Out Of The Park Baseball is a baseball simulation game where you take the role of a team’s general manager. You have a 25-man major league roster, plus AAA, AA and A rosters. Your job is to evaluate and draft talent, make trades, sign free agents, set lineups, cultivate rookies, manage your team’s finances and produce a winning team.
We’re currently finishing up our third season. We have a twelve team league (with two divisions of six teams each). We’re currently running version 5 of the game, so the ideal owner would be someone who already owns that version of the game. Our schedule is to sim two week’s worth of games each Wednesday night. We play with completely fictional players, no salary cap, no DH and with modern-style play.
The franchise that you would be adopting would be the interestingly named Butte Munchers. Sadly, this team is languishing in last place in the Adams Division, with a lowly record of 41-105. Butte was an expansion team and is now finishing up it’s first season. Your job would be to turn this franchise around and make it a winner. (And lest you think that’s impossible, we had a Kingston franchise that finished the 2003 season with a record of 52-110. The franchise received a new owner for 2004 [the current season] and has a respectable record of 80-66). You may not win the Cecil Cup with them next year, but you can certainly make the franchise decent in the span of a season or two. Of course, you’ll be able to move/rename the franchise after the season ends (which is soon).
If you have any questions or would like to join, please feel free to email me at commish@izev.com or post them here and either I (or another league member) will answer them for you.
Yeah, somebody take over Butte- I get so lonely in the cellar.
I’d just like to add that I had never even heard of the game before I found out about the SDMB league, and I went and bought the program to participate. I was a complete newb, and I figured out how the game was played pretty quickly. It’s not hard to pick up, but it is pretty damn fun, even though I’m managing the freakin’ Bad News Bears (without that motorcycle kid, even). Plus, with my boys in the league, whoever picks up the Munchers is instantly thrust into a classic rivalry for second-to-last bragging rights.
Seriously, though, and not least important of all, Zev is a world-class commissioner, which makes the whole experience more enjoyable.
I would be interested. I have version 5, but have never played in a group before. Just by myself which gets a little boring after 20 seasons or so.
I also know how good of a commish Zev is from the Fantasy league. Whicc I’m leading (I just have to keep pointing that out cause I figure it’s not going to last much longer.)
You’d have to have the game software, yeah. Version 6 just got released, but our league is still on 5. I don’t know if you can still buy the old version, but it was 20 bucks last I saw. You can check it out here.
As far as knowing anything about baseball, it’s a matter of perspective, I guess. It would behoove you to know that a player batting .220 is not very good, or that you’d want to sign a pitcher who had 300 strikeouts last year, but once you’re familiar with the game, you don’t need to understand anything beyond that.
Speaking of pitching rotations, in OOTP you can have a 3, 4, or 5 man rotation. That’s the kind of crap you get to tinker with.
Hey Zev, has demand ever exceeded supply of teams before? Any expansions on the horizon?
I usually leave that up to the league members. Last year there was a clamoring for expansion and so I put it up for a vote.
Personally, I’m hoping we don’t expand in the next year or so. We have to allow time for the talent pool to catch up to the current expansion from 8 to 12 teams.
If anyone else is interested, please feel free to let me know by email. I’ll be sure to send you an email if there is an opening or if we plan an expansion.