[mrbill]

I think I'd deal if it was rare, but development is pretty mean to players who are already accomplished in OOTP 2007. He's actually had a worse drop-off already, last season, and got a little talent back to prevent him from being out of baseball already

Development Report - JC Maldonado

Obviously I don't have time to compile large sample sizes, but I look at my online league's development pretty closely and it's pretty alarming how many young pitchers die off even after reaching their potential.

Yes, JC did pitch 200 innings the last three years, but he's got a 9 endurance, are you telling me the game is so complex that I have to somehow override the endurance rating to keep young pitchers alive?

And yes, Zito, Willis and others all sort of got worse, none will end up this dramatic. His "current" stats look ok because its only 3 games and his slide is just starting, I have no doubt he'll end up out of the majors after this season. Zito still took years to get worse, his FIP (fangraphs.com) is on a very slow slide spread over 6 seasons. Willis was never that established, he's had a lot of ups and downs because he never really had much control.

If JC took a Zito-like slide, I'd be ok with that. But that'd mean he'd have to manage 2 more years around a 4.3 ERA then a few in the mid 4s. I should wonder whether or not he actually lost anything or if it's just a bad streak. I'll give him a shot to do it, but I have no hope. Seeing the talent makes taints my view, but his ratings too are changing fast. He was 7/7/8 less than 12 months ago, now 5/6/7.

I just have hope for the next version to smooth out the dramatic drops in ratings, I think I've read that it will, so I'm just reiterating how important that is