A fascinating study in contrasts that really highlights how much effect peripheral factors can have.
Maris is, of course, with us, which means he is not seeing the weaker expansion club pitching across the aisle in the AL.
Also, as I have mentioned previously, 3-year recalc is being applied for this save. To this point I have not used double weighting, but I have decided to make the switch when I move this save to v24 - scheduled for after the 1963 season when there's a brief hiatus in structural movement for the league during this Expansion Era.
Finally, Roger is playing half his games at pitcher-friendly Forbes Field (HR park factor for LHB .879 v Yankee Stadium's 1.097).
Taking these things into consideration is why I never felt Maris would even closely approximate his 61 IRL HR here; even more so given the well-known problems this version of the game has with outlier performances.
Still, I am surprised with how few he has hit to this point. His 3-year recalc average is a tad over 43, and yet he is currently on just 17 - which means he won't even make it to half as many as the historical, 29 in fact being the projection at the time of posting.
In comparison, Mantle hit 15 in July alone and currently leads the MLB with 31, which projects to 47. That is a swing of 25 in Mantle's favour should it pan out.
Interestingly, this happened when I was testing to see if I would be able to move this save across to v24 for this season, which I really wanted to do so as to bypass those outlier issues. Both on 23 and 24, in the numerous tests I ran, Maris never went close to 61. In one of them, Norm Cash of all people hit 66. I only have TCR set to 75, so it isn't randomness, or at least not totally. Nor is it an AI issue, as the single-season replays I did using historical lineups replicated both of them with extraordinary accuracy.
What I suspect is that this is another function of the imprint a player receives upon import. While recalc keeps them broadly in line with the historical, some imports come in hot and others cold - and this greatly affects how the player performs in any other than a 1-year recalc setting.
This version of Roger Maris was simply never slated to have anything like his IRL 1961 under the environment established in this save. I actually think he'll have a bigger 1962, especially with our side of the league due to get their two whipping boys at the end of this year.
We shall see. Like I said, fascinating indeed.
G
