[Cobby]

I've just finished the 2017 season in a fictional alternate reality simulation that started in 1871. (I've been working on this for 9 months or so). So now it's time to compare my results with the real world. I was going for a fictional simulation that still nevertheless kept fairly close to how baseball developed IRL. I used historical financials, historical player creation modifiers and did the auto-recalc each year to keep the stats close to real life.

Now it's time to see how the two worlds compare statistically. I'm kind of thinking I'll do this with a handful of different threads. This first one will focus on the pitching - especially pitchers from the early days of baseball. This is where I think the greatest difference lies.

So. First JAWS for starting pitchers. In real life, there are three pitchers above 100 in JAWS. In my simulation there were 12 - all pitchers that pitched the bulk of their careers before 1920. Similarly, for WAR. In real life there are 11 100+ WAR pitchers. I had 33 in my sim. IRL, 6 of those pitchers with 100+ WAR pitched after 1920, In my sim, only 1 of the 33 pitched after 1920.

It a way, it makes sense. In the very early days, pitchers pitched every game. And even after rotations expanded to 2, 3 and 4 pitchers, complete games were the norm for a long time. So it was easy for pitchers to rack up enormous career WAR totals. And a few of them did in real life. But in my world there were a *lot* more. And even mediocre pitchers - pitchers with ERA+ near 100, for instance, could make it to 100 WAR.

So here's where we open it to discussion. Why? And what can I do differently in my next simulation to cut that number down to something close to real-life levels?

My own favored hypothesis at the moment is that it has to do with injuries. I think more pitchers fell by the wayside due to injuries in the early days before modern medical advances like Tommy John surgeries that could extend the careers of pitchers. So, I'm thinking that next time around I'll try using a modified more brutal injury.txt file and wipe out a few promising careers. Only a lucky few would be able to run the gauntlet. Yes?