Missing players in historial league

[thgumper]

I am playing the 1953 AL season, just finishing the 1952 season. There are several players missing from their team rosters.
Example:
Whitey Ford was not with the Yankees in 1952 because he was in the military.
In 1953 he won 19 games for the Yankees but is not to be found on any American or National league team's roster.
Is the database that poor?
Is there anything that can be done?

[Charlie Hough]

If you started your dynasty in 1952, then Whitey Ford was never created in your game. The database is just fine. However, since Ford was out of the league in 1952, he has no entry for that season in the database. So the game did not create him.

Strictly speaking, when starting a new game, OOTP will create only the players who have statistics in the database for that season. In subsequent seasons, it will add only rookies who never appeared in MLB up into that point. It will not add veterans who may not have been created due to missing seasons in MLB.

Any other player that played before 1952 but sat out that season would also be missing from your game.

The best solution to this is to never start a dynasty in a war year. But that can occasionally still leave you without the odd player or two that might not have been in the majors for the season you picked to start. However, the stars like Whitey Ford and Ted Williams are generally the only players whose absences are noticed.

Otherwise, you could use one of the database mods that adds calculated statistics for the seasons that players missed, especially for those absent during war years. However, I believe those databases also include a lot of additional players from the Negro Leagues, players who never made it out of the minor leagues, etc. So it depends on your personal preference.

[David Ball]

I can't check what I'm saying, but at the very first screen when you create a league you are given the option to import previous statistics. This puts in all-time records (so that Babe Ruth and Cy Young, for example, become the home run and win leaders even in a league beginning in 1952). I'm pretty sure it also results in players like Ford who happened to be temporarily out of the majors at the start year coming in properly when they return to the big leagues.

[Gambo]

I don't use the default database but there has been some issue I believe with initial imports and the "gap seasons"

Another thing you can do when using the default database is simply unretire those players and add them to the team at the end of the season (or before the season and "injure" them. If you're using recalculation it will readjust their ratings the next year.

[PhillieFever]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

If you started your dynasty in 1952, then Whitey Ford was never created in your game. The database is just fine. However, since Ford was out of the league in 1952, he has no entry for that season in the database. So the game did not create him.

Strictly speaking, when starting a new game, OOTP will create only the players who have statistics in the database for that season. In subsequent seasons, it will add only rookies who never appeared in MLB up into that point. It will not add veterans who may not have been created due to missing seasons in MLB.

Any other player that played before 1952 but sat out that season would also be missing from your game.

The best solution to this is to never start a dynasty in a war year. But that can occasionally still leave you without the odd player or two that might not have been in the majors for the season you picked to start. However, the stars like Whitey Ford and Ted Williams are generally the only players whose absences are noticed.

Otherwise, you could use one of the database mods that adds calculated statistics for the seasons that players missed, especially for those absent during war years. However, I believe those databases also include a lot of additional players from the Negro Leagues, players who never made it out of the minor leagues, etc. So it depends on your personal preference.

I started my league in 1947 and actually had to un-retire about 50 players who played prior to 47, missed the 47 season, then returned sometime in the future. I literally had to go through every retired player to accomplish this. If I didn't do it though, guys like Hank Sauer, Joe Nuxhall, Sal Maglie, and lots of others would never have played again.

[actionjackson]

There is another possible solution to this problem. Start in 1871. Set everything up the way you want it and then go grab a beverage while the game sims ahead to Jan 1st of the year you wish to play using the "play until date X" feature. You won't lose anybody that way.