Filters

The Filter drop-down typically appears to the right of the View drop-down on screens that have lists of players, like the Team Organization Roster screen:

A view answers the question "What pieces of data would you like to view?" A filter instead answers the question, "Whose data would you like to view?" By default, OOTP displays data for all relevant people for the current screen. For example, the draft screen displays all players in the draft. A team roster displays all of the players on that team. Filters are used to narrow down the list of players whose data you are viewing.

Customizing Filters

There are no default filters, so if you want to take advantage of filters, you must create your own. Let's walk through an example of creating a custom filter using a scenario that may actually happen in your OOTP game. Let's say you want to see if you have a particular type of player in your organization. You want someone who hits left-handed, has a contact rating of at least 40 (out of 100), and is no older than 26. Let's build a filter to find some trade targets! To create this filter, we'd go through the following steps:

Navigate to the Team Organization Roster screen.

Select Customize from the Filter drop-down:

This will open the following screen:

Click on the empty drop-down menu and click on CHOOSE... This will open a popup page with a list and bunch of tabs to choose different aspects of a player from: player demographics, batting, pitching, and fielding skills, and so on. **NOTE** Once you have picked some filters, they will save in the drop down menu for faster selection in the future. We'll start by selecting "Age," since we know we're looking for someone who is no older than 26. Once you select a field, a drop-down menu appears to the right of the characteristic, allowing you to specify what you want to look for:

There are numerous numeric criteria such as 'Is Below' and 'Is At Least.' In the case of nonnumeric values such as batting handedness, the criteria will change appropriately. You can click the Clear button at the bottom to reset the screen if you make a mistake. In this case, we've chosen to look for players whose age is below 27.

So you will want the line to read, Age is less than (<) 27. This will show all players age 26 and younger.

Next, click the + icon next to the criterion we created. This will add a second criterion to our filter. The - icon can be used to remove any criteria that are no longer needed. This time, we will select contact (under batter ratings), and set it to be at least 40:

Finally, we'll add a third filter, and set it to exclude right-handed hitters:

We elected to exclude right-handers instead of including left-handers, because we're OK with a switch-hitter!

OK, we've completed our criteria, now let's click OK!

...and we can see all of our left-handed or switch-hitting player aged 26 or under with a contact rating of at least 40.

Saving Filters

Once you have a new or modified filter, a new option will appear in the Filter drop-down, called Save Filter. Use the Save Filter option to assign a name to your custom filter.

Warning! Don't forget to save your filter! Your filter is not saved when you click OK. You can edit the current filter all you want but if you want to make filters for different events in the game such as a draft filter, rule 5 filter, you can click on save filter, name the saved filter and then that filter will show up in your filter drop down menu for future uses.

Editing and Deleting Filters

The Edit Filters option in the drop-down allows you to rename or delete filters. To rename or delete a filter, click on the filter in the list, and click either the Rename or Delete buttons.

Check Boxes next to filters

When customizing a filter, each filter also has an associated check box to the left. By unchecking these boxes, you can quickly remove criteria from your filter without deleting them. This way, you can include them again later much more easily.

Filter Templates

The filter screen also has a Template drop-down in the upper right that includes a number of templates for filters. These can speed up the building of your template. For example, there is a template for Starter that immediately selects players whose role is Starter. Try checking templates before you build your filter.

Other Filter Options

Within the Player Filter screen, there are some other options:

• The Show Filter Columns check box, when selected, will automatically add any fields you use in a custom filter to your view. For example, let's say your view shows you the player's ratings only. Then you create a custom filter using player height and weight. As soon as you do this, the height and weight columns will be automatically added to your view.
• The Import drop-down contains a list of all custom filters you have created. If you select one of your custom filters from this drop-down, the selected filter will be copied into the filter that you are currently modifying. This is handy if you want to create a filter that is similar to one of your existing filters. Instead of creating the filter from scratch, you can import the similar filter and then modify from there.

Different Types of Views and Filters

There are eight types of filters and views in OOTP. Each type is distinct, meaning that you can have entirely different custom views in each area. If you create a custom view on the Draft screen, that custom view is not available on the Player screen. The eight types of views and filters are described below.

View / Filter	Usage
Search Coaches views / filters	Used when performing global staff searches from the Manager menu, Staff Search & Shortlist option.
Search Players views / filters	Used when performing global player searches from the Manager menu, Player Search & Shortlist option.
Draft Players views / filters	Used during inaugural or amateur player drafts.
League Message views / filters	Used when selecting a filter on the League News screen. (This filter is not customizable.)
All Messages views / filters	Used when selecting a filter on the Manager News screen. (This filter is not customizable.)
All Players views / filters	Used on screens with player information, such as lineups, rosters, and free agent lists.
All Coaches views / filters	Used on screens with personnel information.
Team Players views / filters	Used when looking at player information for a specific team, such as a specific team's roster or lineups.

Views are stored in a series of files located in the data/tables directory where you installed the game.

Using Views and Filters across Multiple Games

One of the most important features of views and filters is that they apply to every OOTP saved game on your machine, including online leagues. Playing in two online leagues, plus a solo game? There's no need to recreate your views or filters-you can use your views and filters in each of your baseball universes. **NOTE** Make sure when you have important events coming up like expansion drafts, that you hardly ever see, that no filters are set or you might miss players that should be placed on protection lists.