[NoOne]

stats are caused by ratings. so ratings are clearer (normal accuracy settings). stats have a lag time and more factors to consider as to why they may be off.

it will take more time to know if a player is good or not. you will be fooled by 1 year wonders, because there's not much else to go by if they have an amazing year early on. more uncertainty, more volatility in what hte numbers tell you compared to ratings.

you'll make all the same decisions based on the same factors, just with less certainty in the information that you have.

imo, it's closer to reality, but it's still off. when you look at a 5'10" guy and then look at a 6'5" behemoth, you have a good idea of relative strength... now, that doesn't translate perfectly in the field, but it's a strong correlation nonetheless.

my point is that it shouldn't be as clear as ratings, but it also shouldnt be completely void of common sense observations that can be made by looking at the players.

i've never played stats only.. i'd definitely wouldleave the speed stuff on if that's the "other" category. anyone with a stopwatch can measure that objectively. again, with defense it shouldn't be perfect, but you can still measure how fast someone reacts and what kind of routes they run to the ball. measuring inefficiency isn't difficult. we can know the players defense fairly well with a little observation.

imo, just crank up inaccuracy of ratings. stick to stats as you intended to for a stats-only run. you'll need them. the ratings will be a crapshoot, i bet. that'll be similar to RL. it won't be much different from stats only and you get some common sense with some players. the rest you need to work harder to guesstimate their skill from stats.

oh, and just forget about the minors. stats don't translate for a plethora of reasons. you'll have absolutely no idea who is good or not from their stats... very mediocre players can look good at any level of the minors... less so at AAA, but still there too.

it's those contexts that i don't like stats only because it removes all skill and turns it into a crapshoot. no skill because the info you have is so inaccurate and imprecise. not much of a %-success difference if you just picked a # out of a hat.

you won't know what you have in any way until they get 2-3 years in mlb, assuming they were fully developed, if not tack on 2-3 more years. a guy can hit 30hr at AA and then be a sub 1/2 scale power guy... that's what mil stats tell you... how they are relative to other very lowly rated palyers... it doesn't take any real potential to have more current ability while less than fully developed... more so at lower levels, of course.

now, that isn't an argument against it... it's just reality of the situation. what onen person find fun is upto them, lol. i just find it frustrating when i have no real way of influencing outcome beyond a fraction of a %.