Chris Archer always declining around 30??

[geisterhome]

This has been happening for me pretty much in all saves, he always falls off the cliff after dominating the first year.
Any reason for this?

I check 5 different saves and in all the same result, 3 screenshots I attached.

[diesel230]

Same here. I have been playing since the start of the 2015 season. He was inconsistent but never awful. His age 30 2019 season he is a reliever in AA for the Cubs

[geisterhome]

Why would this ALWAYS (at least for me) happen? And is there a way to stop this?

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[r0nster]

that's why I slow down their degregation to give players a few extra years. Plus I do not like having players having less than steller HOF career numbers

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by geisterhome

Why would this ALWAYS (at least for me) happen? And is there a way to stop this?

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Five saves isn't really that big a sample. It's odd for sure, but probably not conclusive. I would be surprised if this always happens.

That being said, other than manually boosting his ratings when they start to decline there's probably nothing that can be done.

[NoOne]

looks like he got hurt quite a bit in that one..

it may not always be aging, but at 30+, they tend to start to slip quite often in real life.

[sonicqaz]

Originally Posted by diesel230

Same here. I have been playing since the start of the 2015 season. He was inconsistent but never awful. His age 30 2019 season he is a reliever in AA for the Cubs

Just for fun, take a look at the top 30 pitchers in 2014 and see where they are now. That's essentially the same as Chris Archer in 2019.

Going by WAR, Felix Hernandez was third, David Price was fourth, and Phil Hughes was fifth.

Pitchers generally are only very good for short times. Its rare for pitchers to remain at the top for long periods.

[dkgo]

funny enough he's tanked in my save too. 2020 season and he's at 40/55/50 and a AAA reliever

[22tbrads22]

Yeah he's tanked in all of my saves

[TuckerDuckson]

Archer at age 30:


Scouting Reports:


Arrieta for comparison at age 33:


Scouting Reports:



I mean they are not the same pitcher overall, but why is a player who is 3 years older still basically had the same ratings as he he's had for three years. And a guy who is 28 basically die when he is 29. I'm pretty sure this isn't an isolated incident. There might be something wrong with Archer's developmental file.

[Harmon Killebrew]

Players with something similar to 'peak years' or 'skills drop off due to age', in this game I would assume.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by TuckerDuckson

I mean they are not the same pitcher overall, but why is a player who is 3 years older still basically had the same ratings as he he's had for three years. And a guy who is 28 basically die when he is 29. I'm pretty sure this isn't an isolated incident. There might be something wrong with Archer's developmental file.

Yeah but this happens in real life as well, right? Who's to say it's "wrong"? Do we already know what the real Archer or Arrieta will actually do in 2020? Even if you're sure you somehow do know, did you tell us?

Some guys age gracefully, some don't. Sometimes two guys can pitch at the same level at similar ages, then one will pitch effectively into their 40's and another is done in their late 20's. It happens. It's baseball. What would anyone have said 15 years ago back in 2002 if a game had Bartolo Colon still pitching in MLB in his mid 40's and had Wade Miller being done as an effective MLB pitcher by 28?

As far as that goes, it's not unreasonable to think a guy like Archer who is mostly a "thower" and depends on his great stuff is less likely to age well than a "pitcher" like Arrieta who is more well rounded. Maybe OOTP is actually ahead of the curve here. Maybe not too, but it's possible, no?

[TuckerDuckson]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Yeah but this happens in real life as well, right? Who's to say it's "wrong"? Do we already know what the real Archer or Arrieta will actually do in 2020? Even if you're sure you know, did you tell us?

Some guys age gracefully, some don't. Sometimes two guys can pitch at the same level at similar ages, then one will pitch effectively into their 40's and another is done in their late 20's. It happens. It's baseball. What would anyone have said 15 years ago if a game had Bartolo Colon still pitching in MLB in his mid 40's?

As far as that goes, it's not unreasonable to think a guy like Archer who is mostly a "thower" and depends on his great stuff is less likely to age well than a "pitcher" like Arrieta who is more well rounded. Maybe OOTP is actually ahead of the curve here. Maybe not too, but it's possible, no?

Sure, I guess that is a valid point. Ricky Romero, Chris Perez, Allen Craig, all faltered around that 28-30 age range. Everyone eventually declines.

The problem I'm having here is that Archer is declining without fail during the 2018 season. His age 29 season. I mean there were signs that Craig, Perez, and Romero were trending in the wrong direction.

Craig absolutely lost his swing after that 2013 season, evidenced by his absolutely abhorrent BABIP, he wasn't just unlucky either his hard contact rate plummeted, his K% skyrocketed. He plain forgot how to swing a bat. But the evidence was in the precedent in 2014, he was trending down in spring training. He altered his swing for more power and it messed with him. Then his confidence was destroyed and he was never the same. The NL BA leader in 2013 could barely hit north of .180.

