Out of control talent increases & range losses

[mtw]

There are currently 26 4.5 and 5-star pitching prospects in my 16-team fictional league. There were only two 5-star pitching prospects generated for the amateur draft the last 5 seasons combined, and only four 4.5 star prospects. The average pitcher in my league (not the average starter; the average pitcher) has talent ratings across the board of Good. 12 pitchers 27 or older who were 1 or 2 star pitchers just two seasons ago are now 3+ star pitchers, even with this abundance of talent. Talent increases among pitchers outnumber talent losses by about 3 to 1 during this league's history (excluding age-related drops). And all of this is with the average coach set at a rating of between average and decent for the last three seasons (for the first four seasons I let coaches progress normally, but when I realized the average coach had quickly risen to between good and excellent, I adjusted them down. However, the talent increases haven't slowed at all). My draft size is only 6, which means every team only gets about 1 or 2 pitchers each draft, and most don't get anyone who is a quality pitcher coming right out of the draft.

The average major league starting pitcher's ratings are around 7 in all categories. Many pitchers who were quality pitchers just two seasons prior are now mediocre pitchers, not because they lost ratings or their ratings are poor; their ratings are still high--it's just that pretty much every pitcher in the league has high ratings now. This really seems out of control, and is preventing the development of perennial stars. I think talent increases need to be much more rare than I see currently.

BTW, this is true to a lesser extent for position players as well, with talent increases at about 2 to 1 over talent losses. However, hitting ability doesn't seem to develop as much as pitching ability, so the ratings of players, though still too high, are not as high in comparison to pitchers. The average major league player is at average across the board, except at Avoid K's and Take Walks, where the league average is solidly at Good.

Is anyone else seeing anything similar? I like to see the odd 6th round draft choice develop into a quality player occasionally, but this is happening way too much for my liking.

Also, as I noted in an earlier post, range losses are still very common among players in their early to mid 20's, and range increases are still more common among players 30 to 35 than range losses.

[Steve Kuffrey]

I think the thing that you seem to be over looking is that this is a mere sampling of a season or two(or so I gather), we have simmed between 50-100 seasons and see good career development, career stat totals and a quite nice baseball history. Correct me if I am off the mark here.

[Plutoro]

and 16 teams is a pretty depleted talent pool..especially if u use the total minors rosters.

[Henry]

I think Steve's on the money - and was confirmed in beta testing. Although there were ups and downs (just like real life), decades of seasons resulted in a stable talent pool.

I use my imagination to "explain away" the largest changes... it would be nice though, if we could have a newspaper database that could give us those reasons in stories

[mtw]

I have absolutley no doubt that player development was tested thoroughly, if only because the topic has been much less debated going from OOTP4 to OOTP5. And I will grant that my sample size isn't huge, only six seasons, but that seems like it should be enough to get a gauge on how development will go. But if what I'm reading here is that all this balances out over 50-100 seasons, great--I can be patient. However, there has been a fairly consistent high ratio of talent increases to decreases during these six seasons, and especially with the high average ratings of pitchers I am concerned that there will be a rather flat distribution of ability from league stars to league average players.

I have two questions that I would appreciate some insight on, so that I can get the "balanced" talent pool that apparently others are getting:

1) What were the average ratings for pitchers and hitters that were targeted? I thought that it was supposed to be 5's for hitter ratings and 6's for pitcher ratings, which is definitely what it was when I began the league, but average ratings have steadily, and IMO quickly climbed during these six seasons similar to what I saw in prior OOTP versions, effectively diminishing the quality of star players, especially pitchers.

2) In the tests that were done to achieve a diverse talent pool, were coaches left on or turned off? Does it matter either way?

[Steve Kuffrey]

I don't know the details of the first point, I will say that "in your case" the talent increases appear to be higher than I have seen. But your next 6 seasons could see a higher number of decreases in talent. Also, IMO it is good to see the variety and if everyone ended up getting the same basic development patterns it would be pretty boring.

In almost all of the tests I conducted I had coaches/scouts ON.

[mtw]

Hey, I completely agree about development patterns and don't want to see the same patterns season after season...but I have so far, which is why I wanted to get some insight.

I'm still enjoying the game, and will continue playing the league to see if things change--you and Henry say they things even out in the long run, and as I said, talent pool doesn't seem to be anywhere near the big deal in the OOTP community that it was in v4. So, I'm definitely not ruling out the possiblity that the talent pool will subside.

If you had coaches on for testing the game, then I feel better about leaving them on myself.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Karl Marx]

I've noticed that when you turn a season "on", or start using a roster set for the first time it takes a few seasons to stablize and the game will then run "better".... I think this was the case with ver 4 too.... oh well, hang in there and I think you'll see more of what you're looking for

[Henry]

Originally posted by Karl Marx
I've noticed that when you turn a season "on", or start using a roster set for the first time it takes a few seasons to stablize and the game will then run "better".... I think this was the case with ver 4 too.... oh well, hang in there and I think you'll see more of what you're looking for

Good point. In the fictional universe, the game "generates" an even bunch of guys (1-100) but in any given custom roster set, the average - instead of being at "50", might be at "60". In that case, the fictional players generated year to year will have to overcome that average over time and bring it back to "50".

In the process, you may get some noticeable "swings".

Henry