This is a strange one
 

Take a look at Bob Hazle. Hazle hit .403 in 1957 over 155 plate appearances. Didn't play in 56 and hit .211 in 1958 over 129 plate appearances. Seems like a guy that the Adjust/Make bad settings would crush. But look at his ratings. Over 52 games so far he is crushing it.

3 year recalc, double weight the current year's stats. Random debut.
Attachment 982107

Since he had 134 real-life AB in 1957, his ratings are only going to be adjusted and not weakened. You would have to set your weakened threshold to something like 150 AB, which would be extreme. When he starts with a .403 average, he is still going to have great contact, even with an adjustment. It's just an unfortunate reality of historical stats and the adjust/weaken settings. But it's a bigger problem with historical minors, because there are a lot of players in historical minors who had remarkably good stats, even at low levels of the minors, and they get really high ratings, even as rookies.

For example, a guy who hit .360 and put up other great offensive numbers in class A will often get ratings that make him a potential MLB starter as soon as he's created. I posted this issue and quite a few examples in the bugs forum when OOTP 24 was released, and we got some improvements in ratings calculations for historical minors. But more work needs to be done, because I continue to see cases where minors players with fantastic stats are given MLB-level talent. I've actually deleted some rookies rather than deal with it, especially if they never made it to the majors anyway. However, cases like your Bob Hazle random debut can't really be fixed, because he produced his stats at the MLB level. Guys like that fall outside the range of typical adjust/weaken settings.

I realize I am an oddball but I set my weaken/adjust values pretty high (300/200,35/25) because I don’t want part time players IRL having dominant seasons in my league. I really wish they had an option to have a useage penalty instead or in addition to the weaken/adjust. I don’t play with minors either trying to avoid complications. I am certainly not saying my way is right, just another perspective.

PS. The high adjust/weaken values gives a slight boost to the IRL regulars stats since they aren’t competing against the part timers so much for the HRs, KOs, etc.. Every now and then I still see a part timer among league leaders at seasons end.

Since he didn't play in 1956, that year does not get factored in and thus it doesn't hurt his average plate appearances per year.

I've never liked that it works like this, IMO that season should get included as 0 plate appearances and pull the average down.

In a random debut, I kind of enjoy guys like this, as long as they fall off the map after a season or two.

But do you want youngsters that are playing now (Aaron Judge, etc) to fall of the map too and what about Koufax? I go back and forth on how I feel about players that had pretty good seasons but quit at an early age.

I find the combo of recalc and development works great with guys like Judge and Koufax. They can continue on and thrive, they can suffer a few injuries and fall off and retire earlier than expected.

I think it's a difficult problem to solve. Back in the 40s and 50s, which wouldn't been long after the implementation of full farm systems across Major League Baseball, there were small & regional minor leagues in environments that were conducive to extreme offensive output.

IIRC there was a Class D league in Texas around that time where the average team scored about seven runs per game, and the only way to account for leagues like that would be to really go under the hood and adjust for each individual minor league.

I have no issues with part-time players having good seasons and potentially taking on more prominent roles, because, often, there is much more to their story. In many cases, you find out that these players might have easily had a much more successful MLB career if it we're for a bit of bad luck.

In the case of Hazle, injuries are what caused his failure to continue to hit well and have an MLB career. He had very good minors stats for several years leading up to 1957, although he certainly wasn't anything like we saw in late 1957. He was a late-season call-up at the very end of July, and he went on an amazing two-month run. Most of his hits came against St. Louis, Brooklyn, and Cincinnati, the three other top teams in the NL that year. He also went 2-for-4 in game seven of the World Series and helped clinch the win for Milwaukee.

Of course, he would not have hit as well over a full season, especially when he was finally starting to come down to earth in late September. But his minors stats and performances showed that he had the potential to become an MLB regular.

Going into 1958, he started suffering a series of injuries, and I think they must have been trying to have him play through them. I'm assuming that he got hurt in spring training or off-season workouts, because he was abysmal as soon as the regular season started. He ended up getting traded and sent back to the minors, and he continued to have problems until he eventually retired at age 30. Without the injuries, though, he had the talent to be a solid MLB player.

I would never want to see usage penalties in OOTP, and I know that Markus has never wanted those in the game. He leaves the usage restrictions to Strat-O-Matic, APBA, and other sims. Now that I play with historical minors, I've grown to love these what-if stories and how they can play out in OOTP. But there is a limit, and obviously I don't think we want a guy who hit .400 for two months to become a lifelong .400 or .360 hitter.

Hazle's SABR bio is pretty interesting, and it goes into the injuries (two beanings - one of which landed him in the hospital - and an ankle injury) early in 1958 that changed the course of his career...

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-hazle/

Yeah, how do you blame a guy and insist that his ratings should be weakened because he got beaned and ended up in the hospital? Then again, maybe he was leaning in on the pitch. :laugh:

My first thought was ... "Gaaaawd Daaaaamn!"

I understand the concerns - but, yeah, I love seeing guys like this in a random debut league.

I've just got a soft spot in my heart for the lesser known players.