Ver 1.61 — Overseas Scouting, Save Protection, Pitching

Version 1.61 is out.

The headline is the overseas scouting rework. Star a candidate and they stay on your board even after new searches, and you can now read each candidate's pre-Japan record, year by year and career. This update also brings automatic save backups with corruption recovery, a full rework of pitching usage and bullpen management, league-wide balance tuning for walks, strikeouts, homers and steals, expanded merchandise and sponsor management, and a batch of reported bug fixes.

Overseas scouting — shortlisted candidates stay put

• Press the star on a candidate's row to shortlist them. They survive new searches and stay pinned to the top of the pool
• Shortlisted candidates remain until you sign them or the offseason signing phase ends — no more "he vanished while I was deciding"
• Candidates shortlisted during the season carry over into the offseason scouting screen
• The candidate detail now shows their latest overseas season line
• Abilities are still scouted estimates with a margin of error — reading the stats and spotting the real deal is up to you

Year-by-year & career overseas records

• Click a candidate's name to open their year-by-year and career record from before coming to Japan
• Korea, Taiwan, Australia, the U.S. minors and majors — the leagues they actually played in, laid out season by season
• After signing, the same record stays on the player's profile as their history

Stronger save & data protection

• "Continue" on the title screen now picks the newest save from all 20 slots (it previously checked only a few)
• Saves are now written fully before replacing the old file, so a crash mid-save can no longer destroy your save
• If a save file is ever corrupted, the game automatically recovers from the previous generation — and keeps the damaged file instead of deleting it
• CSV editor saves, imports and resets now keep up to 3 automatic backups of the overwritten file

Pitching usage & bullpen rework

• Pitching changes now follow the pitcher's form that day and his stamina. A dealing ace works deep; a struggling starter gets pulled mid-inning
• Late innings in close games now use leverage-based bullpen calls — your win-pattern arms appear when it matters
• Fixed workloads piling onto the same few relievers; long-relief overuse is also capped
• Fatigue no longer hits only velocity — it shows naturally in command and stuff, and back-to-back outings slow recovery
• Addressed reports of velocity dropping too hard on bad days and relievers being yanked mid-inning too aggressively

League-wide balance tuned to real pro baseball

• Walk rate, strikeout rate, batting average and scoring now land at real-world professional levels
• High-command pitchers actually hit their spots — the difference in control is now visible
• Power hitters' output now shows properly in home run totals; the home run king reaches realistic numbers
• Steals now respect the catcher's arm and baseball IQ, while runners' baserunning sense changes success rates
• Softened the problem of qualified starters posting unrealistically low ERAs
• Roster moves between the first team and the farm are reorganized — no more promoting a player just to drop him days later
• Farm players with strong numbers rise more readily, and benched players stop rotting unseen

Team business — merchandise moves every day

• Merchandise stock and sales now move with every game, and revenue pays into your funds monthly
• Automatic in-season restocking — set thresholds yourself or leave it on auto
• Merchandise now sells during the preseason exhibition period too
• The business tab now refreshes its numbers even if you keep it open while playing games

Expanded sponsor contracts

• Mid-season sponsor signings — fill an open slot from the candidate list any time
• Contract cancellation is supported, so you can chase a better partner
• If you have open slots but no candidates, new candidates appear when you open the sponsor screen
• Your current funds are now always visible on the right edge of the business screen

Match & control improvements

• Runs scored on passed balls and wild pitches now show properly in the live commentary
• Corrected commands that could produce rule-breaking outcomes, like sacrifice bunts with two outs
• Defensive substitutions can now swap any position on the field
• Fixed the match screen stretching vertically during skip progression and pushing the command bar off screen
• Fixed substitutions occasionally selecting a different player due to sorting or same-name conflicts
• Fixed two-way players' registered position being corrupted by roster operations

Other fixes

• Fixed salary and other numeric inputs not registering when confirmed without pressing Enter, across all screens
• Fixed starting-rotation slots occasionally displaying out of order
• Fixed tryout signings vanishing the following year
• Fixed a deadlock where saturated closers couldn't be moved back to middle relief
• Owner goals can now be reviewed on screen
• The "advance to month" button is back (hidden during exhibition games)

We'll keep working through your reports and building the game out. Thank you, as always, for the feedback.