I am in the middle of my 1977 season and, as I mentioned earlier, the second half of my season is near and I failed to allow the game (no draft) to automatically add players like Molitor and Baines...Obviously, I can add them thru a historical import but it does not show their career stats in the minors nor does it accurately reflect their overall current ratings

Best advice here: Should I just wait for 2018 to drop and then merge my season into the new game....or, is it still advised to not merge seasons and wait for the season to end before switching from 17 to 18

Obviously, I will also miss those players that did not reach the big leagues but also made their pro debuts during the 77 season. I can add them myself by editing created players to become the real minor leaguers....

Merging works in testing but one never knows for sure with non-standard leagues. Whatever you do make a backup first.

I started a game in 1989 and came up with 2 strange stuff, right of the bat. Included was all minors Everything else regular.

Al Nipper showed up in my Cubs as 1B in the minors.
Searching the FA pool a fairly old bloke, Pete J O'Brien popped up.
They must have digged for this guy since he was 121 years old.

Hm The "other" Pete O'Brien (Pete M) in Cleveland was in the game so no mixup.

Can't succeed in uploaded any Picture so you better take my word for it.

I manage to delete Nipper and imported him again, and this time he came out alright as a pitcher with some different pitches, instead of that only fastball he had as a 1B.

O'Brien should be fixed in 18

Nipper has no issues in the database so I got no idea on him.

OK, the Nipper case was easy fixed. Delete and re-import fixed it.

One thing I so missing is the Managers of real. OK with the manager in that beginning season, but as in my case Bobby Cox will not turn back to manage the Braves.
Without of course my turning him into a coach and fixing up his skills, but then all his old stats as a manager is missing.
Same for some other famous managers.

I hope you somehow manage to handle manager-coaches more historical in the future.