OOTP9 QuickStart Fictional League With Logos, RonCo Dev, SkyDog Stats.

[Ben E Lou]

[Ben E Lou]

NABA OVERVIEW

The North American Baseball Alliance is a ready-to-go Quick Start league with 24 teams, 2 leagues, 6 teams in each division. The idea behind it was to create a league with teams in relatively large cities in North America, with nicknames and logos that are tied in some way to the city, thus making them easier to associate. Here's the league structure, along with stadium info for the teams:

The "OVL" field in the table above represents the overall net effect of the park's factors, with the details out to the right. A value of 1.000 in OVL would correlate to a ballpark in which stats that are about average for the league are producted. Anything above 1.05, and that stadium will probably be a noticeable hitters' park. Anything below 0.95, and you're looking at a pitchers' park.


I'm not particularly good at unis, but here's a sampling.

EASTERN CIRCUIT, NORTHEAST DIVISION

(Baltimore Blue Claws, Massachusetts Pilgrims, New York Enforcers, Philadelphia Freedom, Toronto Fire, Washington Federals)

EASTERN CIRCUIT, SOUTHEAST DIVISION

(Charlotte Cougars, Georgia Rattlesnakes, Havan Pirates, Lowcountry Gators, Nashville Hawks, Orlando Seminoles)

WESTERN CIRCUIT, COASTAL DIVISION

(Los Angeles Whales, Oakland Black Knights, San Diego Sunshine, San Francisco Gold Rush, Seattle Steelheads, Vancouver Lumberjacks)

WESTERN CIRCUIT, SOUTHWEST DIVISION

(Dallas Oil Kings, Houston Lone Stars, Lousiana Crawfish, Mexico City Aztecs, Oklahoma City Tornado, Phoenix Apaches)

EXPANSION TEAMS AVAILABLE TO DATE

(Columbus Mudcats (SE DIVISION), Pittsburgh Coal Miners (NE DIVISON))

[Ben E Lou]

NABA STATISTICS

This league uses RonCo's recommended player development settings, along with my recommended statistical settings, to produce statistical output that is something of a broad-brush of baseball from 1980-2004. The idea is that no changes need to be made in stats from season to season, so that a 40-HR season means the same thing in 2000 that it does in 2010, 2020, and 2090. 60HR in a season is possible, but not likely, and the low 40s might lead the league in a given season. League-wide ERAs will be a bit above 4.00, and it's possible for a stud pitcher to turn in an ERA under 2.00.

Here's a look at the statistical leaders in the most recent season. First hitting:

Of note...

• Although two players broke 50 HRs this season, only 11 broke 30. I love a league in which less than half of the teams have a 30-HR guy.
• The league had a 230-hit guy, but only four broke 200.
• There's more speed in the NABA than we see these days. While it's unlikely that anyone on an AI team in the NABA can match Rickey's 130 steals, 100+ is doable

Now, a look at current-year pitching:

Notes...

• As mentioned earlier, an ERA under 2.00 is possible, but 2.51 was good enough to lead the league this year.
• Gotta love that outlier in strikeouts: only 5 guys broke 200, and he got 326. (I suspect 360 or so is the ceiling.)
• Jesus Pagan is just sick, by the way. In the 25 years of history included with this QS, Pagan has 8 of the best 9 strikeout seasons. He's the classic example of why I love the OOTP outliers.

As far as league-wide numbers, here they are over 25 seasons:

Here are a few league-wide numbers over those 25 years, compared to NL numbers from 1980-2004. (NL only, because this league uses no DH.)

	NABA	NL 1980-2004	VARIANCE
AVG	0.2606	0.2590	0.63%
OBP	0.3244	0.3266	-0.68%
SLG	0.3952	0.3969	-0.43%
OPS	0.7196	0.7235	-0.54%
ERA	4.030	3.984	1.15%
K/9IP	6.146	6.195	-0.78%
WHIP	1.349	1.354	-0.35%

As you can see, the difference is very tiny.


