[Charlie Hough]

I'm running a test with Koufax right now, and he has continued to defy age in OOTP. I started a game in 1966, and his ratings remained the same for the first three seasons. But then his stuff, movement and control all increased slightly going into 1970, when he was 34. So, the development engine caused him to improve a bit in his mid-30s, which further insulated him against future decline. After a couple of seasons at that level, one of his ratings dropped back to where it was, but his stuff and control remained at the same increased level. He continued to be one of the most dominant pitchers in the game for years, beyond the age of 40.

Mickey Mantle, who retired in 1968 IRL, had a much longer career in OOTP, but his ratings definitely moved and then declined. His power dropped in 1969 but then recovered years later, when he was past 45 years old. But then it dropped again, and so did his contact, and he retired in 1977.

Roger Maris, who retired in 1968 IRL, immediately lost some contact and eye rating for 1969, then lost some power, then regained some power for three seasons, and then retired at the age of 39.

Harvey Kuenn, who also retired in 1966 IRL, played for a few more years in this test game, but then his power dropped a bit, and suddenly he retired. His other ratings look like they were the same, but he definitely had a drop in power.

Joe Nuxhall, who retired IRL in 1966, saw his stuff improve a bit, but then it came back down, and he retired at age 43 after the 1970 season, with ratings about the same as he had in 1966.

Minnie Rojas, who retired in 1968 IRL but had minors stats for 1969, gained a bit of movement in that last recalc, but he lost it again for 1970 and retired after that season.

Vern Law, who retired in 1967 in IRL, has been up and down in ratings since then, and amazingly he is pitching at age 48, but his performance is really poor. The scouting updates don't tell me if his pitches changed, but all of them are below-average, so that's probably why his stats have fallen off.

Looking at bunch of other retired players, many had their ratings remain stable, at least according to basic scouting reports, and quite a few retired after anywhere from one to several more seasons than they played in real life.

From this test, it's pretty clear that development is working for players who don't have real-life stats, but it's not working anywhere near as significantly as it does in a game with development turned on. It certainly hasn't weakened Koufax, but his ratings definitely did change a couple of times. They just haven't ended up worse than they were at his starting point.

So, I would say that this aspect of OOTP needs improvement. This is only one test sim, but the level of decline is nothing like I would expect in a regular development game, and while I could adjust the aging factors to try to expedite the process or make it more dramatic, it would be better if it worked properly by default. I wonder if the development team decided to make the development effects less significant for these historical games with recalc on but development generally disabled.

UPDATE: Sandy Koufax is definitely a problem. After he went through that period of minor changes during the 1971 to 1976 range, where a couple of his core ratings either improved or declined back to what they were, his ratings have not changed in seven years since then, and he's still one of the best pitchers in baseball at the age of nearly 48, in 1983. I have a suspicion that this may be due to the fact that Sandy retired at a time when both his current and potential ratings were at at extremely high level, and this is throwing off the development engine. Whatever is happening, it is clearly causing him not to decline the way other players would, and I think OOTP keeps having Koufax play and not retire because his ratings are so high. Many other players with much more modest ratings are retiring, even if they haven't declined much or at all.