Looking ahead to 2026

The success of the Fast Drive Football FAC Edition has generated quite a bit of discussion around a FAC Edition for FIB. At first I was resistant to the idea due to the fact that the beating heart of the FIB engine are the unique game charts for every individual season. These charts ensure that the Runs, HR's, and Errors are dialed in. For example, the charts for 2024 are just slightly different than the charts for 2023. This means that for every season, there would need to be a new FAC deck, which is unrealistic.

But the questions keep coming, so I've been giving it more thought. I have already done the work to generalize the "per game/per team" statistical output in the MLB from 1900 to 2024. Here is the summary:

• 1901-1920: 4.00 R, 0.19 HR, 1.6 E

• 1921-1941: 4.80 R, 0.55 HR, 1.18 E

• 1942-1946: 3.96 R, 0.48 HR, 1.03 E

• 1947-1962: 4.55 R, 0.75 HR, 0.97 E

• 1963-1972: 3.89 R, 0.73 HR, 0.8 E

• 1973-1992: 4.31 R, 0.78 HR, 0.8 E

• 1993-2009: 4.78 R, 1.12 HR, 0.7 E

• 2010-2015: 4.17 R, 0.96 HR, 0.57 E

• 2016-2019: 4.55 R, 1.2 HR, 0.57 E

• 2020-2024: 4.55 R, 1.2 HR, 0.57 E (new Extra Innings Chart)

• Cross Era: 4.5 R, 0.86 HR, 0.8 E

After a lot of though, I think that it's ok for a score generator like FIB to have results that feel realistic to the era, and are accurate for the era, but may be slightly off for the specific year.  So I'm considering a new approach and welcome any reactions. 

1. Stop producing custom charts for individual seasons that I release. Instead, each season will have a link to one of the 10 "Era" chart books that should be used with the set of teams.

2. Leverage this change to design a FAC Edition for FIB. There would be a "base" set of FAC's, and then a variable set that are added to the deck depending on the era you are playing in. This will take some creativity on my part, but I am excited to take on the challenge.

Let me know your thoughts on the copmmunity Facebook Page.