As far as the leaderboards through 25 seasons, here they are:

• Keep in mind that this run is for only 25 seasons. But even as such, it's pretty clear that .400 and 60 are magical, but reachable, single-season numbers. In the 100-year sim I ran with these settings with 16 teams, two guys broke .400, and three broke 60.
• As far as career numbers, I'm very pleased to report that even with Ron's slower development and accelerated declines, 4,000 hits and 700 homers are reachable (albeit very unlikely).

• As mentioned above, Pagan is an absolute freak. Only one other pitcher has had an ERA under 1.92 in the first 25. That 1.496 is just sick. As you saw above, 2.50 can be good enough to lead the league.
• Poor Julio Vargas (272 losses) apparently played on some bad teams. He went 6-16 with a 3.36 ERA one season, even. At one point he had nine straight seasons with double-digit losses. In eight of those, his ERA was below the league average.
• The toughest thing to find a middle ground for was SP usage. I landed in a place that I feel good about, where 300 IP is a possibility. I recommend 250 as automatic HOF, though.

[Ben E Lou]

NABA PLAYER DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE

I refer you to RonCo's thread for details, but my reasons for incorporating his dev settings into this league are as follows:

• At default settings, far too many players were entering the league at age 19 and 20, and hitting their peak as early as age 22. With these dev settings, things are much closer to real-life norms on peaks in the 28-29 range.
• Also with default, there were too may players performing solidly into their 40s. Those have been lessened.
• Despite the above, there are still outlier superstars who defy the norms, and solid players who remain solid into their late 30s and early 40s. In the current season, a 39-year-old hitter had 606 ABs and a 17.2 VORP (.271-22-99-.803OPS), and a 42-year-old pitcher was 9-8 with a 4.00 ERA and a 14.3 VORP. (At 41, he was 17-7, 3.11, 37.1 VORP.)
• Similarly, it's still fully possible for a star-to-be to make an impact in his early 20s. In the current season, a 21-year-old pitcher turned in a 3.31 ERA in 233 IP, for example.

[Ben E Lou]

SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO PROCEED WITH LEAGUE

I saved the QS on the day that the 2000 World Series ended. Here are several ideas:

• TAKE OVER A TEAM IMMEDIATELY THAT'S IN A HORRIBLE SITUATION. I'd recommend the San Diego Sunshine, if that's the direction you like to go. The market, fan loyalty, and fan interest are all bad. They have the lower owner-set budget in the league, and they've finished last or next-to-last four consecutive seasons.
• DO AN EXPANSION DRAFT AND TAKE OVER ONE OF THOSE TEAMS. I've attached logos, cap and jersey information for two additional teams to add to the EC, the Columbus (GA) Mudcats and Pittsburgh Coal Miners.
• RELEASE ALL PLAYERS AND HAVE A FREE-FOR ALL DRAFT OR FREE AGENCY PERIOD. No idea how well the AI handles this, but it's certainly a good way to build "your" team from the beginning.

An additional thing to consider, no matter what direction you go, is the option to erase all league stats, history, etc. I'd recommend leaving service time as-is if you do that. Otherwise, the ROY and MVP in year one will be the same.

Hope y'all enjoy this.

[Cringer]

This is a beautiful thing you have done. Downloading now so I can start my first longtime career game with it. I have done a couple myself but had not gotten the setup I like yet. I know I will like this one.

Thanks Ben.

[Ben E Lou]

I just noticed an issue with this. The rookie league and short season A leagues are set to start on April 1st. Not sure why that happened, but with a June 15th draft, I'd recommend doing what I just did: change those two leagues to a June 20th start date. The other option would be to move to an offseason ammy draft so that they can start on April 1st. Sorry about that, guys. I'll fix it an re-upload in the morning.

[INDalltheway]

You just saved a lot of people a ton of time! I appreciate it Ben. If I have any feedback I will let you know!

[Young Drachma]

Great work, Ben. Can't wait to check this out!

