to know who these players are.

So look in the Forum for "AAA Just the Charts" and get to work - it will be a half hour of your time to identify them all using the ratings that they AAA are given which make them each unique, so if you do it right you should get only one result from your research and that is your AAA player's real identity.

Be sure to put the games played to zero, and the same with IP, and to check whether they are right-handed, left-handed or switch-hitters, and to be searching under their primary position played for each position player but also including whether they are SP or RP.

If you get more than one result, check the part of "AAA Just the Charts" about the salary ranges. For OLs the AAA are all "average", so use that salary range for each position and for the kind of pitcher (SP or RP).

The rest is up to you. But this is a key part of play here and if you are not doing it, or have not quite understood what many veterans here have been telling you, this is what it means: the AAA are real historical MLB players and you need to use that post in the Forum to find out their real identities so you can best figure out given your managerial strategies how to use them for your team.

Also, a last note: in your Manager's Center for your team, on the right hand column are red-colored hyperlinks for setting your player hierarchies.

There are three: hierarchies for rest, defensive replacements, and pinch-hitting.

The first is where you set WHO you want to play at each position in which order. No one here knows for sure if it matters whether you put your regular starting player for SS or 3B or CF etc. first or ignore him since you have him in your lineups against RH and LH pitchers anyway so they will be the usual starter - but after that put all the players able to play that position in the order of preference you want for when the main regular at that position is rested. Remember that you will probably have some players, especially in the outfield that are set as alternatives for more than one position so be aware that if that player is already starting a game in LF or 2B and your RF or SS also needs rest and you have them as your first preference after the main starting player, the system will go to the next in line.

Same with defensive replacements: these are for in-game situations when you are leading in late innings or so far behind that you rest your regulars IF you check that box to rest regulars and use defensive replacements in the managerial strategy section. They will NOT ever start at the position if you did not put them into the player rest hieararchy. The defensive replacement list is only for replacing players in late innings during the game, The system cannot play a player at a position that you did not list in the rest hieararchy.

For pinch-hitters once you bring up your AAA you will need to also set your preferred order of pinch-hitting in different situations against LH and RH pitchers, just as you will need to redo your player rest hierarchy at each position. The system's algorithm (Sparky as we call him, though this is more often used when we are discussing the use of pitchers) will not do this automatically for you. If you bring up your AAA second baseman but don't put him in the hieararchy list as the go to guy for when your regular 2B is rested, the SIM will not know to put him in and you may find your regular being drained down every day and never rested because the SIM does not know there is an available replacement.

The rest is up to you. Check out the "AAA Just the Charts" post below in this same Forum and get started. Good luck and again, welcome.

It ain't anywhere after this post. And, based on various searches I cannot find any such animal.

Posted by italyprof on 6/8/2020 7:47:00 AM (view original):
If you are new here and you have already learned how to do this, please feel free to ignore this post.

But in a couple of recent sitemail conversations with newcomers I have found that some of you have not yet grasped a very important fact about your Open League teams:

THE "AAA" PLAYERS THAT YOU FIND IN YOUR GENERAL MANAGERS SECTION ONCE PLAY BEGINS IN YOUR LEAGUE ARE NOT MINOR LEAGUERS OR SCRUBS, NOR ARE THEY FICTIONAL.

They are REAL, HISTORICAL PLAYERS some of whom are quite good. You have to find out their true identities by using the techniques provided in the post in this Forum which we oldtimers regularly bump up the list so it is always easy to find, titled "AAA Just the Charts".

You will find that each of your AAA are real players with more than enough PA to be your real bench. So when you draft for your OL team, draft your 8 regular position players and if you want a pinch-hitter or low-cost defensive replacement or 4th OF, at the most. Fill the rest of the 25 man roster with your pitching staff as desired and then with a bunch of $200,000 players that you will send down to AAA and replace with these good AAA players once play begins.

But you need to know who they are: some can play more than one position but you cannot know that until you find out their real identities. Every once in a whie one is good enough to play full-time allowing you to consider WWing one of your drafted starters to get more money for another pitcher etc.

The same is true of your two AAA pitchers, but they are always of lesser quality than are the position players. The AAA Starting Pitcher will not have more than maybe 40 IP in all, so they could be used as a spot starter for resting tired arms during the season or used up at the very start of the season to take the pressure off your rotation when the early season DAMP effect happens. The RP will be good for mop-up and not much else, maybe in rare cases as a Long Relief B at best.

