Power Pros Forum

Nolan Ryan
SP
Number: 34
team: Rangers
Age: was put as 50 although he is 62 (50 is max age)
B/T: R/R
Speed: 102mph
Control: 157(B)
Stamina 192(A)
Pitches:
Curve(ORIG): 7
Changeup: 7
Abilities

Consistency 4
Spin 4
Recovery 4
Poise 4
Release 4
Fastball life 4
VS LH Batter 4
Gd low pitch
Dr K
Intimidator

I can understand wanting to recreate a famous, retired baseball player but why would you do so with their current age?

Obviously, it'd work better if you used their age during their prime years of their career for a few reasons:

1) Unless that player is Satchell Paige, nobody is playing in the Majors at 50 or older!

2) Likely due to reason #1, the age cutoff stops at 50. So, even if you wanted to, you couldn't include the actual age of a living former player (like Nolan Ryan) anyway.

3) For all your efforts, a player who already starts at age 50 will either rapidly decline or retire in the next couple of seasons. Wouldn't it be better to create the player at the prime of their career (somewhere between age 25-30) instead?

Heeey man, it's his player. You create Nolan Ryan how you want to; let him get close to a realistic one.

As for pichers not playing into their 50s - have you heard of Neikro brothers? A world-series-winning pitcher named Jaime Moyer? Heck, even Clemens and Randy Johnson are/were close to pitching into their late 40s.

One pet project of mine is creating retired players that could legitimately find a job in 2008 - Clemens, Bonds, Lofton - all guys in their 40s. Part of this being a video game is you get to see how things could happen in an alternate reality; creating your own players lets you flavor that reality. In my game, Clemens will pitch to Bonds in 2008, and Bonds will ground out to Pokey Reese. Maybe they are all past their prime, but they can still play. That's the beauty of a game/simulation like this.

Of course, if I were creating a guy in their 40s I'd have his stats lower to reflect decreasing skill, but that's just me.

Yeah. No matter what, he's a nice player. Good job Rob!

Actually, all of the players you listed are currently in their 40s or were in their 40s when they retired.

As evident by the two lists below, there's a big difference between a player playing in their 40s versus in their 50s . However, there have been six players in MLB history to play a game at 50 or older. The oldest player ever to play in an MLB game was Satchell Paige at an estimated 59 years (his exact DOB was not known) in 1965. Considering the quality of the players below, it puts some perspective as to how incredible an accomplishment this really was.

Retired players:

Phil Niekro - Born 1939, retired 1987 at 48.
Joe Niekro - Born 1944, retired 1988 at 43.
Julio Franco - Born 1958, retired 2007 at 49!
Rickey Henderson - Born 1958, retired 2003 at 45.
Roger Clemens - Born 1962, retired 2007 at 45.*
Barry Bonds - Born 1964, retired 2007 at 43.*
Kenny Lofton - Born 1967, retired 2007 at 40.*
Curt Schilling - Born 1966, retired 2007 at 41.*

Active players:

Jamie Moyer - Born 1962, still active at 46.**
Randy Johnson - Born 1963, still active at 45.
Tim Wakefield - Born 1966, still active at 42.
Kenny Rogers - Born 1964, still active at 44.


*Although not officially retired, this player did not play during the 2008 season.
**Oldest active player in MLB baseball (as of 2009).

Well here's the same Nolan Ryan, however he's 25, playing for the angels in number 30. I chose that year as it seemed to be where his career kicked off. Same abilities, just younger, different team.