Where's Fisk?

[Joy in Mudville]

Hi, I'm using the Lahman database. We started our league in 1970 and just completed the '72 amateur draft. Carlton Fisk has yet to show up on the scene. In real life he had well over 400 at-bats in '72. Did I somehow miss him, or is he in the '73 draft class?

[texasmame]

Originally Posted by Joy in Mudville

Hi, I'm using the Lahman database. We started our league in 1970 and just completed the '72 amateur draft. Carlton Fisk has yet to show up on the scene. In real life he had well over 400 at-bats in '72. Did I somehow miss him, or is he in the '73 draft class?

Hoboken just traded him to Middletown for Shane Reynolds in our first off-season move.

Other than that, I've not seen him.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Joy in Mudville

Hi, I'm using the Lahman database. We started our league in 1970 and just completed the '72 amateur draft. Carlton Fisk has yet to show up on the scene. In real life he had well over 400 at-bats in '72. Did I somehow miss him, or is he in the '73 draft class?

Bzzzzt. Wrong!

According to Baseball Reference, Carlton Fisk was:

Drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 1st round (4th pick) of the 1967 amateur draft.

The first mention of Fisk (fiskca01) in the Lahman Database is 1969, when he appeared in 2 games and had 5 at-bats. He had 48 AB's in 1971 (I guess he spent 1970 in the minors*) and the 457 that you mention in 1972.

I don't know about the setup of your league, so I don't know why Fisk is not appearing in your game in 1972. But if you started it in 1970, you missed the draft that included Fisk in 1967.

Edit: *That could be a clue, come to think of it. If you started your league in 1970, you missed Fisk's draft and Fisk himself, because he did not play in the major leagues that year. Yes?

[so49as]

If you import form Lahmen, since Fisk didn't play in 1970, he won't import. The rookie drafts are also set to pull from the player's first year (according to the master.csv file), so he won't reappear if he's not in the league.

You could try changing his premier year in the master.csv file to your next draft class, or import him by hand.

This happened in an online league and no one noticed until the early 80s. I think we imported him as a free agent (and a few years younger) then.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by so49as

This happened in an online league and no one noticed until the early 80s.

Thanks for confirming my theory. That was an interesting puzzle. Oh, and thanks for the LOL over this detail that you included.

[hefalumps]

Wow... I started a league in 1970 as well and didn't even notice Fisk's absence until it was mentioned here. I've already advanced to 1973, and I'm not sure what to do with him now.

I had something similar happen (although on a lesser scale) with Jose Mesa. I started an OOTP 5 league with the Orioles in 1988 and played that for many years until the mid 90s and realized - hey, where's Cleveland's dominant closer? Mesa debuted in '87 but didn't play in the majors again until 1990.

I wonder if anyone has come up with a utility that can take the year you're starting in ("startyear") and scan for players with debut dates earlier than "startyear" that don't have any stats for "startyear", and thus won't ever get imported. It'd be nice to know that ahead of time when starting a universe so you can make necessary debut date corrections.

[ctorg]

I have manually done it before, on the occasions where I've used historical players. I use MS Access to run a query that shows all players who: 1. have a debut year earlier than the year I am importing, 2. do not play in the year I am importing, and 3. play in a subsequent year. I then add them to a customized version of the database with one game played and no other stats for that year, then import.

There are actually a few players for whom this happens in just about any year you might import.

[Joy in Mudville]

Thanks for the information. We also had this happen with Toby Harrah. Most likely, we'll import Fisk and make him part of the '73 draft class.

Is it possible to add to a draft class? If so, how do I do it?

Also, are there any other significant players I've missed?

[boblight24]

Hey,

I use Lahman's DB and I took over the Kansas City Royals when they entered the league in 1969. In the 12th round of the Expansion Draft I picked up a minor league catcher from the Giants who hadn't seen the ML since he was initally drafted by the Giants in 1968, Carlton Fisk. I now have Carlton Fisk as my back-up on my MLB roster behind Don Pavletich. In fact, Fisk just hit his 1st MLB HR last night for my Royals.

[avwjase]

He's in your retired player pool. I run a historical OOTP online league (starting in 1988) and several guys like John Burkett, Jose Mesa etc.. weren't imported because they played in 1987, didn't play in 1988 but came back in 1989 in real life. So, because the league began in 1988 they were imported as retired players. Something I'd really like to see fixed in future versions of OOTP.

Anyway, if you or whoever has commissioner rights goes into the retired player pool you can unretire Fisk and all of the other players it did this to. I'm sure he's not the only one. One thing is certain, he'll never show back up unless someone manually fixes it.

[Joy in Mudville]

Originally Posted by avwjase

He's in your retired player pool. I run a historical OOTP online league (starting in 1988) and several guys like John Burkett, Jose Mesa etc.. weren't imported because they played in 1987, didn't play in 1988 but came back in 1989 in real life. So, because the league began in 1988 they were imported as retired players. Something I'd really like to see fixed in future versions of OOTP.

Anyway, if you or whoever has commissioner rights goes into the retired player pool you can unretire Fisk and all of the other players it did this to. I'm sure he's not the only one. One thing is certain, he'll never show back up unless someone manually fixes it.

Thanks for your help. Where do I find the retired player pool?

[hefalumps]

Fisk wasn't in my retired player pool - he was just never imported. To check your retired player pool, go to the menu for your league (mine is called "ML"), and select History. You'll see a tab for "Retired Players" there.

I've just been looking through the manual, but I can't figure out how to import a single player from the Lanham database so that I can add Fisk manually right now. Does anyone know how to do that? Otherwise, I'll have to change his debut date to 1974 and have him get imported along with the rest of the rookies next year.

EDIT: Never mind - I found it. It's on the Free Agents page, assuming that you're a commissioner. There's an "Import Historical Player" button there, and then assuming you know the player's database id (see Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Baseball Statistics and History), you can import him and assign him to the team of your choice.