Favorite OOTP Fictional Players

[Bobbuttons]

Question for those that like to play in solo or online fictional leagues, who are some of the players you remember long after you've forgotten all the others?

For me, I recall a guy with the last name Silvia (it's been a few years, so I can't remember his first name). I simmed through a fictional version of the history of baseball after the Depression caused the MLB to fold and a new league started up in 1931 with the actual historic players. I simmed through to modern day and took over a hapless former expansion team called the Minneapolis Millers. This was a couple of years into OOTP generated players instead of real rookies with version 6.5, so it was around 2005 in the game. The Millers had the worst record and I took over the club and Silvia was my first pick in the draft. He would go on to become one of the franchise's all time greats and was an All-Star at least a dozen times in LF. I'll always have a soft spot for that player.

My current favorite fictional player is on my online team in the OTBA. I kept drafting pitcher after pitcher for nearly 20 years in the first two rounds and they all seemed to collapse as prospects. But I took starting pitcher Big Ed McGrath with the first overall pick in 2023 and two years later he made a great debut with the big club with an ERA of just 2.62 in 141 IP. He's now 34 years old, a career record of 184-129 with an ERA of just 3.00. My inept GM skills have kept him from an even better record, as he rarely seems to have much run support. Still, though, he's easily my favorite fictional player I've had on any of my many fictional teams, online or solo.

[JohnHoward]

Errol Leighty. He won the Cy Young Award 9 times.

[RamMan12]

I'm in year 86 of my fictional league and I have probably a 25-man roster of favorites but the two that really stand out from my team (the Portland Pirates) are SP Patrick "Campy" Mueller and IF Bob Kenney. OF Hugh "Pendragon" Campbell is my favorite player who never played for me.

I discovered Mueller in Germany in 1966 and from 1969-1985 he went 355-188 with 3421 Ks while picking up Rookie of the Year and 4 Van Dooten (Pitcher of the Year) Awards.

Kenney was a #1 pick in 1954 and in 1956 I orchestrated a major trade to acquire his services. He played 16 of his 22 seasons with my team and ended up with 2519 H, 256 HRs, and 465 SBs in his career.

Campbell was drafted by the Detroit Revolution and played from 1958-1976 and retired with 2614 H and 455 HRs. His OPS+ was 151 and won the MVP Award 6 times.

[The Wolf]

LOL, they moved "Who's Your Favorite Player" to Talk Sports and left this thread in OOTP 12. I guess fictional >> real around here.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Bobbuttons

My inept GM skills have kept him from an even better record, as he rarely seems to have much run support.

Bob, don't be so hard on yourself. Just look at the Oakland A's. Billy Beane has done much the same thing, and he is a famous real-life GM with a well-known book that extolls his virtues.

[philliesphan26]

Originally Posted by JohnHoward

Errol Leighty. He won the Cy Young Award 9 times.

Jeeze man those are some ridiculous pitching stats. 400+ Ks in one season is insane haha. What kind of settings are you using for your league?

Seems like he had the penchant of giving up his fair share of HRs though, surprisingly

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

LOL, they moved "Who's Your Favorite Player" to Talk Sports and left this thread in OOTP 12. I guess fictional >> real around here.

Yeah.. makes a lot of sense.

[Bobbuttons]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Bob, don't be so hard on yourself. Just look at the Oakland A's. Billy Beane has done much the same thing, and he is a famous real-life GM with a well-known book that extolls his virtues.

I spent many seasons bringing in ground ball pitchers before I finally decided it would be a good idea to actually have a good defensive infield to get to all these ground balls...

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Bobbuttons

I spent many seasons bringing in ground ball pitchers before I finally decided it would be a good idea to actually have a good defensive infield to get to all these ground balls...

Some real life GM's did exactly the same thing. Some of them blatantly ignored the park effects of the park they played half their games in. Don't beat yourself up.

[DCHepler25]

Getting back to the topic of the OP...

My favorite fictional player is Kevin Downer. The 2B comes from a solo-league I have been re-playing since OOTP8. I try to draft him every time I re-start the league with each new version.

Attached are his career numbers and current ratings from the OOTP11 rendition. You can see from the ratings that, at the age of 44, he could probably still play for any team in the league!

[akw4572]

Mine is a pitcher on my team, that despite having relative normal "stuff", he seems to do very well. He's among the league leaders in complete games, and shutouts. In my mind, he's the epitome of a "crafty lefty".

[shawa666]

The legendary Curtis Borkholder, but he's not in any of my games.

[damientheomen3]

Esteban Negron. I've posted about him a couple of times before.

So I was running the Philadelphia Crackers (which have since been renamed to the Firecrackers due to complaints of a racist name by fans) and I ran them into the ground early so I could have a massive rebuild. It comes as no surprise that Negron's first major league season was the first in franchise history where the team didn't lose 100 games. Just the same, it comes as no surprise that his second season brought us our first ever season above .500. The next year after that, we won 98 games and missed out on the playoffs in a tiebreaker game (at the time, only 2 out of 8 teams in the league qualified for the playoffs). We would consistently win 90+ games over the next 3 seasons, and we would also consistently finish in second in our league. The next year, the league expanded to 12 teams and expanded the playoffs to 4. Following that, the team made the playoffs 8 of the next 9 seasons, with two championships. In the two championship seasons, Negron hit over .300 in both postseason runs, hit 7 homers and drove in 21 runs. Unfortunately, in his last 2 seasons before retiring, we missed out on the playoffs, going 82-80 and 67-95.