[PadresFan104]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I just noticed an issue with this. The rookie league and short season A leagues are set to start on April 1st. Not sure why that happened, but with a June 15th draft, I'd recommend doing what I just did: change those two leagues to a June 20th start date. The other option would be to move to an offseason ammy draft so that they can start on April 1st. Sorry about that, guys. I'll fix it an re-upload in the morning.

Mind if I host this on my site, once you re-upload?

[Ben E Lou]

No problem at all. I'm a very early riser, so expect the new upload before 6:00am tomorrow.

[INDalltheway]

One tiny thing I noticed was the Louisiana team's city is listed as Louisiana, Missouri instead of New Orleans.. I am having a blast with this quickstart so far. I decided to take over Nashville because they are an aging team that I think needs a rebuild. The team has some tough salaries that I've tried to move without pissing off the fans too much. Great work Ben!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by INDalltheway

One tiny thing I noticed was the Louisiana team's city is listed as Louisiana, Missouri instead of New Orleans.. I am having a blast with this quickstart so far. I decided to take over Nashville because they are an aging team that I think needs a rebuild. The team has some tough salaries that I've tried to move without pissing off the fans too much. Great work Ben!

Nice catch. I'll correct that in tomorrow's new upload.

[Ben E Lou]

New upload with a few changes. PadresFan, feel free to host this version.



ISSUES CORRECTED

• Rookie League set to start on June 20th.
• Short Season A set to start on June 20th.
• Louisiana Crawfish location from Louisiana, Missouri to New Orleans, LA.

STADIUM CHANGES

• Charlotte: Bank Of America Stadium
• Massachusetts: Kennedy Field
• Nashville: Johnny Cash Park

[MizzouRah]

Where's the love for St. Louis?



Great work as usual Ben.. I'll have to try this out at some point.

[muns]

Thanks Ben, gonna try it out now!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Where's the love for St. Louis?



Great work as usual Ben.. I'll have to try this out at some point.

Heh. That was intentional. My plan for my own personal league with the NABA is for slow expansion--eventually to 36 teams. These are the new divisions I have planned...

Great Lakes Division (Eastern Circuit)
Buffalo
Chicago
Cleveland
Detroit
Milwaukee
Toronto (add Pittsburgh to NE)

Heartland Division (Western Circuit)
Des Moines
Kansas City
Memphis (move Nashville franchise to Memphis, add Columbus, GA to SE)
Minneapolis
Oklahoma City (add Las Vegas to SW)
St. Louis

As mentioned, I've already added Columbus and Pittsburgh in 2001.

[samifan24]

Please forgive me because I'm an OOTP rookie but how do I install this quick start so that OOTP will recognize it in the "load quick start" game list?

[Ben E Lou]

Unzip the file into the quickstart folder.

..\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 9\quickstart_games\

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Unzip the file into the quickstart folder.

..\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 9\quickstart_games\

Thanks. I had no problems installing the game but when I load the quickstart I get an error message that the "game world could not be found." Any ideas?

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Heh. That was intentional. My plan for my own personal league with the NABA is for slow expansion--eventually to 36 teams. These are the new divisions I have planned...

Great Lakes Division (Eastern Circuit)
Buffalo
Chicago
Cleveland
Detroit
Milwaukee
Toronto (add Pittsburgh to NE)

Heartland Division (Western Circuit)
Des Moines
Kansas City
Memphis (move Nashville franchise to Memphis, add Columbus, GA to SE)
Minneapolis
Oklahoma City (add Las Vegas to SW)
St. Louis

As mentioned, I've already added Columbus and Pittsburgh in 2001.

I see... please accept my apologies.

[INDalltheway]

Along with the expansion does anything need to be changed in the league settings.. Like should I raise the number of rounds in the draft or should that not matter?

[Ben E Lou]

Nope. No need to do that.

