Random debut league: overly dominant rookies

[Dukie98]

I'm about 50 seasons into a historic random debut league, and in the last few years, I've noticed that many of the rookies dominate from day one - including some players who were marginal MLB players. In general, there seems to be less progression, and instead, they are drafted as fully-formed stars, even as 19-year-olds.

As background, I'm now in the historical year of 2026 (started off with stats tied to 1975). Batting averages/ ERAs are roughly on a par with the last 10 years or so, with strikeouts and homers on the high end. I have a 48-team league, so there are more players in a typical year who will meet a given statistical threshold. Over the last few years, I typically have about 4-6 players top 50 homers a year, with the league leader usually around 55 or so, but 60 is rare. A .350 batting average will often, but not always, with the batting title. In the last few years, there have been a couple starting pitchers per year with ERA's below 2.00, but that's not always the case.

This past season, rookie center fielder John Kane hit 54 homers. In real life, he smacked 7 homers between 1907-1910, with a career slugging percentage of .297. He has a 70 power rating (on the 20-80 scale) -- even though he's 5'6", 145 pounds.

As a rookie this season, Greg Colbrunn hit .330 with 50 homers and 143 RBI's. Six rookies topped 35 homers, including Cal Ripken, Jr. , who smacked 35 homers in just 123 games - at age 19.

On the mound, a rookie Orel Hershiser was the most dominant pitcher in baseball, going 21-0 with a 1.45 ERA and an 0.74 WHIP. Eighteen starters in the whole league posted ERA's below 3.00 -- seven of whom were rookies - including Jim Abbott at 2.24, Red Faber at 2.33. The top six ERA's in the league were posted by pitchers in their first three seasons- including three rookies and two second-year players.

Last season, three rookies topped 40 homers (Reggie Jefferson, Sammy Sosa, and Paul Goldschmidt), and Frankie Frisch - not exactly a slugger -smacked 38 homers. Two years earlier, rookie Fred Luderus nearly won a triple crown, hitting .351 with 62 homers . In real life, he posted a 97 OPS+. That same year, a rookie Cory Snyder blasted 61 homers, and a rookie Thurman Munson won the batting title, hitting .352 and slugging .615.

My question: are there any settings that can be toggled to reduce the potency of rookies, and have a more normal progression. I also don't want to have 19/20-year-olds regularly hitting 40 homers. I have not fiddled with the player development settings - is this what would do the trick, and if so, how should I adjust them? Thanks.

[jaysdailydose]

It is tricky because the year that they debut in the Majors is the year that is imported... so, especially someone like a Hershiser, who was very strong right out of the gates in his pro career. He pitched to a 2.66 ERA and 2.66 FIP (strange, I know) in his first full season, over 189.2 innings pitched. Ripken hit 28 HR and 93 RBI and a .792 OPS in his ROTY-winning age-21 season.

You said you started off with stats tied to 1975 -- do you have it set to change at the end of the season/start of the new? You say you're around 50 years in, so if you're having it play by default settings to where it uploads the next year's statistical settings in your save, you'd be at 2025 and we're kind of in a big power/strikeout era now, so you would see that in game.

There are definitely settings you can alter, but they are going to be fairly sensitive, and could potentially wreck your league, so it is hard to advocate a switch 50 years in...

The actual rookies in the Random Debut database are still going to have their first year in represent the first year they were in the majors -- I always recommended either using strictly a reserve roster system, or at most only a AAA-team, as the rookies you're getting by default from your database don't need to go through your conventional ride through the minors up to the bigs.

I know if I was to advocate changing anything about how your statistical output comes to be -- or how your rookies import -- I'd want to see how you have things setup first as in screenshots of your settings to be able to even think of giving advice.

My advice would probably be not to alter things too much, anyway, and just try to enjoy it... you're going through an offensive era in your history... you'll likely go through a pitching era shortly after, etc...

[Hoiles]

On default settings past 2019, it's known that HR/K totals are jacked up, just like they are currently in real-life. The best way to get around this is to just tone down the modifiers for HR and K in the league total settings. Or you can use an earlier non-roid/juicedball era year for your league totals, click on the auto-calc modifiers button once, and then unclick the annual league totals checkbox.

Random debut is also my current preferred mode, but you have to recognize it's more of a "fictional" league with players loosely based on their real-life counterparts, rather than designed to actually reflect real-life seasons. So there will be some silliness where a guy who hit 5 HR in the deadball era turns into a 40 HR hitter. In a way, it adds some challenge in that stacking your team with the best-known players isn't necessarily going to work all the time.