[swampdragon]

Taking this outside as suggested by Steve P. I think the issues pstrickert and others are discussing are important. Let me theorize for a moment and see whether there's general agreement.

1. OOTP is very good at modeling the attributes it is designed to model, provided the correct totals modifiers are being used. Garlon has convinced me of that multiple times.
2. Nonetheless, OOTP is not very good at recreating the dynamics of a pennant race replay. If accuracy means the results will be close to real life, it's not terribly accurate, at least as far as runs allowed are concerned.
3. The key stat driving that differential is hits allowed, both for individual pitchers and for teams as a whole. DIPs takes that stat away from the indiviual pitchers.
4. The available stats in Lahman are limited as far as defense is concerned.
5. Unless we're going to pretend that the original results were mostly luck and that there's no problem, the task for historical OOTP has to be improving the importing or modifying of defensive ability. Everyone with me so far?