Is this a bug or by design?

[Orcin]

I started a historical season in 1965 using the wizard and mostly default settings. I selected no amateur draft without importing rookies as free agents so they would appear on their historical debut teams. I also did not select "retire according to history". I did import all history prior to the start year.

I was 25% into the 1967 season when I suddenly realized that I had not seen Rick Wise (former Phillies and Cardinals pitcher). I checked and he wasn’t in the active player database. I also could not find Joe Hoerner (former Cardinals reliever). I did some more snooping and realized that the game does not import any players that were not active in the start year.

In the second season, it imports player that made their debut that year (1966 in my case). But if the player was active in 1964, in the minors all year in 1965, and then came back in 1966 – the game considers them retired! This was the case for Wise, Hoerner, and several other players. Inexperienced players will never catch this error and could miss some good players as a result.

In my opinion, this is either a bug or flawed design. The game should import any player that played before the start year AND after the start year, assigning them to the team that they were on previous to the start year if they did not appear on a team during the start year. Yes, I can (and did) unretire them, but there is no reason for me to do all of this work - and no reason for players to be permanently excluded from the game due to spending a year in the minors.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I started a historical season in 1965 using the wizard and mostly default settings. I selected no amateur draft without importing rookies as free agents so they would appear on their historical debut teams. I also did not select "retire according to history". I did import all history prior to the start year.

I was 25% into the 1967 season when I suddenly realized that I had not seen Rick Wise (former Phillies and Cardinals pitcher). I checked and he wasn’t in the active player database. I also could not find Joe Hoerner (former Cardinals reliever). I did some more snooping and realized that the game does not import any players that were not active in the start year.

In the second season, it imports player that made their debut that year (1966 in my case). But if the player was active in 1964, in the minors all year in 1965, and then came back in 1966 – the game considers them retired! This was the case for Wise, Hoerner, and several other players. Inexperienced players will never catch this error and could miss some good players as a result.

In my opinion, this is either a bug or flawed design. The game should import any player that played before the start year AND after the start year, assigning them to the team that they were on previous to the start year if they did not appear on a team during the start year. Yes, I can (and did) unretire them, but there is no reason for me to do all of this work - and no reason for players to be permanently excluded from the game due to spending a year in the minors.

A few versions back I started the same type replay you did, using 1906 as my starting year. I didn't import the complete history though. I was up to 1909 or 10 and I was wondering why I hadn't seen Eddie Cicotte's name pop up yet. Sure enough, Cicotte pitched in 1905, missed 1906 and 07 and returned in 1908. He never did show up in my game. I hope Markus gets to see your post and something can be done to change this.

[Mike45]

would have guessed they would have shown up as minor leaguers or reserve roster players depending on the league setup. They made their debut the year prior...were on the team, just were in the minors

[JohnHoward]

Yes, this is tricky and surprisingly hard to detect. I started a historical replay in 1966 and went four seasons before I realized that Bob Oliver was missing. Very irritating. This can also be a particular problem in early 60's to mid-60's leagues because of the "bonus baby" rules. For example, Skip Lockwood came up with the A's in 1965 as a teenager 3B because he had to appear in the majors. He then disappears for a few seasons before coming back as a MR for the Pilots in 1969. If you start a league in one of his "off" years the game treats him as retired and he never shows up.

Skip Lockwood Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com

[Gambo]

I believe that if you use neutralized statistics for your import it should import the players even if they miss a year. (Because in the neutralized portion of the database they have calculated stats for missed seasons.) This was the case a couple of years ago but I dont know if it changed the last couple of years.

Generally what I do is go to the retired players and mass select anybody under 35 to unretire. Of course that doesn't put them on teams.

My DB would solve your issue as most of the guys would be in the right organization but it's not functional for OOTP15. The spritze DB also did not have gap seasons but again I believe there are issues for that on OOTP15.