[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

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!

What year did you start the career? Was it in the 70s? I ask because there's definitely a problem with RonCo's modifiers for the first 30 seasons or so. What I *think* is happening is that the league is generated with an OOTP-normal distribution, and then the combination of much-slower dev and much-faster decline is a double-whammy. There's a pretty big stats shift that happens in those first 30 years, too. (As in league ERA dropping from being over 5.00 for the first 5 years or so, to being under 4.50 every year from year 30 on.)