After several test runs and tweaks along the way - specifically fixing pitcher stamina since I hadn't remembered that starting pitchers logged around 15 complete games per season and made it up to 260 - 280 innings into the mid 80's, the Legends League was finally ready for Opening Day. I rarely, if ever, test my leagues. Though after working so hard on this one, I decided it's a good idea to make sure it plays the way I'd expect. I was able to get complete games down to about 10 or so for the league leaders, with innings still topping out in the mid to high 200's by setting pitcher stamina to "normal" with a "very quick hook" (-5). Along the way, I solved my problem with draft classes not being imported- I only had 1 of the 2 boxes ticked off for automatically importing historical rookies and from specific era's. An unexpected plus.
This is actually a good oppportunity to discuss some of my settings:
With the knowledge of which players should turn out, I decided to turn off auto recalc and set TCR at 115 and let the OOTP development engine take over. Stats are set to 1984, as the consensus seems that it is a great year to use. I toyed with the idea of using 1991 to have an increase in strikeouts, or 1987 just for the homers and steals. However, one of the main reasons I am using stats from the 80's is that I am tired of playing modern day games revolving around strikeouts, walks, and homeruns. I may try 1973 for the next season depending on how this one plays out. If anyone has season stat prefernces, I'm open to suggestion. I use a 20 - 80 scale, however now that the season has begun, I have brought it down to 2-8 to increase the fog of war. Scouting is set to normal, injuries low, and fatigue normal, although I may drop it down later in the season. Trading is set to low, although I may eventually tweak that as well.
I'll GM and manage the New York Mets in this sim. I prefer to play out every game, so it may take a while to wrap up a season. A serpentine draft was set for the initial free agent draft and I took Wade Boggs 1-1, Pedro Martinez in the second round and then Roger Clemens back to back as my third round pick - so maybe I should've planned to take over the Red Sox. Surprisingly, the computer AI scooped up all of the relevant position players early and top starting pitchers didn't go off the boards until later in rounds 3 and 4. This led to the Mets being supremely under-powered with the bats, but loaded with a top notch pitching staff. Art imitating life.
Over the next few posts, I'll preview some teams and give minor updates on what's happening in the league.
The Philadelphia Phillies are a good emodiement of how the teams in this save look.
The Philies began with a core group of 6 players like every other franchise.
65+ - Aaron Nola, Mike Schmidt
60+ - Roy Oswalt, Lenny Dykstra, Jimmy Rollins
60 + Brad Lidge
Additionally, when possible, I traded for players that played for Philly, such as Darrin Fletcher, a solid hitting catcher that had a cup of coffee with the Phils before having a nice little run up in Montreal. The Phillies had a mid 50's catcher they scoooped up in the draft that I then flipped with Fletch. It took a lot of dealing - I spent a week or so flipping players, using my memory of old baseball cards to guide me. RDL does not distribute players to the teams they played for in real life, so even though it was a time consuming project, I know I'll be happy with the outcome.
The Phils chose Phreddie Phreeman in the Phirst round, and there was no comparable trade to be made - the best former Philly 1B in the league is Jim Thome, who was rated about 20 points less, so I left him be.
I have the Opening Day game file saved in my Google Drive, so if anyone is into this hodgepodge of 80's and onward players, let me know and we can find a way to get it to you to try out.