[Strovel]

Hi All,

Been playing baseball sims for 30+ years, and have finally leapt into OOTP. I started a 2015 season, got into June and realized how many dumb things I'd done, and started over. Got into later May, and my hard drive crashed. Now, I'm three games into another try and have some noob-y questions.

Are all the players that enter the league through the draft (and international free agency) real players, or are the down-roster fillers fictional players?

As I create a 2015 season, are player ratings set in stone for the course of a player's career, not counting injury and player development effects? Put another way, if Kris Bryant is created as a monster when I create this game, does he stay a monster for 15 years if the real Bryant flames out? Is there a 10-year-old OOTP game out there in which Brandon Wood and Dallas McPherson are a Hall-of-Fame left side of the infield? Does anybody have a Mike Trout with a .690 career OPS?

On another tack, is a player's early retirement binding? If I have Mark Buehrle, can he keep pitching for me for five years? I notice among free agents in the early stages of the 2015 season, there are players who haven't appeared in the bigs with any consequence for a while. Are they available because they haven't officially retired?

Also, for players who missed considerable time with injury, how is that handled. If Matt Moore in my OOTP 15 didn't get hurt last year, did he open this year injured or diminished in ability when I imported the old game into OOTP 16?

That's just a few to start.... Thanks in advance for any feedback.