Franchise House Rules

[KingMike]

What are some of the house rules you adhere to during a franchise?

I was thinking of implementing a random number generator in the drafting process to reflect "busts" and the real world difficulty of baseball scouting.

Ie: top pitcher taken randomly generate potential between 75 and 95. Remaining first round pitchers 70-90) 2nd rounder pitchers (60-85), 3rd (50-80) etc or something along those lines. Still trying to figure out what to do with position players as it seems offensive stats often fall off a cliff a few seasons into franchises.

I also always slightly "overpay" when trading with the CPU, they often under value prospects.

Curious what some of you are doing? As with NCAA football, house rules seem to increase the difficulty and enjoyment.

[KBLover]

Since I hardly ever get injuries in played games, I'll randomly injure players on my team couple weeks or so. I only include major league roster players and guys who actually played (higher chance to grab starters/guys I actually use). If a game event occurs that should have an injury chance (like a line drive to the face or a fastball to the wrist) but the player had his shield up (i.e. no injury in the game), I'll take that guy and randomly injure him and do it until the injury makes sense (if he got hit in the wrist, no back injury, etc).

If I actually DO get an injury to my team and it's a non-DL injury (day-to-day or out for a week, etc), I'll randomly regenerate that injury. Last time I did that, I ended Jose Fernandez's season...

Henderson Alvarez has been on the DL twice this season from this and four times in the last two seasons (RNG hates him). Chris Davis found favor with the RNG and his day-to-day injury got re-rolled into another day-to-day injury. Same with Carlos Gonzalez.

For your busts idea, I might would wait a year. Let the kid get into their organization, get a look at him, then maybe he turns out to be a bust.

Heck, maybe just randomly move some potentials around maybe twice a year.

Thinking about it gave me an idea that I should have a chance for a ratings drop after an injury. Jose Fernandez is going to hate me lol.

[KingMike]

I like the idea of injury based rating drops, dependant upon severity and what the injury is. Either affecting throwing velocity, speed etc.

[PadreFan84]

Quote: Originally Posted by KBLover

Since I hardly ever get injuries in played games, I'll randomly injure players on my team couple weeks or so. I only include major league roster players and guys who actually played (higher chance to grab starters/guys I actually use). If a game event occurs that should have an injury chance (like a line drive to the face or a fastball to the wrist) but the player had his shield up (i.e. no injury in the game), I'll take that guy and randomly injure him and do it until the injury makes sense (if he got hit in the wrist, no back injury, etc). If I actually DO get an injury to my team and it's a non-DL injury (day-to-day or out for a week, etc), I'll randomly regenerate that injury. Last time I did that, I ended Jose Fernandez's season... Henderson Alvarez has been on the DL twice this season from this and four times in the last two seasons (RNG hates him). Chris Davis found favor with the RNG and his day-to-day injury got re-rolled into another day-to-day injury. Same with Carlos Gonzalez. For your busts idea, I might would wait a year. Let the kid get into their organization, get a look at him, then maybe he turns out to be a bust. Heck, maybe just randomly move some potentials around maybe twice a year. Thinking about it gave me an idea that I should have a chance for a ratings drop after an injury. Jose Fernandez is going to hate me lol.

How do you decide who and to what severity? I have noticed the lack of injuries in played games as well.


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[KingMike]

Quote: Originally Posted by PadreFan84

How do you decide who and to what severity? I have noticed the lack of injuries in played games as well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Could setup a similar setup to the one i used in ncaa, either monthly or biweekly, randomly generate numbers until a jersey number hits, and then generate severity based on a chart in correlation to the random generator. I also had guys being suspended on failed drug tests and off field infractions.

Here is what mattynokes created for ncaa, could be modified for the show.

