[Syd Thrift]

Okay, so it's TIME for yet another aborted dynasty!

One thing I always seem to do is that I get through the first part of these things, which are the big ol' Thrift Reports (and which may not be super exciting but they do really help me organize my thoughts) and then I just get bogged down in stuff. I wind up tryng to write up something about each team every two season-weeks, then I subscribe to The Sporting News and hand-type in articles that they published during the period of time I'm playing in, and inevitably I get bored by all that crap and either dump the save entirely or just go back to doing it all offline.

I can't guarantee I won't do those last two things! But I haven't completely messed up this league, I don't think, and so I'll try, for my own sanity, to keep the extra stuff to a minimum. That Baseball Timeline book is calling to me though...

Anyway, a few notes about this league...

- It's fictional but uses all historical teams, including the minor leagues down to I think the A level.

- I started running history in 1946 then took over in 1969. We are now on the eve of 1970.

- By "took over" I mean I'm controlling the lineups, pitching, ML transactions, etc. of every team in the league, all 24 of them. I also play out games but quick-sim them to the 7th.

- I also turn current and potential ratings, as well as stars off. Scouting is still on and set to its lowest rating; I do make use of the scouting reports, which are still based on the now-hidden ratings. I will also generally turn ratings back on for Draft Day if I'm inclined to draft for teams (sometimes I'll draft the first round or so, just to make sure that Team X that desperately needs a SP doesn't go after the SS)

- I've set aging and development to 0.7 / 1.3. They used to be 0.8 / 1.2 but I discovered there are too few older players in the league right now. I also use a TCR of 130. I've seen some people go higher but this seems to work at the moment.

- Semi-related to TCR, I have injuries set to High - Realistic Modern Day. This drives some people crazy and admittedly it can have that effect on me. But it's realistic and the one thing I think OOTP doesn't handle - in leagues with longer histories such as this one, veterans tend to "age out" twice by getting too prone to play, especially pitchers - I am counteracting that in part by... going into the editor and dialing down the proneness of some players (and also occasionally undoing major injuries because it's my league, dammit).

- Speaking of settings, I had a lot of back and forth with others about this but I changed the default rotation size to 4 man strict order. Since I'm not an AI I have the wherewithal to switch between 4 and 5 man rotations as I see fit. FWIW the league leader in IPs in my league topped out at just over 300 (vs 325 IRL) and 38 starts (vs. 41 IRL). IMO if anything, putting the league on a 5 man rotation with as-played schedules during this era produces spottier results than using a 4 man.

ANYWAY, those were a lot of words. Instead of doing a big leaguewide recap I'm just going to dive into the reports and let you figure out what happened for yourself!!!