BNN is wack. The Yankees only win 110 games.
The Twins and Angels finish tied at 92-70 to hold down the AL WCs, with (presumably) Minnesota’s 5-2 head-to-head record giving them home-field advantage for a game they go on to win 2-1 before being knocked out by the Yanks. Sadly for the boys in Pinstripes, their big regular season win tally once again fails to translate into an OFA Championship as the Dodgers beat them handily in the World Series for the club’s first title.
Awards
MVP- AL: Ralph Kiner (Angels) [3]
- NL: Jose Cruz (Cardinals) [1]
CYA- AL: Jim Maloney (White Sox) [1]
- NL: Fausto Carmona (Padres) [1]
RoY- AL: Jeff Burroughs (Twins) unanimous
- NL: Orlando McFarlane (Brewers)
Reliever- AL: Albert Stephens (Mariners) [2]
- NL: Gary Wayne (Cubs) [1]
Feats of Note- 6-hit Game: Pythian Russ, Jeff Burroughs
- Cycle: Dave Harris, Anthony Pint, Dionys Cesar, Bill White, Nolan Gorman, Scott Rolen
- No-Hitter: Daniel Cabrera
- 50+ HR: Juan Gonzalez (50)
Milestones- 600 HR: Edwin Encarnacion
- 500 HR: Dave Kingman, Mookie Betts, Ralph Kiner
- 3000 H: Torii Hunter, Yoan Moncada, Pepper Martin
- 250 W: Jose Fernandez
- 3500 K: Jose Fernandez
- 300 SV: Albert Stephens, Hubert Glenn
- 600 SB: Max Carey
- 500 SB: Carl Crawford
Top 20s by WAR
Randy J suffers an injury in the final weeks of the season that will see him miss all of the 1922 campaign, as does NeLer Jose Leblanc.
Given he only played one season IRL, and that for the 1939 Worthington Cardinals of the D-level Western League, you'd have to think
Richard Conwell would be fairly satisfied with his 1921 OFA campaign as he finishes third in the AL with a 324 BA. He's putting together a fine career and we'll keep tabs on how that goes the rest of the way.
Another who indubitably surprises on the upside is 17-game winner
Lino Donoso. Lino, who - according to his personality descriptor,
struggles even with simple concepts - played for the 1947 NY Cubans in the Negro National League, and then nothing in any of the usual sources until 1955, when he pops up in the Pirates' system, starring for the PCL Hollywood Stars before getting a call-up to the bigs at age 32. That sojourn doesn't last long, and he vanishes for good in 1956. The ratings gods in OOTP have been relatively favourable to Lino, so I doubt this is the last we've heard of him.
That in-game comment about Lino prompts me to say a few things I have been thinking for some time now. I'm not having a dig at OOTP or the devs here by any means, but still I can't help but see this element of the game as fairly problematic, not to mention on occasion borderline libellous.
I use player personalities on the few saves in which I play out the games (currently only the AtHoL) to add another dimension to roster management and make it more challenging, and have obviously left them on here because the OFA is meant to be just a bit of fun, but for the most part switch them off because I find them too random and baseless in fact. I mean, did somebody sit Lino down and make him do an IQ test, the result of which formed the basis of this description of his intelligence (or, in this case, lack thereof)? Not that a professional athlete would have the time or inclination to gameplay, but if they (or perhaps their friends) did - how would they feel about being portrayed in this fashion?
The other aspect of this I find troubling was actually raised a while back with some fairly compelling corroborative evidence provided and, if I remember correctly, supposedly actioned upon by the devs - that being the vaguely racist overtones that can tend to pervade these descriptions, whereby minorities seem to be the victims of some long-held stereotypes.
I believe this part of the game is - at least when dealing with historical players - in dire need of some tweaking to make it more baseball-relevant. Not an analysis of players' (utterly fictional) personality traits, but of their "game-smarts". Even then, how does one gauge this with the required amount of accuracy and implement it into OOTP without a complete overhaul? Or, conversely, if it is utterly made up as seems to be the case, why does it have a place in this wonderful simulation at all, other than in fictional saves? For mine, it is a binary proposition - do it properly, or don't do it at all.
Just some food for thought.