First of all, credit to luckymann for identifying this issue. He first posted about it in the historical forum. See his post
HERE.
My studies have confirmed his reports of excessive career minor league pitchers being on MLB pitching staffs. I checked a backup of my
America's Team save for June 1 1975. 34% of the MLB SPs were Career Minor Leaguers.
A third. And this isn't counting cup of coffee players. Only those who never made it at all to MLB.
The RPs are even higher at 45%! This includes CLs. And again, no cup of coffee players included.
Position players are a much more reasonable 19% but I still think most would consider this a bit high.
luckymann noticed the issue with a full minors save on OOTP24. My data is from OOTP23 since I don't change horses mid stream. Whatever version a save starts on, that's where it stays. However since our data is similar I believe there were no changes on the issue between 23 and 24.
I have another save from 1964 where the percentages are much lower however that may be affected by the age of the sim. It is starting only its fourth season while the America's Team save data above is from its 15th season. In the young save the percentages are SP 14%, RP 13%, Position Players 14%, Overall 14%. Or it could be it's more of a problem in the 70s than the 60s,
I really like the idea of career minor leaguers making MLB. And I like that full minors also boosts the stats of guys who got a chance, but not much of one, in MLB like Connie Johnson and Carlos Bernier. But what luckymann and I have experienced in these saves is unacceptable. It's more fictional than a plausible alternative history.
Text files with data below.