The File

[AndyP]

I haven't noticed players peaking under the age of 23 very much. That said no baseball player peaks before 23, IMO. I have been annoyed by the mass peaking during the offseason, but most everyone has a bday during that period or no bday and therefore defaults to Jan 1st. I increased the avg peak start by 10% but it seems each 10% only counts for 1/2 of a year so it may have done absolutely nothing.

In the original file setting edits I set each 'Variation During Development" to +10% (Aging Randomness, Draft Predictability, and HOF Careers)

I made a mistake by increasing the aging randomness, it's why we're experiencing seemingly more random career paths. I think if we lowered that setting a bit our player's career projections would be a bit more predictable.

Lastly, I didn't notice players peaking during ST as much as the sim from FA to ST am I missing something?

Thoughts?

I don't have the file in front of me, but I know Daniel McDaniel, who's 22, magically became just a 77/77 this ST. I can't remember who else did this, but he wasn't the only one. I have to imagine other teams have similar examples. It was part of the ST file where a bunch of people noticed that peaks just disappeared. Maybe others have more examples. (sorry, not on my usual PC) I remember Mike and DanielG commenting on it at the time of ST.

Maybe the game says that the 10% increase to peak start would only affect half a year, but actual results indicate differently. We seem to have a shitload of 20-23 year olds that are getting into the 90s in a hurry. Maybe the population will level off, but it has seriously fucked with player development to this point. Hordes of players that should have developed normally were rushed to their peak and now culled by the file's auto-correction. Pardon my language, but that fucking sucks.

And my last small concern isn't so much that careers are diving, it's the inexplicable small drops that are weird. Brett Wallace still counts as a 90+, but why did he go from 94 to 90 with a killed health rating? Why is Josh Vitters CRUSHING AAA pitching for the second straight year and can't get a jump while guys who are hitting for shit in the minors jumping ahead of him? Ditto several of my young pitchers.

Just to be clear, I'm using my own guys as examples because I study them, not because I feel it is horribly unjust because they're mine. I just know them best and the results make no sense to me. If Vitters was hitting .220 I got nothing to complain about other than my own poor development or evaluation - but he's KILLING the ball and I haven't got an increase out of him in over a year. The opposite thing happened with Wallace, I called him up as a seemingly failed spec, and then out of nowhere he erupted into a superstar. That's great for me, but that's a shitty way for teams to develop - it takes any skill out of GMing.

I understand randomness and all that, but it appears to be wildly randomn. Hopefully your fix will help, but it is extremely frustrating as someone who really looks into the details.

EZ's link seems to confirm what Scotty said - Mogul 2011 just plain sucks as a long term sim.