Just so no one else wastes their time
 

When it comes to "erasing all history" when playing historical, the sim 6 seasons before doing so, doesn't always work. I just started a historical in 1939 simmed to January 1947. Erased all history. Created new teams and played 1947. Great season, but when I started 1948, I was treated to Dixie Walker leaderboard. Walker has 1540 games played. On the pitching side, Mickey Haeffner is multi season guy. Ugh!

I just encountered something like this. I started a league in 1871 and simmed all the way through to 1901 before erasing history and starting over with an inaugural draft. I have historical minor leagues turned on.

After the 1903 season I checked the leaderboards and noticed a few players with high numbers. Sure enough, they had stats going back to the late 1890's. But when I checked their history tab there was nothing listed.

I think what happened in my case is the game is somehow re-importing players who maybe debuted in the minor leagues after they already spent time in the majors. So this might be an issue with the minor league database. I'm not sure if you used minors in your game.

The workaround I'm using is when the amateur draft comes around, I add pro and major league service time to the custom view in the draft pool. Anyone with any service time I just delete. Hopefully that works.

Okay, just simmed the 1904 season and checked the leaderboards again. A few of the players I deleted in 1903 showed up again. I'm not sure why this is happening. They weren't in the amateur draft pool so I'm unsure of how they are even entering the game.

Same thing in 1905. It seems like the same dozen or so players keep getting imported immediately after the world series.

The following pitchers keep getting reimported at the start of the offseason:

Clark Griffith
Chick Fraser
Al Orth
Frank Kitson
Deacon Phillipe

Did all these players real debut prior to 1901. If so, they will continue to show up the day after the end of season on the FA list until they are out of baseball IRL. I do not mess around with minors and I have not had this problem using the method of starting the league about 6 years before my actual start year, then fast swimming to my start year.
When you 1st created the league, did you check erase entire history. After you sim to the start year for your league, did you go into league function and on the bottom left side and erase those option, careers stats, service time, fatigue, etc.? The only one I do not erase is injuries since I want players to miss the seasons they missed in real life.
If you did the above, then I do not know how to help.

They all played before 1901 in real life, and in the sim. I started the sim in 1871, so theoretically every player should have entered my league at some point. I just erased all the history once I got to 1901. Some players aren't repeatedly showing up again.

For example, in this league Cy Young was out of baseball and retired by 1901, but he hasn't been regenerated over and over again like these dozen or so players.

As pointed out in the original post, that method didn't work for me. Fast simmed, erased, played a season and Dixie Walker had multiple seasons worth of stats.

Reed, thanks for replying. I erased career service time, entire league history, and all player stats. I don't have historical miss seasons, retirements or anything else check. Basically it's just set to import rookies (into a draft pool) and let the OOTP engine handle the rest.

I think this is a bug, and I think it has to do with having "use real minor leagues" checked. I'm not 100% sure since I'm out of the game but I think all the players that kept showing up had at least one season of minor league stats.

So now I'm not sure what to do. I'd just start a league in 1871 but the quasi-historical league structure kinda annoys me. Maybe I'll just suck it up and use the fake league structure, at least I'll get to see some of the old greats' careers play out.

I just ran another season, this time with Historical Minor Leagues turned off. Even more free agents showing up with several years of stats.

I'm going to try another season. This time I've deleted every free agent and set reserve rosters to no limit. I'll see what happens next off season.

Just hit the beginning of the 07-08 offseason. I just completely cleared the free agent pool.

66 players entered the free agent pool, all with their career stats listed. Their stats match the stats in their Real Life Stats tab." 66 players!

The thing is, these players have all already existed in my league. So I think something happens when you erase the league history.

The only question is, why these players and not others? Cy Young was out of baseball in my sim before I wiped the history, but he doesn't keep showing up.

Another strange thing is some of these guys appearing out of nowhere didn't even start their careers until after 1901.