[Hockey13Playa]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

I will admit that I started my current fictional save (my first) with a very basic and simple structure and have added little things to it as I get more comfortable with the process and the fictional universe of this save.

So some of your questions I still can't answer as you are, I sense, being more adventurous in your approach than I have been so far.

Thank you for the detailed post, I appreciate it!!

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

But as for quite a few others here I do think that they are likely the result of settings that you may wish to play around with and modify a bit.
In my fictional league I do get several season ending injuries each season, and while they are more common for pitchers, position players are not immune. On the other hand, it does seem like AI managed teams have more players who end up playing far more games, pitching far more innings, than my guys. I'm someone who likes to use the whole bench and get my starters plenty of rest. Then again, it seems like my team tends to do better down the stretch than some of the AI run teams contending with my team for the title. Maybe I need to look at my settings and see if I can't tweak this to get AI managers to behave a bit more like me.

Since its a test sim I have the injury process on, the players labeled "wrecked" and what not seem to have a lot, but players who are labeled as normal seem to play way to many games. For example many players have like 12-15 years of major league service and under their injury history over 15 seasons there are 2 injuries, heat exhaustion and flu like symptoms.. each injury just a few days. Said example player in his prime has 7 straight years with starting 150+ games. This is common I've noticed for way to many players. I do know there are "iron man types" who beat the injury bug in there career but its way to common... again I didn't touch anything, maybe I have to change my injuries to modern day realistic.

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

I'm not sure what to say about salary development. I would think having your financial settings set to align with the MLB historical year you are mirroring your league on should do the trick. But I imagine there are still some variables, like ballpark capacities, that will affect revenue and therefore might throw off average salaries a bit.

Going to run a 2nd test sim but I think I got it figured out hopefully. I forgot to check a box noted by jtnlange!

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

As for inflated stats, well, it does sound like part of what you are describing is likely about players accumulating counting stats at higher rates due to higher numbers of starts/plate appearances,etc. Now if numbers are off in more serious, underlying ways then of course you can adjust league totals stats modifiers.

I think the inflated stats come from the playing to many games... there are always 10 plus players with 40+ home runs, sometimes multiple with 50+... once every few years someone hits 60. There are always a bunch of players with 130+ RBI's as well... and continue on with all stats, pitchers and batters.

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

I've certainly seem some very good international free agents thrive in my league. Then again, I've seen the same with players drafted through the regular amateur draft, but that often takes longer. My sense, for my league anyway, is that the international free agents are few in number and the percentage of them that turn into very good big leaguers is higher. But that makes sense to me. I think they are pre-weeded out pretty well and if they don't look like they would make decent major leaguers teams wouldn't take an interest in them to begin with. The regular draft is more about playing the numbers and accepting that most won't make it but some will and you can't always tell at 18 or even 21 years old which might be which.

Not sure what to say about the numbers of relievers/closers in your drafts, particularly in the early rounds. My experience has been that different drafts have different trends. I've certainly had drafts where a large percentage of the first round draft picks were pitchers, though usually heavier on the starting pitchers. Then, other years, the number of high quality position players is greater and pitchers aren't as highly valued. My sense, in OOTP as in real life, is that pitchers are the less predictable commodity and therefore they might be drafted in higher numbers, knowing that a smaller percentage will ever prove valuable at the big league level. And they are, of course, more likely to sustain injuries that either end their careers prematurely or render them even less valuable and less likely to make it to the show. And to sustain a minor league system you need a lot more pitchers than say, firstbasemen. So if a draft is pitcher heavy that doesn't bother me- it seems to mirror real life.

You may have misunderstood me on this section, there are usually like 10-12 international free agents and they always seem to come in and dominate the league. I think there should be some that do, but they ALL seem too. Even the 3 star ones, maybe I am too picky I don't know lol.

As for the draft it seems like its always loaded with pitchers and every year the top 10 to go are usually 8 or 9 out of 10 pitchers. But as you said with mirroring real life, I guess its not a huge deal.

On this topic... I notice every off season once free agency starts the game populates the FA pool with high talented 30 year old Asian players too who always kick ass. Maybe because I dont have feeders? Not sure why that is.

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

As for players aging gracefully (the way I like to look at it), this should certainly be something you can alter in your settings. Probably just need to play around with and test it until it feels right to you. I like players aging a bit more slowly and gradually so the settings that I use mean that there will be plenty of veterans in their late 30's (and sometimes even early 40's) who can still be productive. But that's just my preference.

Not sure what to say about the multiple MVP award winners and such. Sounds like the league might be a bit superstar heavy. Not necessarily a bad thing, but one would hope that over time that might balance out a bit. My sense is that early in a fictional universe you will have some talent imbalance (but then again, such was also true of MLB in the early days) but that given time you should see variation in this over the decades. But I'm only into year 8 of my league so this is just based upon things I have read from others around here, not personal experience yet.

I am absolutely in love with my fictional universe, simple and vanilla as it might be. I hope you feel the same way about yours once you are fully up and running with it.

I am first and foremost a NHL fan, and in the NHL there has been a huge shift in younger talent from 18-30 and then players falling off hard. I may be too used to that, where in MLB players do last longer and develop a bit slower. I may tweak the age modifier though juuuuust a smidge. I recently had a guy play 20+ years and retire at 45 lol.

Yeah there are so many repeat winners of awards I noticed, year after year after year. I had one pitcher win 10 pitcher of year trophies, while cool, seems a bit drastic. Same can be said for all other awards where certain players just dominate a given award for 5-10 years/seasons.

Other than that this is my first fictional league I followed through with and I am loving it! If I can resolve my issues it'll be FANTASTIC!