It seems like 95% of the player development I get is negative.  Is that true for everyone?  I wish there was more positive developments, maybe 25% or so.  Especially since it seems the only good stuff I get is on half star single A lifers that will never see AAA much less the majors.

Any thoughts?

Heh, I think I've asked this same question many times over the years too. There are development settings, and I have argued this point that it seems that all development changes tend to be negative, with very few positive changes.

You're not alone, but I suspect we are in the minority, as I have been in the past.

No it's not just you two.  Young and old I get much more negative then positive development on my team.

 

---

Chessie Ironhorse

Same answer as before, guys.  There are no settings that can adjust the ratio of talent improvements versus talent declines.

Well, there should be more negative than positive, because older players should pretty much all decline, whereas young players should be about 50/50. Plus injured pitchers have a heightened chance of decline during their injury (which is realistic)

(On that subject, one of my recent draft picks is a SP who got a season-ending injury after the first couple sims. Since then, he had avoided any talent decrease, as if the game didn't notice him. Then I'm looking at my minors report and it says that he should be ready for AAA. Ha, I think, doing rehab after shoulder surgery got him ready for a higher level. For fun, I go ahead and move him up to AAA last sim. It seems like the computer noticed the transaction and though "wait, he's injured! I had forgotten about him!" and immediately gave him a talent decline. I should never have done something that brough him to the attention of the gods of talent modifications, who are vengeful gods.)

Anyway, I've generally found the talent changes for young players to be pretty fair. I can attribute a lot of my recent success to talent increases for players like Roberts, McDill, Guerrero, and Nissen. And the talent increase to Norberto Cruz made him a good chip in my trade for Arispe. Of course, I've lost a lot of prospects to talent decreases, but, like I said, it seems fairly even to me, good vs. bad on talent changes to young players.

As far as changing the setting for talent changes throughout the league, I'd say it's unnecessary, but whatever - the setting is the same for all of us.

G is right. The modifiers deal solely with Development speed and aging speed, not direction. In other words, we can speed up and slow down both development and decline, but cannot affect talent increases/decreases.

For instance, in the MIBL, Doza has the aging modifier slowed down, so we have players still going strong between the ages of 35-38 or so.

I keep forgetting to add a couple comments - I think that adjusting the rate at which players age would be a good idea.  I haven't played around with those settings at all, but getting more players to be effective at 37+ wouldn't be a horrible idea, as long as it didn't happen to every player.  It'd probably be a good idea to also add to the modifier slowly, over a few seasons.  So if a 8% modifier is needed, do 2 or 3% a year for a while, to work the way up.

The other development modifier you might want to look at Emrys, and this is something I wanted to look at for a couple seasons now and never got a chance to, would be to look at the development speed of young pitchers.  It seems to me it's a little too slow - too many pitching prospects aren't making debuts in the majors until they're well over 25 years old.  In "real" baseball, pitching tends to move a little faster than hitting through the minors.  You'd probably just want to look around the BBL and see when pitchers are making their debuts - I may be wrong and it's a problem my mind created.

We're about to hit another offseason, so I'd say once the season is over, the time is right to slowly increment this as you suggest, G.

I'm in favor of this idea.

---

Chessie Ironhorse

I'm all for the changes Grypht was talking about.  I've definitely noticed that pitchers tend to develop rather slowly.  Sadly, I don't think my young pitchers really get regular jobs in the bigs until they are 26 or so.  Samuels, for NY, was definitely slow to develop and only started realizing his talent around 26-27, making him a 28 year old rookie.  Also, I like the age modifier thing - it seems to work well in Doza's league.  Some players definitely last a couple years longer, but there are still some that really tail off around 34 - 35.  I would think that could help to strengthen FA a bit by providing more serviceable players, though it won't have a seismic effect on the league either...

---

Caelon
GM New York Empire

i like both of those ideas as well.  I don't think the age difference is too extreme in doza's league.. sure a few players are good much later, but for the most part, the falloff is still in the mid 30's.

also, i'd love to see some of the young pitchers develop faster.  They really do seem to lag in the minors for a lot longer than they should.

Tempus

---

South Beach Sunburn GM

I agree, both should create more depth of talent and churn without significantly affecting the broad issue of creating a ton of superstars, which is mainly what I'd like to see us avoid.  "In all things, moderation"   

---

-- Albatros, owner of the Biloxi Hurricanes

I would like to learn more about these development switches too. I think its ridiculous that I'm no longer on the upswing at 30. Peaking at 24 sucks! :)

_______________________________

Now as to the game, I think it would definitely be nice to see more 20 year olds playing the game at a high level. More Andruw Jones types please who can get 18 to 20 years under their belts!

---

GM of Chattooga Eagles
The Eagle's Nest