Contents - Index

Real Play and Injuries

Real Play (RPL)

When a player's year has been randomly selected, his ability to play at full capacity throughout a season is limited by how much he played during that particular year, called "Real Play."  Your software lets you know how your players are doing on real play by showing lights in three colors: Green, Yellow and Red. For ease of reference, real play indicator lights appear on rosters (circular) and individual team reports (rectangular) lights. 

• The lights mean different things for odds and ends players than for regular players (see below), but a red light always indicates a problem related to a player's use which hampers his play or puts him at increased risk for injury.  
• For Odds and Ends Players, RPL shows as a light followed by an actual percentage!  A green light indicates that the player has not yet come close to his the RPL limit. A yellow light indicates that he is in the vicinity of the RPL limit. A red light indicates that he has exceeded the limit. When these players "go red" and yet continue to play, the probability of injury increases exponentially, and the player loses effectiveness in all phases of his game. 
• For Regular Players,  a green light indicates the player is being used at a pace so as not to fall in danger of exceeding his RPL limit. A yellow light indicates that the player is being used at a pace which put him very close (a little over or under) to his RPL limit. A red light means that the player is on a pace to exceed his RPL limit. Since usually you don't know which randomized year you have for these players, you will not usually know precisely when the limit is passed. Red and yellow lights are meant to call your attention to the need for action. When a regular player exceeds his RPL limit, his play deteriorates and his potential of radical injury increases exponentially. 
• To provide some flexibility, players are allowed to play up to 105% of their actual limit before performance penalties and higher injury probabilities take effect.

The 105% limit is derived by dividing the pre-1961 season schedule (154 games) by the current season schedule (162 games).  This makes room for necessary adjustments in play across eras.  A player who played all 154 games in 1960, for example, could then play 162 games for an owner without being penalized.  The actual number of games in the Nostalgia Baseball schedule may vary from season to season, but the 105% limit is constant.  

Warning: It's dangerous to overplay your players! It may be tempting to get a backup player cheaply (perhaps a player with great stats who played only a partial year) and then use him as an every day player.  But there are serious ramifications for doing so.  Any player who surpasses 105% of his real play will incur an immediate performance penalty of 10% plus an accumulating penalty of 105/RPL.  For example, a player with a .300 batting average playing at 125% of his real play would have his performance cut by 26%, i.e., he would have become a .222 hitter and would continue to decline in all aspects of his game.  

Injuries

As noted above, injuries are an important consideration in Nostalgia Baseball.  In every game a player enters, there exists a small, base-line possibility of injury.

• No players are immune.
• Injuries do not take effect until after a game-session is over. At no time will an owner be forced to play an injured player without having first the opportunity to deactivate and replace him with a sub from the bench or the waiver wire. 
• On average, a team can expect 2-4 injuries per season. 
• By design, these injuries are not season ending.  Instead they are of the nagging variety. A player can be hampered for as long as 50 games and his effectiveness hindered by as much as 50%, determined randomly by the computer.  He recovers at a per game rate of % of injury divided by number of games to full strength. 
• When a player has exceeded his RPL limit, he is at increased risk for injury. In addition, his injury may be more severe and for a longer duration. 
• After each game session you should scan the injury report to see whether any of your players have been injured, to what extent, and how long it will take them to recover.