[Ben E Lou]

I started up a new test league with the NABA QS and ran it overnight, with injuries and fatigue both set to average. I'm *thrilled* to report that even with the slowed dev, accelerated decline, and injuries bumped up to average, some very appropriate milestones were reached. Here's a quick synopsis:


BATTING AVERAGE

Single-Season: .4000. Yup. Dead-even. 29-year-old Stanford Mann was 232 for 580 in 2069.
Career: .3451. Mann also set the career milestone. He hit over .350 six times

HITS

Single-Season: 240. Tom Hopkins did it twice, at age 28 and age 30. Speaking of college players, he was drafted in June 2045 as a 22-year-old. He started out in Low-A ball, was promoted to A before 2045 was over. He spent most of 2046 in AA, but was promoted to AAA by the end of that year. HE started at 2047 as a 24-year-old in AAA, but was an NABA starter at age 24 by midseason, and collected 335 ABs that year.
Career: 4,033. Carlos "Iceman" Gallegos was drafted 1(1) at age 17. He hit .308 in 224 NABA ABs at age 19. and was a full-time starter at age 20. His best years were age 26 to 33, in which he had an OPS of 1.096 or higher every season. His last season of star-type production was at age 39 (.934 OPS). He was a decent everyday player at 40 (25.2 VORP), and used as a pinch-hitter at 41. 15 players collected 3,000 hits or more.

HOME RUNS

Single-Season: 61. Two players reached the magical 60. Thom Kendrick hit 61 at age 27 in 2017. Juan Arteaga had 60 at age 27 in 2040. Arteaga is another college player who made it to the bigs quickly. He was drafted at age 21 in 2034, played thre rest of that season in A ball, half a season in AAA, and by midseason at age 22, he was a full-time starter in the NABA. (He had 322 ABs that year with a respectable .787 OPS).
Career: 722. The Iceman not only holds the hit record, but the HR record as well. Like Aaron, longevity defined his record. He had more than 46 HRs only once (56 at age 29). Gallegos appeared to have a nice increase in batting eye as he aged. His first season with more than 100 walks was at age 27, and he peaked at 149 at age 35, and had 130 even at age 40. 18 players had 500 or more for theri career.

STOLEN BASES

Single-Season: 107. Hector Villa had 107 at age 30. Looking at his numbers makes me believe that 120 or 130 may well be possible. His OBP that year was only .337. I would suspect that a player could be generated with a better batting eye and similar speed. Rickey might not be as safe as I'd originally thought.
Career: 1145. Ed Parker was never a top-tier SB guy, maxing out at 76 in a season, but he was very consistent, collecting 50 or more 15 times.

EARNED RUN AVERAGE

Single-Season: 1.461. 26-year-old Julio Negron went 19-6 with a 1.46 ERA in 2057 to set the all-time mark.
Career: 1.816 (RP) and 2.318 (SP): SP Antonio Gonzalez turned in ERAs under 2.00 eight times in his career, and even had a 2.18 at age 38. (He's another example of a college kid who stormed the bigs quickly. He threw 142 NABA innings at age 22, and had a full season at age 23. RP Jose Delgado was a prolific closer for 17 seasons, never having an ERA higher than 2.84, and never saving fewer than 25 games in a season.

STRIKEOUTS

Single-Season: 347. 26-year-old Gonzalo Costa mowed down 347 NABA hitters in 249IP in 2049. 300 Ks in a single season was achieved 26 times.
Career: 5,052. Antonio Gonzalez, mentioned above, is the only pitcher to break 5,000. 6 broke 4,000, and 34 broke 3,000.

WINS

Single-Season: 26. It was done four times, at ages 22, 26, 24, and 31.
Career: 387. Lalo Mendez won 15 at age 21, and had his best years from 24 to 36. 8 pitchers broke 300, and 26 had 250 or better.

SAVES

Single-Season: 58. Nick Lewis set this all-time mark at age 29. 16 guys had 50 or more.
Career: 733. Jerome Turner was a closer from age 21 to 39, and remained in the 'pen until age 42. 600 was eclipsed 5 times, and 500 was broken 17 times. Depending on your view of closers, you might want to consider 550 or 600 as the HOF minimum.

