Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben E Lou
It tends to happen in fictional leagues late in careers, and it happens much more often with RonCo's dev modifiers. It's actually more of a problem of AI teams leaving old guys in there for too many seasons. I've pretty much eliminated it by combining some things I learned from Ron with some adjustments to settings. I hope to be able to post the findings in the next 48 hours. Essentially what's happening is that a guy will have a solid career, but then finish it out with a couple of seasons that look like 5-15, 6.24, 100 BB, 40K. I suspect it's over-favoring fan favorites and/or big-salaried guys when setting the rotation. But like I said, I've been able to pretty much do away with it now.
|
Admittedly, the league I'm looking at right now is using RonCo's modifiers, and I know he's acknowledged this as an issue. Still, look at this:
1975 Cincinnati Reds
Ross Grimsley
Age: 25
BB/K Ratio: 157/52 in 214 IP (at age 21, he was at 62/130)
Tom Carroll
Age: 22
BB/K Ratio: 111/54 in 202 IP (he sucked as a rookie the year before, too (30/12) - why was he even on the ML roster?)
Les Cain
Age: 27
BB/K Ratio: 89/55 in 131 IP (he was at 165/122 in 225 IP the year before, but at age 21, 66/118)
Don Gullett
Age: 24
BB/K Ratio: 95/15 in 116 IP (at age 19, he was at 38/75)
Pat Darcy
Age: 25
BB/K Ratio: 77/24 in 100 IP (year earlier, as a rookie, had a 37/36)
Wayne Simpson
Age: 26
BB/K Ratio: 46/18 in 68 IP (at 21, had a 131/184 then a 111/175 in 265-270 innings each year...then went downhill. Fast.)
Even if some of these drop-offs are caused by legit arm injuries, there's no way these numbers should be occurring like this (from a review of their drop-offs and injury history, I can say that Cain and Simpson's drop-offs were tied to injuries). The drop-off either wouldn't be this severe, or they'd never see a AA mound, much less a ML mound, if they had these kinds of ratios.
And these guys aren't old, either. This is the equivalent of having Dontrelle Willis, Rick Ankiel, Kevin Saucier, Steve Blass, and Mark Wohlers on your pitching staff, all at the same time. And letting them pitch the entire year. Hard to believe this team ONLY lost 108 games!