[Gambo]

For your 1st project, it depends on whether you want them to come in when they started in the majors or as a pro.

If you want the majors go with the default database.

Now if you want to only have major league players then you need to go with the default, if you want alot others to come in as free agents there are a few more questions you'll need to ask yourself.

The Spritze and Gambo database are all based on the same giant pile of statitics, they just have a different set of players (mostly the same though), and have differing team assignments.

My database will have all major leaguers, all americans who played in Japan, numerous Negro Leaguers,many career minor leaguers but only a few Japanese players (50). They will all start when they began their professional careers (minors, japan, negro, independent) and will be assigned to the team they were with on opening day that year (if they are a major league team)

Now if you want no asians, Spritze has a version, all start at 18, Spritze has version.

I try to make my version the most realistic in terms of a "historical replay", like you want (this is how I play for the most part), but it does have drawbacks.

1) Some guys like Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron will import as Free Agents since they began in independent leagues
2) There are some Japanese and Negro leaguers and others.

Here are my opinions...
1) A real historical replay = default with neutralized stats (difficult unless you control all transactions)
2) A semi-historical replay = mine (an alternate reality)
3) A quasi-historical league = spritze (players are on teams you most remember but may not be the correct team for that year)
3) Historical players fictional league/semi-historical league = a choice of any of the databases, depending on your set up.