[MizzouRah]

Just had this guy win the Triple Crown in my MLB quickstart fictional league.. NOT THE NABA

24yrs old - 0.340 - 73 hr - 202 rbi - 0.731 slug

* Well, this is only year #4 for this universe.. so I'll give it some time and check stats later on as I build up history.

[Sporkimata]

Is there any way to post the quick start with it expanded out to 32 teams? I would be most interested in that. You would be a god!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Sporkimata

Is there any way to post the quick start with it expanded out to 32 teams? I would be most interested in that. You would be a god!

I don't think I'll ever go to 32. It would go straight to 36, but I don't anticipate doing that for a while.

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by samifan24

Thanks. I had no problems installing the game but when I load the quickstart I get an error message that the "game world could not be found." Any ideas?

*bump*

Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong here?

[Ben E Lou]

I don't think anyone knows. Try re-downloading, maybe?

[Ksyrup]

I grabbed it last night and it worked for me, no problems.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Just had this guy win the Triple Crown in my MLB fictional league..

24yrs old - 0.340 - 73 hr - 202 rbi - 0.731 slug

* Well, this is only year #4 for this universe.. so I'll give it some time and check stats later on as I build up history.

This is not using these settings, correct? I've run probably 1000 years of tests fine-tuning these settings, and I don't think I ever saw above 65 HRs and 170ish RBI. That being said, I do all of my testing with every park set to neutral factors. The NABA setup has an overall HR factor of 24.004 for 24 teams, so it's essentially neutral league-wide. However, there are definitely parks where the right player might be able to hit 70. LA's stadium has a 1.135 HR factor for lefty hitters, so I certainly won't be shocked if someone using this setup reports that some lefty slugger approaches 70 for the Whales. The Hunting Grounds in Phoenix is the best all-around HR-friendly park in the NABA, with 1.095 for both righties and lefties.

[Ksyrup]

Ben, is it OK to use these initial players, or have you found that they are much better than the players generated later in the game? I'm running a test sim with this league but I deleted the league history and had a redraft starting in 2001. I thought I remembered reading something over at the OOTP boards that concerned you about the first players, and you recommended deleting the first 25 years of history or something like that. Is that under control now?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Ben, is it OK to use these initial players, or have you found that they are much better than the players generated later in the game? I'm running a test sim with this league but I deleted the league history and had a redraft starting in 2001. I thought I remembered reading something over at the OOTP boards that concerned you about the first players, and you recommended deleting the first 25 years of history or something like that. Is that under control now?

This league is actually 50 years old, as I had originally mentioned doing. I ran it from 1950 to 1975 and deleted everything from that era when offense was significantly higher. (I tested a good bit and found that things stabilize after roughly 25 years when the league consists completely of new players.) Then I ran it from 1976 to 2000 to give the pre-history that you see. So, every record that has already set should be breakable, if you choose to keep that history. I personally like having it as it gives a broader base of knowledge about a player for free agency and trade talks.

But point being, the league is "cleansed," shall we say, so there should be no fluctations beyond that which you'd normally see with a league that uses the same settings for 100 seasons.

[Ksyrup]

Ah, OK. That's great. Maybe I'll restart my test sim then so I can give a report and it'll be apples-to-apples with the existing records in place. I'm not used to running with so many minor leagues, so the test sim is taking FOREVER on my 4 year old laptop.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Ah, OK. That's great. Maybe I'll restart my test sim then so I can give a report and it'll be apples-to-apples with the existing records in place. I'm not used to running with so many minor leagues, so the test sim is taking FOREVER on my 4 year old laptop.

I'm actually uploading a 90-ish year league, (I simmed forward a long way, deleted everything, and then kept going with the latest beta of the next patch), and also the league I'm playing, which has the default NABA 25-year history plus six years of me playing. They both started early this morning. The 90-year one looks like it should be up late afternoon. The smaller one is uploading full facegen, so it may take longer.

