A bunch of subjective things...

[MannyTrillo]

I have a couple of issues with the game after simulating about 10 OOTP4 seasons. Obviously, this stuff is my own opinion- others may disagree with me, or I may be just plain wrong. Overall, I think OOTP4 is great- I was disappointed at first, but after playing it a while I came to appreciate some of the subtle improvements over OOTP3, esp. the AI. Anyway, hopefully this stuff is worth discussing.

1. Playing the infield in seems much too effective. IRL, bringing your infield in is pretty dangerous (as any Yankee fan can tell you!). I would speculate that bringing the IF in raises the batter's average by about 30-40 pts. It seems to me that in OOTP4, bringing the infield in keeps runs from scoring, but doesn't result in too many more hits.

2. "It's too early in the season to talk about an extension!" Mike Sweeney recently told the Royals he won't talk contract after April 1, and this kind of thing seems much more common IRL than players refusing to negotiate until later in the year, as in OOTP4.

3. Players are too easy to re-sign. It is very common in real life for a player to refuse to negotiate an extension with his team under any circumstances, preferring to test the free agent market. This doesn't happen enough in OOTP4.

4. Players seem to do way better in their contract years. While some improvement here would be OK, this effect seems to be too great- I've seen too many players dramatically outperform when their contracts are up.

5. The trade AI does not discount the value of players who have only one year on their contracts left enough.

6. I have an enormous problem finding relief pitchers who can close (I run a historical league, so there are very few closers). I take good MRs and move them into the closer's spot, and their ERAs explode. Of course, using a non-closer to close should have some detrimental effect, but again, this seems to be too great.