[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by BMW

It's fun playing out games in 1871 just for the sheer amount of errors. It's incredible. I've gone from 1871 to 1884, and the game does change a good bit. I can still go with a two man rotation in 1884, although I'm choosing three. The errors have been cut down quite a bit.

Al Spalding is nearing 600 wins for me. He's a good/great pitcher, but I think part of it was playing the game they way it was meant to be played in 1871. Defense was so bad that getting a guy who could field their position well was as important, if not more important as hitting. So my team won a ton simply because I had good/decent hitters who could actually field.

The AI wasn't smart enough to key in on fielding. And you won't find a single free agent in the game until the 1880s because teams rosters were often only 13-15 players deep. Because the draft pools are so shallow, teams could literally lack a catcher or some other position. There was one team with a LF and RF who had no rating there - and already decent players were dropping 15% of the balls hit to them. Playing them, it was like little league, they must have dropped 50% of the balls hit to those positions.

Check out game 1 of the WS.