[Ksyrup]

Ah yeah, that's what I need to do - disable facegen! I couldn't believe how much difference there was in my historical sims between having player pics and not.

[Ksyrup]

Ah hell, you have facegen off, so I guess the slow-ass sim speed is going to continue.

[Ksyrup]

I'm averaging 2 simmed seasons every 30 minutes. I did look at it long enough to see that some guy named Benton hit 63 HRs for Philadelphia in 2002.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

This is not using these settings, correct? I've run probably 1000 years of tests fine-tuning these settings, and I don't think I ever saw above 65 HRs and 170ish RBI. That being said, I do all of my testing with every park set to neutral factors. The NABA setup has an overall HR factor of 24.004 for 24 teams, so it's essentially neutral league-wide. However, there are definitely parks where the right player might be able to hit 70. LA's stadium has a 1.135 HR factor for lefty hitters, so I certainly won't be shocked if someone using this setup reports that some lefty slugger approaches 70 for the Whales. The Hunting Grounds in Phoenix is the best all-around HR-friendly park in the NABA, with 1.095 for both righties and lefties.

NO.. SORRY!!!

This is with the default MLB quickstart - fictional instead of real players.

[Godzilla Blitz]

This is very slick Ben. I'm hankering to pick up a baseball game and have been debating whether to get Baseball Mogul or OOTP.

My hesitation with OOTP has always been the amount of work to get a league set up the way I want to play it, but with this, I may even be able to download and start playing the same night.

Great work.

[Ben E Lou]

Uni sampling added to second post in thread.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. One history completed yesterday. I had to restart the other early this morning, and it's nearly complete now. Some team histories aren't up yet. They should be finished by noon Eastern or so.


ACTIVE NABA LEAGUE WITH 2 EXPANSION TEAMS, FULL FACEGEN, 1976-2006

TEST NABA LEAGUE, NO FACEGEN, 2088-2177

The first league above is great for getting the feel of the league, teams, uniforms, and the current stars if you choose to keep the existing players and history. The second is best for long-term stats checking.

[Ben E Lou]

I really love the HR leader board of the 90-season league:

Career

Home Runs Leaderboard

* Indicates Hall of Fame, # indicates active Player

Rank Player HR YEAR Open Season Leaderboard 1 Lorenzo Gonzáles* 784 2099-2117 2 Warner Winston* 732 2121-2141 3 Tuputahi Akahele* 717 2097-2118 4 Ed Robinson* 671 2113-2130 5 George Wilson* 556 2126-2143 6 Matías Cruz* 550 2088-2103 7 Skip Howell* 549 2157-2174 8 Isaac Gragg* 547 2110-2124 9 José Ortíz* 534 2159-2172 9 Chris Sykes* 534 2097-2118 11 Mattys Roy* 524 2088-2105 12 Bartolo Jiménez* 521 2151-2167 13 Henry Jones* 519 2095-2115 14 Scott O'Neil* 508 2095-2114 15 Peyton Pearson* 506 2140-2161 16 Ryoichi Yamasaki* 496 2114-2131 17 José López* 495 2118-2135 18 Jason Paul* 490 2102-2122 19 Pedro Ibarra* 489 2126-2144 20 Ezra Knox* 488 2102-2117 21 Nobuyori Yamasaki* 484 2099-2118 22 Bob Poirier 474 2103-2120 23 Claudio Rodríguez* 469 2131-2149 23 Kent Sampson 469 2102-2116 25 Benjamin Wise* 468 2140-2154

Fewer 500-HR types than MLB (15 vs. 24), but the top four mirror Bonds, Aaron, Ruth and Mays pretty doggone closely. The top for in real life have 2891, while these top four have 2904. As I've said before, the RonCo dev changes certainly don't hurt things like people might think.

Oh, and KSyrup, I suspect you'll like this guy:

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/...ayer_2085.html

He pretty much gives the finger to that 1.75 aging modifier, huh?

