So i'm back after a roughly 10 year hiatus, and I'm now 48 games into my first league, so I feel it's been long enough to ask these questions. While I totally understand I might need to re-learn the game to a degree, some of this just isn't making any sense and I'm left scratching my head as to what is going on.

So the main player in question will be 1907 Jack Pfiester. He costs 7.4M, key stats: .98 WHIP, .207 OAV, .05HR/9. 122, 118, 233 in +s.

In my old teams he was a staple of my rotation, and he'd be very sucessful from 60M up to 100M leagues I'd played in. A typical open league stats he'd consistently give me somewhere in the range of 20-5, 2.50-3 ERA, WHIP in the low 1, OAV in the low .200s. A typical start would be 6-7 solid innings, and only a handful of bad starts a season. Of course I was eager to fire him up again and see what he would do.
5.60 ERA, .300OAV 1.59 WHIP.
Ummm that's not even close to what he used to bring. To be fair I didn't spend as much money on defense as I did in the past, but the other pitchers I have from the old days are only slightly off. The league average is only .289 so this would suggest he is a below average pitcher.

Also despite spending the most money of anyone in the league in hitting, and playing in Coors Field, I am below average in almost every major offensive category, with the exception of walks, in which I am way above average. I used a few of same hitters as well who were always reliable in the past, and they are just not getting it done. 32 Babe Ruth in an open league has 4HR in over 200PAs in Coors. In the past I'd get 40+ from him. I have as many HR from my AAA.

I had another league just start up, the pitchers are also getting consistently lit up, and I recently had a starter walk 8 batters in 2+ innings despite his BB/9 being in the low 2s, so that was also weird.

So what changed to make players that on the surface look like they should be pitching/hitting really well and just can't get anything done?

I’m using that Pfiester right now on one team and I’ve been pitching him quite fatigued:

Date	Opponent	%	IP	BFP	PC	W	L	SV	R	ER	H	HR	SO	BB	WP	ERA	OAV	WHIP	Box
5/23 pm2	Annapolis Orioles	88	2.1	13	41	0	1	0	2	2	5	0	1	1	0	3.65	.258	1.28	view
5/24 pm	@HR Club	88	4.0	13	40	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	2	0	0	3.45	.249	1.22	view
5/25 am	Thievery Corporation	88	3.2	14	43	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	3.29	.241	1.19	view
5/25 pm2	@Cubs	88	3.2	14	42	0	0	0	1	1	4	0	1	0	0	3.25	.243	1.18	view
5/26 pm	Yankee 2.0	87	2.1	11	40	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	1	1	0	3.16	.245	1.20	view
5/27 am	Yankee 2.0	88	3.1	13	40	0	0	0	1	1	4	0	1	0	0	3.14	.248	1.20	view
5/27 pm2	@Melbourne Storm 3	88	3.1	14	40	0	0	0	3	2	3	1	0	0	0	3.22	.246	1.19	view
5/28 pm	@Covid Boredom	88	3.2	15	41	0	0	0	2	2	4	0	0	0	0	3.29	.247	1.18	view
5/29 am	@Covid Boredom	88	3.0	12	40	0	0	0	1	1	3	0	1	0	0	3.28	.247	1.18	view
5/29 pm2	More HRs Than HRs	88	3.2	13	43	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	1	0	3.16	.242	1.15	view
Last 10 Games		--	33.0	132	410	0	1	0	10	9	29	1	8	4	0	2.45	.227	1.00	--
Season Totals		--	99.2	415	1316	0	4	0	36	35	92	2	23	23	1	3.16	.242	1.15	--

On mobile, so not quite a complete answer...

After 48 games you're still dealing with very small sample sizes. Results outside of season-long expectations aren't abnormal at all. Wait it out.

Yeah I plan to wait it out. I mean... surely 32 Ruth isn't going to hit 12-15 HR for an entire season you wouldn't think... and pitchers with a sub 1 WHIP won't be surrendering an OAV over .300 for the whole year.... would they?

Thats why I'm asking, I expected to be out of the loop as to what the bargains were, and what the expert strategies were, but when my top players that had always performed can't do much of anything right, it certainly made me wonder if there were some fundamental changes and the criteria i used to use to select players is no longer valid.

I'd always played in Coors and certainly expected up and down pitching results, but the trade off would be great offensive showings from my stars. I'm getting terribly disappointing pitching, but all my hitters are also doing way worse than before LOL

There are no bad players or good players. Players are as good as their numbers. Seasons that break from their expected levels of performance happen but are not the norm. The higher deviance from that expected norm, the more unlikely the result (but that doesn't make it impossible). If you run the exact same team 10 times, this may be the worst performance. It may not. But it probably would be.

Posted by ozomatli on 5/29/2020 10:00:00 PM (view original):
There are no bad players or good players. Players are as good as their numbers. Seasons that break from their expected levels of performance happen but are not the norm. The higher deviance from that expected norm, the more unlikely the result (but that doesn't make it impossible). If you run the exact same team 10 times, this may be the worst performance. It may not. But it probably would be.

Well that's kind of why I'm asking. In the past 07 Pfiester was pretty much a lock to be a top pitcher in an OL, and this season he's be a total disaster. In this just random bad luck, or did something change to where what made him put up great numbers back before 2010 is no longer the case.

+3 hit stadiums are weird to me. I recently played a $110 mil team at Hilltop (+3, +3, +3, 0, -3), and despite nearly everyone exceeding their average, no one met or exceeded their RL doubles and triples numbers. Just a bunch of extra singles

I'm not getting any extra anything except walks, that's whats strange about it. I'm 18 points below the league average in BA, and a whopping 42 below average in slugging! Making me think I need to change my strategy for picking players, never seen anything like this before.

Posted by TulsaG on 5/29/2020 10:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ozomatli on 5/29/2020 10:00:00 PM (view original):
There are no bad players or good players. Players are as good as their numbers. Seasons that break from their expected levels of performance happen but are not the norm. The higher deviance from that expected norm, the more unlikely the result (but that doesn't make it impossible). If you run the exact same team 10 times, this may be the worst performance. It may not. But it probably would be.

Well that's kind of why I'm asking. In the past 07 Pfiester was pretty much a lock to be a top pitcher in an OL, and this season he's be a total disaster. In this just random bad luck, or did something change to where what made him put up great numbers back before 2010 is no longer the case.

It is random bad luck.

One thing that has changed is the strategies that are in vogue.

10 years ago, it was common to draft teams that focus on either walks or stolen bases. These days, it's much more common to draft teams with great defensive range who hit a lot of XBH. This strategy evolved because it matches up well against the walk / stolen base teams. So, if you're drafting one of those old style teams, it likely will do worse than you would have expected.

There are newer strategies that are emerging that seem to do well against the A+ range teams, but they are not widely used yet.

Tulsa G, what I think is missing from the previous answers is that the system of pricing has changed - there is now what is called dynamic pricing: the more a player is used in OLs the higher their price.

So any player that is a bargain will be so only until the use of that player raises his price at the whenever the next repricing point is - I do not know how often this happens, and then their higher price will reflect the greater use and it will be on to the search for new low budget stars.

That was not the system last time you were here.

Dynamic pricing is no longer in effect. It was used, quarterly, for about 18 months and then ceased. Click on any player from seasons before 2018 and in addition to his performance history you can see his salary history - how it changed each quarter across that time period

Right — the pricing system is the same as it was the last time you played, there is no dynamic pricing at the moment or for the foreseeable future.

If you're only wondering about the game engine itself, then little if anything has changed for a long time. You can look at the release notes to see anything that was altered since you last played. As others have said, all that has really changed are player prices and an evolution of team strategies.