Best Start Ever (using hard settings)

[marc5477]

So I've been playing this game a long time and I just finished the biggest WTF season....

I generally simulate all games and the way I play is to make the game as hard as possible so I use some hard settings and impose some rules on top of that. In general I usually hover around 500 in the 1st season of a league but this time I had a nutty season.

1980 California Angels : 123 Wins & 39 Losses

Crazy. I had never seen anything like that in a 1st season so i checked league stats and they seem fine. I went and looked at the draft log and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The AI seemed to make good draft selections but for some reason, my players just performed at a godly level despite a crazy number of injuries all season long.

- Historic League 1980
- Pre-defined draft values
- Neutralized stats
- Ratings based on Career
- Scouting to very low
- California had lowest draft seed of $19m
- Handicap of 50% on draft seed money (only used about $10m)
- Set AI to favor prospects
- Kept the crummy managers that the game started with (average scout)
- I let the bench coach handle all lineups and depth charts
- 1st round pick 20 (Tim Raines)
- 2nd round pick 7 (Fernando Venezuela)
- 3rd round pick 20 (Pedro Guerrero)

My team performed at an insane level...

Pitchers
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Fernando Venezuela - At age if 19... CY, MVP, WS MVP & ROY (missed 5 weeks)
21-3 ~ 251.2 IP ~ 8 SHO ~ 1.75 ERA ~ 1.01 WHIP ~ 0.3 HR/9 ~ 236 K ~ 10.5 WAR
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JR Richards - Age 30 - 2nd runner up CY
22-7 ~ 273.1 IP ~ 3.39 ERA ~ 260 K ~ 8.2 WAR
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Ron Guidry - Age 30
22-5 ~ 269.0 IP ~ 3.45 ERA ~ 7.3 WAR
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Mario Soto - Age 23 (missed 8 weeks)
15-3 ~ 174.0 IP ~ 2.74 ERA ~ - 161 K ~ 5.3 WAR
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Pascual Perez - Age 22
18-5 ~ 216 IP ~ 3.29 ERA ~ 5.9 WAR


Batters
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Denny Walling - 3B (who is this guy?) - Golden Glove
750 PA ~ .319/.390/.457 ~ 105 RBI ~ 5.5 WAR
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Tim Raines - LF - Age 20 - Silver Slugger - 2nd Runner up ROY (missed 4 weeks)
643 PA ~ .316/.429/.460 ~ 149 Runs ~ 103 BB ~ 75 SB ~ 4.2 WAR
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Bob Horner - 1B - Age 22 - Silver Slugger (led league in HR)
746 PA ~ .319/.383/.599 ~ 122 Runs ~ 178 RBI ~ 54 HR ~ 4.2 WAR
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Tim Wallach - SS (lol) - Age 22 - Silver Sligger (missed 3 weeks) - Runner up ROY
634 PA ~ .349/.413/.598 ~ 105 RBI ~ 45 2B ~ 31 HR ~ 1.011 OPS ~ 5.5 WAR
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Pedro Guerrero - CF - Age 23 (missed about 6 weeks)
588 PA ~ .354/.410/.532 ~ 96 R ~ 112 RBI ~ 20 HR ~ 5.5 WAR
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Art Howe (lol...) - 2B - Age 32 - Golden Glove (missed 1 week)
698 PA ~ .318/.378/.461 ~ 86 R ~ 88 RBI ~ 40 2B ~ 4.7 WAR
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Leon Durham - RF - Age 22 (missed 13 weeks) - Championship MVP
419 PA ~ .349/.399/.608 ~ 75 R ~ 73 RBI ~ 19 HR ~ 15 SB ~ 3.8 WAR

Even my outfield bench player had 562 PA's and a WAR of 3.1 (Eddie Milner)... And my starting catcher was out all season (8th round pick - John Stearns - 9 months).

I dont know what the heck was going on but the AI went bonkers... Anyone else have a nutty season like this?