[Ksyrup]

Thanks, I'll take a look through this when I get a chance. My sim is going so extraordinarily slow, that I think I'll stop in 2055 (where I am now). It took from 2pm yesterday until 6am today to sim from 2001 to 2055! I need new computers.

When I checked the stats last night around 2035, I had a guy who lead the majors in both career hits and HRs, and I think he was the guy who played until he was around 44 or so at a high level.

[Ksyrup]

So this is pretty cool, although probably just a coincidence...the guy I mentioned above who lead the NABA in my sim in both HRs and Hits played until he was 44. In his last year, he hit .310 with 16 HRs in 350 ABs between 2 teams. So I thought, age aside, perhaps he shouldn't have retired. And then I looked at his transactions - at the deadline he was traded from the last-place Georgia team to the 1st place OK City team, where he won the World Series (he hit .341 for OKC after the trade). Then he retired. Maybe a coincidence, but nice to see that the trade system worked pretty well and it looks like, at his age, he decided to retire after getting a ring, even though he probably could have continued playing. Not sure the game factors in that kind of thing in determining whether to retire, though. Does it?

[Ksyrup]

Oh, and Lake ended up with 749 HRs and like Hank Aaron, his career high was 47.

[Ksyrup]

Man, I'm looking at a guy right now with some insane numbers and incredibly bad luck, injury-wise. He's like Rich Harden, Mark Prior, and Kerry Wood combined.

2049: 6-3, 2.41 ERA, 74.2 IP, 57 HA, 40 BB, 114 K (rookie year, age 20)
2050: 24-5, 1.82 ERA, 232 IP, 164 HA, 101 BB, 323 K
September, 2050 - herniated disc, out 12 months
2051: 1-0, .59 ERA, 15.1 IP, 10 HA, 1 BB, 18 K
2052: 16-5, 2.09 ERA, 249.1 IP, 162 HA, 91 BB, 323 K
2053: 4-1, .70 ERA, 38.1 IP, 21 HA, 14 BB, 54 K
May, 2053 - back spasms, out 7 months
2054: 14-7, 2.58 ERA, 220 IP, 172 HA, 89 BB, 299 K
September, 2054 - fractured elbow, out 11 months


That's where I stopped simming. I'm going to have to sim ahead just to see how this ends. His ratings were outrageous at one point - 26/21/11 - and now are at 18/14/12.

Good stuff.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

And then I looked at his transactions - at the deadline he was traded from the last-place Georgia team to the 1st place OK City team, where he won the World Series (he hit .341 for OKC after the trade). Then he retired. Maybe a coincidence, but nice to see that the trade system worked pretty well and it looks like, at his age, he decided to retire after getting a ring, even though he probably could have continued playing. Not sure the game factors in that kind of thing in determining whether to retire, though. Does it?

Not sure about the retirement after a ring, but the deadline trades, I absolutely LOVE in this game. As you probably saw in the other thread, I've been in contention some years, and out of it in others. The AI is offering me trades that are appropriate to where I am in the standings as we get near the deadline. If I'm a contender, I get offered high-priced solid veterans for prospects, and vice-versa if I'm out of it.

[Ksyrup]

Now I'm kinda interested whether championships factor into retirement decisions, because I just ran across a guy who went 17-2 with a sub-3 ERA at age 38, won the WS with that team, then retired.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

LA's stadium has a 1.135 HR factor for lefty hitters, so I certainly won't be shocked if someone using this setup reports that some lefty slugger approaches 70 for the Whales. The Hunting Grounds in Phoenix is the best all-around HR-friendly park in the NABA, with 1.095 for both righties and lefties.

I ran an overnight sim with in the NABA universe to test some things with the latest beta patch. A guy had a four season run of 53-66-67-58 HRs. Sure enough, he was a Phoenix slugger. Surprisingly, though, the best single-season mark for an LA hitter was 44, by a righty.At any rate, I'll stand by my guess that one of those two stadiums could help a guy get to 70, but it's nice to know that it isn't a certainty, either.