And sometimes the game just flat gets one wrong. Dan Kite, the big (6'3") righty from Shaler High in Pittsburgh and LSU, posted a nice 7.8 K/9 for the Red Sox Winter Haven farm in the Florida State League. Unfortunately, he was also walking 8.3 per nine innings. And while he managed to scrape his way to a 4-9, 4.00 stat line despite those hideous walks, 1990 saw a complete collapse as Kite went 1-10, 7.16 and the walks actually increased to 9.8! (Ks were hanging at 7.3/9)
The problem was that, shock of shocks, Kite had hurt his arm at LSU (this was the period when Skip Bertmann was pitching guys until their arms fell off). In compensating for the pain ("for a while, my arm was just hanging there"), Kite had completely messed up his mechanics, according to his high school coach, Jerry Matulevic. Moved to the bullpen in 1991, Kite got his main stats back to respectable levels (3-2, 4.33) and even reached a career-high 8.7 K/9, but the walks were now over 1/inning (10.4/9) and after three years of this crap, the Red Sox decided they'd lost interest in seeing just how high Kite could fly his walk totals, and let him go.
So Kite became a successful real estate agent in the Pittsburgh area. (A top seller in 2010 and 2012, according to one report.) But in the alternate universe of the game, he built off of his semi-decent 1989 (remember, my game started in 1990, so '89 is the most recent data the AI has to work with), got his control at least a little under control (stats at AA New Britain in '91: 10.9 k/9 and "only" 7.8 walks/9) and has had a couple of call-ups to the big team. Where alternate-universe Chris Berman has, no doubt called him Dan "Go Fly a" Kite. ("High as a" Kite? Nah, not unless he gets a drug suspension…)
One blurry pic, one pic with the face in deep shadows. And both missing an ear. Sorry about them.