Romero had control issues. In his breakout year he had a 8.7%BB rate, in his absolute collapse in 2012 he walked 11.3%. His groundball rate dropped a percent, his HR/FB rate went up 5 percent. There was noticeable change in how he pitched. He was starting to trend down.

Perez had character issues. And once he started to put up middling reliever numbers he was dropped. After his two all star appearances he was putting up 4.00 ERAs with 5.00 FIPs. There was a trend that led to his release. One year he had home run problems, one year he had strikeout problems.

Archer? This year Archer has almost an identical xFIP (3.40ish) as he did last year, a 3.10 FIP, a higher K/9, lower BB/9, lower HR/FB rate (10%ish)

I mean his BABIP is a tad larger than his career average, his groundball rate is lower (41% compared to 47% last year). But his SIERA and FIPs are all normal, in the 3.50 range.

So how does this explain a 12-11 W/L with a 4.71 ERA in 2018 in my KC save? Or a 2-8 W/L with a 5.93 ERA in 2019? His K/9 dropped from 10.6 in 2017 in that save to 5.3 in 2019. Players do not cut their K/9s in half and still start in Major League baseball. His HR/9 rate has doubled too. And his BABIP is fine.

The point stands: In what part of ZIPS or whatever creates the player datafiles does it state for Chris Archer to pull an Allen Craig with no warning during the 2018 offseason. There is no reason for a sudden drop off in ratings. He's in his prime, it's not like he's 35, he's 29.

"Who's to say it's "wrong"?"

I say it's wrong. And I don't mean that in an antagonistic or pretentious way. I'm just saying that this isn't just an isolated event. In every save presented in this thread, Archer's ratings are completely tanked by 2018-2019. Why is this? Why is it that every time that Archer tanks. Sure we don't know what will happen years from now. We don't know how 30 year old Archer will perform, or 31 year old Archer. We don't know how 33 year old Arrieta will perform. But why is it in the game that we must suffer from one of the better pitchers in the game completely falling through the floorboards for no well explain reason outside of "Well, it happens IRL."

I know it happens IRL. But why is it happening in every save?

And yes, Archer is a "thrower" but so is Justin Verlander who is 36 in my Royals save and his ratings haven't changed at all. Literally they have all been the same for the past 2 years where Archer's have plummeted him to a middle reliever.

Personally, I think it has something to do with Archer's 2016 season where he put up a statistically fine season, with a sound FIP and SIERA, however he was 9-19 with a 4.00 something ERA. I think this may have messed with ZIPS or something. Because projections like this, that Archer would regress this hard without ANY warning is plain absurd.

Understand that I appreciate the hell out of this game, and all you guys do for it. And this isn't a "game breaker" for me. The thing is, I kinda see a flaw here with no explanation on "why?" Is there a "why?" I don't know. I just don't want to sound like an ass here.

[r0nster]

I checked out Archer in my save as well he tanked big time and no injuries either. He was on a few winners for TB but still not dominating and at best he was a 4th or 5th starter ability.

[Lukas Berger]

We took closer look at this and found a setting that needed to be tweaked. So this shouldn't happen to Archer nearly so much in the future. His aging curve should be a lot more varied as of the next patch.

[ThePretender]

Originally Posted by TuckerDuckson

Sure, I guess that is a valid point. Ricky Romero, Chris Perez, Allen Craig, all faltered around that 28-30 age range. Everyone eventually declines.

The problem I'm having here is that Archer is declining without fail during the 2018 season. His age 29 season. I mean there were signs that Craig, Perez, and Romero were trending in the wrong direction.

Disagree on Romero. He overachieved in 2011, but it's hard to say anybody really saw 2012 coming. He was the same in 2011 as he was in 2009. To go from a 102 FIP-/94 xFIP- to a 122 FIP-/118 xFIP-...there's no signs for that. For comparison in 2009 he was 97 FIP-/92 xFIP-.

I get what you're trying to argue but Romero just fell apart. Guys do decline early but he wasn't trending in the wrong direction. He had a career year in 2011 but his 2009/2011 are pretty similar.

[geisterhome]

Thanks guys for fixing this!...was about to post abt 2 more saves were the exact same decline happened.

Generally I'm not against a pitcher like archer declining even roughly, however It shouldn't happen all the time.

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[r0nster]

In my solo league my players good or not so good tank at age 34 and they tank fast ... I will probably have to adjust age degradation again for it used to tank at 30. That might help your solo or league to make those adjustments

[geoffmatt17]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

We took closer look at this and found a setting that needed to be tweaked. So this shouldn't happen to Archer nearly so much in the future. His aging curve should be a lot more varied as of the next patch.

Can you confirm if this will happen to a game that started with the prior patch, but Archer hasn't tanked yet?

Yes, I'm the Rays in an online league now at the beginning of 2018....

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by geoffmatt17

Can you confirm if this will happen to a game that started with the prior patch, but Archer hasn't tanked yet?

It's fairly likely to still happen in that case. Not guaranteed, but likely.