I have a guy who was hiting below .200 before the all-star break and has hit probably close to .400 in the last 30 games.  And I'm sure we all have experienced players getting hot or going ice cold, sometimes for long stretches.

Question for the group:
(1)  Do you think these streaks are just normal probabilistic fluctuations? ie. every at-bat is a completely independent event.
(2)  Or have the developers built in a mechanism to simulate increasing or decreasing confidence?  ie.  a hidden modifier to the attributes that can change over time.  I have played in simulation games that have a "confidence" attribute that you can explicity see change during the game and over the course of the season.

Have the developers ever addressed this?

The developers have denied that it's built-in.

  Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Ed George   Will hit damn near .700 for the first 30-40 games, then .200 ish rest of the year

 Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Rico Paniagua  Hits about .230 (  .230!!!!!)  until the All Star break, then kills the ball the rest of the way
 Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Felipe Megias   Has stats of about .210/.297 at game 130, then like Rico, kills the ball the rest of the year.

Every season, without fail.  No rhyme or reason.  But I know to use George in the beginning of the year.  I know the "phantom" streaks of my players