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Originally Posted by joefromchicago
As I understand it (and I encourage anyone to correct me if I'm wrong), OOTP starts with the stats and then distributes them to the players. That's why I call OOTP a "top-down" game (as opposed, say, to Strat-O-Matic, which is more "bottom-up"). So, if you're using the historical league totals for 1885, the game starts with 323 HRs. It then figures out how to distribute those 323 HRs throughout the league, considering all the player ratings and strategy settings and everything else. The result, if everything goes right, is that your league should end up with approximately 323 HRs.*
That's why I remarked that the player-creation modifiers probably didn't have any effect on the HR totals. Even if every player in your league had high power ratings, they'd still be fighting over those 323 HRs. A player in 2021 with an 80 (out of 80) power rating might hit over 50 HRs, but a guy in 1885 with an 80 rating will still only hit around 10-15. Adding power-focused coaches to the mix might nudge the HR totals a little higher, but it shouldn't have a big effect.
* I'm assuming that you're using historical schedules and a 112-game season (I checked your links but couldn't determine how long your seasons are). Obviously, if you're playing 162 games in a season, your HR totals will be higher.
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I'm playing with 126 games, which (assuming linear progression) would move it up to ~363 HR. Those dingers, divided over 16 teams, is about 22 HR / team—still short of the 29 HR / team for the slightly less sluggish Hostos, let alone Betances' 34 HR / team.
Now, my leagues
are 39 teams apiece, and 78 teams total—I was using HR/team to neutralize the impact of this somewhat, but 22 HR / team would get you a two-league total of about 1,716 HR, which, IIRC, falls about 600 HR short of the total I did get.
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That sounds plausible. The default settings for pitchers are ... well, they're not historically optimal. OOTP's out-of-the-box settings are for three-man rotations and two-man bullpens. That's about two pitchers too many, as I see it. A team in those days would carry two or three pitchers, and all of them would be starters.
So OOTP's default roster settings cause the game to create way too many pitchers. I don't know how that affects the "top-down" distribution of pitcher stats, but my guess is that it generates a fair number of bad pitchers who are then relegated to the bullpen. Those relievers, in turn, get used far too frequently, which might lead to more HRs in the late innings.
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The first part of your second paragraph is definitely true—in fact, I'll go even farther; a lot of those bad pitchers still get shoved out there as starters. (To be fair, some of them are long relievers who only have 2-2.5 pitches; it's very funny to watch a guy win playoff MVP awards and come close to leading the league in various stats while being officially rated a "Borderline SP" because of his limited mix.)
The second, without a deeper dive, I don't think I could verify. I know some of those HRs came off injury replacements, and others were from guys who were sitting on the bench all year and got called up when their team hit the magic or tragic number, and probably still others are the exact situation you're describing.