Quote: Originally Posted by mattynokes

Suspensions Step 1 Infraction or None? 1 = Infraction 2 = None 3 = None 4 = Infraction 5 = None Step 2 Team Rules, Academics, or NCAA Rules? 1 = Team Rules 2 = Academics 3 = NCAA Rules Academic suspension rolls are only valid before Week 1 and Bowl Week (simulating summer semester and end of fall semester). If #2 is rolled any other week, they are considered “None”. Players with 80+ AWR are exempt from Team Rule violations and players with 90+ AWR are also exempt from Academic violations. Step 3 Team Rules 1 = 1 Game 2 = 2 Games 3 = 3 Games 4 = 1st Quarter 5 = 5 Games Academics If Week 1 = Regular Season + Conf Championship If Bowl Week = Bowl Game NCAA Rules 1 = 1 Game 2 = 2 Games 3 = 3 Games 4 = 5 Games 5 = 1 Game 6 = 2 Games 7 = Season Step 4 Enter -5 to 105 in random number generator to figure out which player is in violation. If unused number turns up, keep rolling until used number is rolled. Even if the player is injured or redshirting, they will be suspended. -5 and 105 are used so jersey numbers 1 and 99 are not the extreme ends of the number roll. Step 5 (Academics Only) A player must be cleared to return from an academics suspension. He will have as many tries as there are semesters left before the next football season starts. i.e. if he’s suspended for the bowl game, he would have spring and summer semester to become eligible once again. If the player fails to return, he is to be cut in the off-season (if he’s suspended for the regular season, he would have 3 chances to return). Player Returns? 1 = Yes 2 = No Injuries – Rolled after every game, only for OL/DL Step 1 Injury or None? 1 = None 2 = Injury 3 = None Step 2 Injury Length 1 = 1 Week 2 = 2-3 Weeks 3 = 4-5 Weeks 4 = 6+ Weeks (Max of Season Ending) 5 = 1 Week 6 = 2-3 Week 7 = 4-5 Week 8 = Season Ending 9 = 1 Week Step 3 Enter -5 to 105 in random number generator to figure out which player is in violation. If unused number turns up, keep rolling until used number is rolled. If the player is redshirted, he cannot be injured. If the player is already injured, it will add-on to his existing injury. -5 and 105 are used so jersey numbers 1 and 99 are not the extreme ends of the number roll. Step 4 Player Returns? 1 = Yes 2 = No i.e. #3 is rolled The player will be injured a minimum of three games. Then a roll will determine if he returns or not before the fourth or fifth game. After he is injured five games, he is set to return without needing a roll to clear him.

[BrianU]

This is more a mix of franchise and gameplay house rules, but I like to limit the ways I can take advantage of the controls in sports games to try to make it a more even playing field human vs CPU.

Every month of franchise I look at my player's stats and that determine who I use directional hitting, contact swing, and power swing with.

---

Post-pitch delivery Directional Hitting
(AVG) Above average 0.270+

Contact swings
(OBP) Above average 0.340+

Power swings
(ISO) Above average 0.170+

----

So for example I will only use contact swings with players in my franchise who have a .340 OBP or higher. You can do this two ways, either based on a players real life stats or his The Show franchise mode stats. It adds another wrinkle of realism for me.

The "Post-pitch delivery Directional Hitting" is using the direction hitting while the pitch is coming to the plate and mid-flight pushing the right analog stick towards where the ball is pitched and hitting it. i.e. going with the pitch. I believe this gives you a little boost to contact, I limit it to my high AVG guys because I feel it would be too easy to exploit if you master it. If you want to get really nerdy about it you can break it down further and limit yourself based on the hitters BAA lefty/righty splits, but I know not everyone is as depraved as me.

For the start of the season I load up Fangraphs and look at my teams batting stats from last year to determine who gets what ability. Then after the first month I use the in-game current season stats.

With that said I will use direction hitting for every player if I am sitting on a pitch. But I limit myself in that once I pick a "zone" before the pitch is thrown, up and in, down and away, outside, etc... I have to keep it there the entire pitch. Unless I am batting with one of those +270 avg guys.

I also do not use direction hitting as situational hitting tool. This is a GREAT article with data to back up the fact that MLB players do not have the ability to place the ball where they want to hit it. This guys for hit and runs, sac flys, etc... http://grantland.com/features/mlb-20...ing-the-shift/

[NEOPARADIGM]

I like to alternate bat color, glove color, & high socks based on performance if that counts. Nothing too specific, just if someone has a particularly bad day or week, I'll change up something about how he looks. Plays to the whole "superstition in baseball" thing and also keeps things a little fresh. I recommend it.

[Fours]

I play with a lot of house rules, but I just exploited the CPU in an evil way..

It was the trading deadline during the season where Bryce Harper would hit 6 years service and was a FA, I had 30M in the bank and a hole in RF, so I traded big contracts to the Nats at the deadline to make sure there was no way they could re-sign him..

It worked, and while I'm enjoying my new beast in RF, it all feels very dirty.

But my house rules are:

Each team gets assigned at least 1 Tommy John UCL injury per season, along with -4 in all ratings to offset the fact that they progress while injured. I pick the player by feel, preference to younger pitchers.

All incoming rookie pitchers get their potential decreased, and for I flip speed and Stealing for speed guys since so many have 90 stealing with 50 speed.

I'll only make a trade if the players I'm sending fill a hole, or make sense in some way for the other team. If trading for a mlb ready prospect, I'll over pay to compensate for the CPU not valuing them enough.

I use my 5th starter even when there's days off, since the CPU never shortens the rotation with off days.

That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's more..