So some people here draft 7,8,9 really good pitchers, two scrubs worth very little whom they send down and replace with these two as spot starter and mop up. Others prefer to draft a fully functional staff and not have to rely on these two inferior guys except to rest the staff and use up innings, bringing those sent down immediately back up once they have used the two AAA guys as desired. That is all up to you. But again, you need to know who these players are.

So look in the Forum for "AAA Just the Charts" and get to work - it will be a half hour of your time to identify them all using the ratings that they AAA are given which make them each unique, so if you do it right you should get only one result from your research and that is your AAA player's real identity.

Be sure to put the games played to zero, and the same with IP, and to check whether they are right-handed, left-handed or switch-hitters, and to be searching under their primary position played for each position player but also including whether they are SP or RP.

If you get more than one result, check the part of "AAA Just the Charts" about the salary ranges. For OLs the AAA are all "average", so use that salary range for each position and for the kind of pitcher (SP or RP).

The rest is up to you. But this is a key part of play here and if you are not doing it, or have not quite understood what many veterans here have been telling you, this is what it means: the AAA are real historical MLB players and you need to use that post in the Forum to find out their real identities so you can best figure out given your managerial strategies how to use them for your team.

Also, a last note: in your Manager's Center for your team, on the right hand column are red-colored hyperlinks for setting your player hierarchies.

There are three: hierarchies for rest, defensive replacements, and pinch-hitting.

The first is where you set WHO you want to play at each position in which order. No one here knows for sure if it matters whether you put your regular starting player for SS or 3B or CF etc. first or ignore him since you have him in your lineups against RH and LH pitchers anyway so they will be the usual starter - but after that put all the players able to play that position in the order of preference you want for when the main regular at that position is rested. Remember that you will probably have some players, especially in the outfield that are set as alternatives for more than one position so be aware that if that player is already starting a game in LF or 2B and your RF or SS also needs rest and you have them as your first preference after the main starting player, the system will go to the next in line.

Same with defensive replacements: these are for in-game situations when you are leading in late innings or so far behind that you rest your regulars IF you check that box to rest regulars and use defensive replacements in the managerial strategy section. They will NOT ever start at the position if you did not put them into the player rest hieararchy. The defensive replacement list is only for replacing players in late innings during the game, The system cannot play a player at a position that you did not list in the rest hieararchy.

For pinch-hitters once you bring up your AAA you will need to also set your preferred order of pinch-hitting in different situations against LH and RH pitchers, just as you will need to redo your player rest hierarchy at each position. The system's algorithm (Sparky as we call him, though this is more often used when we are discussing the use of pitchers) will not do this automatically for you. If you bring up your AAA second baseman but don't put him in the hieararchy list as the go to guy for when your regular 2B is rested, the SIM will not know to put him in and you may find your regular being drained down every day and never rested because the SIM does not know there is an available replacement.

The rest is up to you. Check out the "AAA Just the Charts" post below in this same Forum and get started. Good luck and again, welcome.

It ain't anywhere after this post. And, based on various searches I cannot find any such animal. 

It's here.

By the way, most players can be ID'd with a lot less effort these days. Simply click on your AAA player's name to make his profile page pop up. Then click on salary history, and look at the most recent salary (top right). That's what the real player costs right now. Go to the draft center and use this salary and your player's defensive ratings (at his primary position) to find out who he is.

Some players will not have a salary history. These are the more recent ones (I believe from 2018-19) who were added to the database after the dynamic pricing experiment was halted. You'll have to ID them via the "AAA Just the Charts" thread.

I'm on my 3rd team. Had no clue the ML were real players until I saw this. I've used my ST team.

Can anyone please look up these guys for me?

5/6/6/D/. C/D- 1B

9/2/9/D. B/D+. OF

7/3/7/A. C/C- SS

6/3/7/B. C+/D+. 2B

6/3/5/F. B/A/A+. C

7/4/6/C. A/D- (3B). C+/D- (1B)

9/5/3/C. C/A+. SP

1/10/5/E. A+/B+. RP

Thanks!

I doubt you'll get anyone to do the work for you. Maybe someone will be generous once, but eventually you need to figure this out for yourself. The AAA Just the Charts thread contains very specific instructions for doing this. Try it out, and if you are struggling come back and ask specific questions.

Easy to identify if they have a salary history, as Crazystengel said.

Click on the player's name. Click salary history to find their current salary. Choose the nearest salary range, input their position, whether they bat right, left or switch. Put in their defensive ratings for field and range(A+ =12, D- =1), then click Search. You might have to change Games Played to zero.