THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/

You can play Strat on SportingNews.com. I work for the site, but know almost nothing about the game except that a few diehards love and obsess over this online version.

Diamond Mind Baseball.  Must not care for graphics, and must care immensely for statistical accuracy.  Great for season replays and All-Time Great leagues.  Really is no other comparison in these areas.  Not good for folks who want to be a true GM, people who want graphics and sound, or those that need a computer to run opponents teams.

WhatifSports Hardball Dynasty.  It’s not a live play game (and all the players are fake), but it allows the user to deal with many tasks a GM would have to deal with, such as signing contracts, making trades, handling arbitration, Rule 5 Draft, etc.  The level of depth is astounding.

csfbl.com is a great computer simulated fantasy baseball game.  it uses imaginary players and not real ones but it was through that game that I learned how valuable obp, slg and linear weights are.

Out of the park baseball. Not a ton of graphics and is more text base but deep. Control the clubs from the MLB team down through the GCL ranks of Rookie Ball. You can also go back and control a dynasty from any era in baseball. Hardball Times wrote a review about it, you just have to search for “out of the park baseball” on the THT site. I believe that it costs either $20 or $40 for the newest version but you can download a demo that gives you a great feel for it.

Diamond Mind Baseball (DMB):  Created by Tom Tippett, a sabermetrics guy, and informed by his attention to detail.  Also produces projection disks, which do not tether the game to single-past-season replays (though it has those, too).  Unlike Strat-O-Matic, DMB is also not tethered to the limitations of a board game progenitor.  Tippett sold the company to a bozo a couple of years ago, who’s been trying to ruin the game ever since in favor of an online fantasy version of the game.  Tippett, though, and a couple of other smart guys, are still associated with the game and may save it yet. It seems to me that DMB attracts its share of numbers guys, like Ted Turocy and Dan Szymborski (who does his own projection disks for the game, based on his ZiPS projections, every year).

Diamond Mind is still the best computer sim, but it does need a bit more work. I would like to see more graphics, but it’s not a big deal. DMB has also had the benefit of some free media from ESPN, which included running a sim between the 2005 Tigers and 62 Mets to see which team was the worst .Nevertheless, it really comes down to one’s preferences. APBA/BBW has been kept alive by a loyal following who have actually made some technical advances in the computer version for APBA, namely Base Ball for Windows (BBW). Strat has a very strong following as well and Tom Tippett is working on an upgrade at the request of the new owner, Dayne Myers. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I thought Tom Tango had made a favorable reference to Out of the Park Baseball last year. It was something along the lines of “if I started playing OOTP I’d spend all my time on the computer doing nothing else. Perhaps I have Tom mixed up with someone else. 
Bill James once wrote that every managerial candidate should be required to play a thousand games of APBA (he may also have said Strat it depends on whose advertising you believe)
a manager

Diamond Mind is probably the best ‘pure’ simulation game.

Out of the Park is a good simulation game, and has all the GM/Owner features, plus will allow you to ‘carry over’ performance to the next year, with players improving/declining, etc.

I wrote an review of OOTP Version 9 here:

http://seamheads.com/blog/2008/08/14/seamheadscom-reviews-out-of-the-park-version-9/

KJOK,
Excellent review of OOTP. I have purchased the latest version. I like the options although a five hundred page manual is a bit intimidating.Nevertheless, I found your review highly informative.
Paul

Diamond Mind Online

I’ve never played the original DMB, so I can’t give it an exact comparison. In DMO, you are GM+Manager of a team that you draft and sign for a 9 week season + playoffs. (3 games a day, 6 days a week)

You’ll like it if you like playing against other people and having tactical control (the ability to set lineups, platoon players, sign/release players, have your closer throw more than 70 innings, etc). The experience of watching the play by play text scroll by when you’re in a pennant race is surprisingly suspenseful.

You won’t like it if you like complete control over a league: you control your team, but not anything else. Also, you can’t build a dynasty and watch it develop: the players have one (career based) coding, and that’s it.

IMO, it’s an excellent, addicting game for those that want something a bit different from building dynasties against the computer.

Out of the Park is great because of:
- Almost completely customizable
- Good (but probably not DMB good) replays, without having to pay for season disks
- Career progressions, with realistic aging by components
- DIPS-based sim engine