Negron was an incredible all around player. In his 15 years as an actual factor (before his last 2 seasons where he was a shell of himself ), he hit 570 home runs and had 2597 hits. He holds the league record with a 59 home run season, and was the league's leading home run hitter (with 580 total) until Edwin Walsh (who was also a member of my team and a part of the two championship teams) unearthed him (Walsh is up to over 600 homers and still going strong). Negron was a 14 time all star, 10 time gold glover, 3 time MVP. Oh, and did I fail to mention he was a catcher?

[jrainor]

I have been playing this game since ootp2 but I am more of a troller then a poster.... with that being said. I loved to read this thread and the wonderful stories about these great fictional players... I cant wait for 12. thanks guys.

[Dregen]

Great thread, I'll be doing something like this with OOTP 12..Going to sim 10 or so seasons with some created leagues then enter my coach.

Negron was an animal, how does a Catcher hold up to put up those numbers? Incredible.

[The_Knuckler]

The last game I played was OOTP 9. My best fictional player was SP Bill "The Bird" Lindsey. My league started in 2008 and Lindsey was my starting pitcher and helped lead my team to its first championship with a 19-9 record and a 2.26 ERA. Since he was already about 36 in my first season, he only lasted another season, where he was pretty average. Very short lived, I know; but he was still one of my best players.

I had another guy, I can't remember his name though. He was the third baseman for the same team. He was great for about five seasons (BA .300+, 40 HR+), but in his sixth, he suffered a career ending injury. I ended up having a lot of high profile prospects that fizzled after a year or two. I think that was mostly because I didn't develop them right.

[Donevyn]

This is indeed a great thread and gives me an insight as to why fictional leagues are soooooo popular. I couldn't quite get my head around it completely, but this clarify's much.

[Bobbuttons]

Originally Posted by Donevyn

This is indeed a great thread and gives me an insight as to why fictional leagues are soooooo popular. I couldn't quite get my head around it completely, but this clarify's much.

Most of my playing is done via historical replays. However, my only online league I'm in is fictional and I will occasionally start the big, fictional world with many leagues that takes forever to put together.

What I see in fictional leagues is that there is a completely blank slate. When you play historical, you generally know what you are going to get and when they are coming and, usually, about when they will leave the game. With fictional leagues, you get to see something completely new and you never know what direction these players will go.

Some examples:

I had a player in my online league named Manny "The Terminator" Nattes. He was a high draft pick and was a 5-tool prospect. He made his league debut at age 23, stealing 25 bases and hitting .298. He was mostly a top of the lineup hitter because his power hadn't fully developed yet. In his 3rd year, he hit .333 with 21 HR and 95 RBI as my franchise won their first league championship. A few years later, he hit .347 with 35 HR, 111 RBI and scored 129 runs. He was heading into the prime of his career with one of the top career batting averages. Then he got injured. It didn't seem too problematic, but before long he took a contact hit. Then another one. Then another one in quick succession. His season averages dropped from the .270s right after the injury to the .250s, then to the .230. He was still hitting with a lot of power, but in his last 4 seasons, he wasn't able hit above .236. His batting average of just .181 in his final year at age 35 wasn't enough, despite his power and speed and defense. He still retired with a .275 average, 305 HR and nearly 1,200 RBI along with 1,149 runs and 460 SB. Despite his problems in the 2nd half of his career he still ranks 34th all time in HR and 40th in RBI, 18th in SB. He was one that could have been the best all time in the league, but still turned out to be one of the franchise's all time greats.

There is also Dan King. Drafted in the 4th round, he developed into what looked to be a surefire ace starter. Then I put him in the rotation. He was rated at 4.5 stars and he was nearly fully developed. However, he just wasn't getting it done, at all. He would get shelled and walk everybody. From age 21 he kept going up and down from the starting rotation to AAA, back and forth because he wasn't getting it done. Finally, I could take no more of it. When he was 25 I put him in the bullpen and that's when the light went on for him. This season he's been dominating out of the bullpen. I am even thinking of possibly putting him back in the rotation to see if he has made the leap completely...


All these things are just complete unknowns, and you get wrapped up in the various storylines that unfold, from draft day to watching them develop in the minors to hopefully making the starting lineup with the big club. And then, of course, after a long career, the satisfaction of seeing the other GMs in your league vote your players into the Hall of Fame (my franchise has 2 Hall of Famers, hopefully Ed McGrath will one day be number 3).

[Peregrine]

I have a lot of favorite players, but I've never seen a hitter in my league (currently in 2135) better than this guy. I've seen better home run hitters but none that approached Case's level of pure hitting ability also - this guy won over 10 MVPs career, as I recall.

[OakDragon]

I really ought to start keeping screenshots like that. I play fictional leagues with 80's era stats and the only one that really sticks out in my mind was I had a 400+ game winner once. It was a number of years ago so I don't remember his name, though.