We have an opening in our Out of The Park Baseball League. Anyone want to play?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The Unofficial SDMB OOTP Baseball League currently has an opening and we’re looking for an owner to fill it.

For those who don’t know, OOTP stands for Out of the Park. It is a baseball simulation game that puts you in the general manager’s seat. Their website is here. In short, you have your 25 man roster, plus three levels of minor leagues (AAA, AA, A). You draft and develop players, sign free agents, offer and negotiate trades, set promotion dates, manage your team’s finances, etc. The game is available through the website. We operate in a two six-team leagues.

The franchise that is currently available is the California franchise. Unfortuantely, the California Blue Sox have become the victim of neglect. As a result, they are currently tied for last place in the Zotti League with a 35-59 record. Your job (if you choose to accept it) is to take this team and turn it around, returning it to it’s glory days when it once (back in the 2003 season) made it as far as the Cecil Cup playoffs.

What have you got to work with? A good core of a starting rotation and a few good position players - along with a few prospects. Among the high points of the team are:

Major League Roster

SS Lincoln Rossetti is a young (26-year old) shortstop with excellent range, a decent bat with some pop, and a great pair of legs. He’s currently hitting .281 with 10HRs and 38RBIs. He’s also currently leading the Zotti League with 32 stolen bases.

C Waylon Blassingame who is projected to me a major star for years to come. Blassingame is currently in his second season in the bigs. He’s in a bit of a spohomore slump at the moment, hitting only .248, but don’t give up on him so quick. He’s bound to hit closer to last year’s .326 in years to come.

LF Paul Champine is having a career year for California, hitting .267 with 13HR just past the halfway mark. Paul is currently in the last year of his contract, and a decision must be made on whether or not to resign him.

SP Bill Clark is a two-time All Star with a 65-48 lifetime record. After winning 18 games in 2004 and 2005, he’s currently 6-9 this year (we’re in the middle of the 2006 season), but pitching with a 3.01 ERA. He’s a workhorse, leading the league in innings pitched for the last three years and recording over 200 strikeouts in the last two (and 110 Ks this year so far). He comes with a hefty price tag ($10 million per year for the next four years) but he’s worth it.

SP Peter Bird is a better pitcher than his 21-21 lifetime record would have you believe. He’s got a great K:BB ratio (112:36) and has a 3.54 ERA (despite the 5-10 record). He’s currently finishing up a four year contract at the bargain-basement price of $2.4 million per year - but you can bet he’s going to get more than that next year.

SP Bill Siple is currently 9-8 with a 2.60 ERA. Lifetime, he’s 60-46 and has amazing control. He’s currently signed at $5 million per year for another year. Even if you don’t want him, I’m sure most of the owners in our league would love to get their hands on him at that price.
** Prospects: **
19-year old SP Isidiro Frau was California’s first pick in the amateur draft in 2006 and is projected to be a great player.

19-year old SS John “Sabertooth” Hukill was California’s first pick in the 2005 draft. After hitting .257, 12HR, 46 RBI and 13SB last year in A ball, he’s currently showing improvement by surpassing those numbers already while still only at the halfway mark.

That’s the basics of the team. If you like, you can check out the team’s roster online at the team’s page. After the season, you will be able to “relocate” and rename your team.

The basic parameters are:
Fictional players
Modern-style play
No salary cap
No designated hitter

All we ask is that if you join that you participate actively. We simulate two week’s worth of games each Tuesday night.

The game is avaialble for download at Out of the Park Baseball. The cost to use the game is $19.95. Version 6 is the most current version available, but we are using version 5.

If anyone has any questions about the game, feel free to post them and I (or other OOTPing Dopers) will answer them.

Zev Steinhardt

2

Interested, but stll unsure how this works. How do the fictional players get generated? Is there and initial draft? It looks like each team has a revenue base, but how doesthis work with no salary cap?

3

There’s no initial draft. There was one about three years ago when we first started. Now, you’d be taking over an existing franchise.

Every “spring” the computer generates new players and “retires” old ones. The new ones are distributed to the teams in the annual amateur draft (which usually lasts 7 or 8 rounds).

Each team generates revenue based on market size and team popularity. I’m not quite sure how the market size is determined, but I know that your team’s performance affects your popularity. In addition, you also set ticket prices, which affects attendance and revenue as well.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Zev

4

Just to give it a friendly bump…

Zev Steinhardt

5

What’s the general time committment for this sort of thing?

Sounds interesting, but I’d not want to start something I can’t finish, you know?

6

It’s not something that has to take over your life.

At some point during the week, you download the league file, make your roster changes and upload your changes via FTP to the league website (it’s handled via the game interface - you don’t have to know how to set up an FTP connection).

Beyond that, it’s communicating with other owners to trade players and emailing me if you want to release a player or sign a free agent during the season.

If you want to have fun, send out an occassional “press release” about your team when you pull off a trade or make a roster move. Here’s an example of one that was written by the owner of the Seattle franchise this year:

Of course, you don’t have to issue press releases if you don’t want to. The game is as much fun as you want it to be.

Zev Steinhardt

7

I’m very interested in joining if the franchise is still open.

I have OOTP, but I have OOTP version 6, if my game can still work with your league files then I’d definitely be up for it. Otherwise, not going to buy OOTP 5 to play in a SDMB league ;).

If you still have a space and agree to my joining I must mention I won’t be able to really be involved for about a week and a half, after that I can completely promise that I will be heavily involved as I love baseball and play OOTP all the time with friends and solo.

8

Sounds good. How about a length/time-limit? (i.e. does it end when the normal baseball season ends, is it open-ended, etc?)

9

Hmm…I thought this was just an online/free downloadable deal. Didn’t realize it was a whole program thing. Maybe I’ll buy it and play around for a while to get familiar with it and then get in the next round. It sounds like Martin Hyde knows what’s up.

10

Unfortunately, version 6 won’t work with our league.

The schedule is not tied to the real major league schedule. We’re currently playing in July 2006. We cover two weeks’ worth of games each week during the season. The off-season usually takes about a month or two in real-time. The net effect is that we cover about two seasons every year.

Zev Steinhardt

11

To give you an idea of our pace, we started the league (real time) in January 2003 (here’s the original thread) with the 2002 season. In the two and a half years since then, we’ve covered four and a half seasons.

Zev Steinhardt

12

Unfortunately I’m out then, paying $19.95 to play in an online baseball league isn’t out of the question for me, but OOTP 5 had some serious bugs in it (no idea if they were ever corrected) and I had certain problems with the way stats were generated and the way players were rated. After playing the demo I decided against buying it.

When OOTP 6 came out it addressed all of those issues and I’ve been happy with it ever since.

13

OOTP Developments has demos for all their games I believe.

Not trying to interfere at all with zev’s recruiting here but if you’re more interested in the baseball sim itself versus just playing in a league with Dopers I would highly recommend OOTP 6. It’s newer, everything looks a bit better, I find stat generation better vs. when I played OOTP 5, and over all it’s just a fundamentally better game.

OOTP tends to support its games heavily, so I’d say some of the bugs I found when OOTP 5 was released are gone now, but I still think 6 is a better game.

14

Ok then, looks like I’m back in the running. When you say you simulate two weeks worth of games every Tuesday, what does that mean? Do I have to be at the computer then, or is that just the deadline for any changes I want to make?

15

No, that’s the deadline.

Each Tuesday I download your changes, execute any trades or free agent signings and then simulate two weeks’ worth of games. Then I upload the league files to the website.

At your convenience, you download the league file, make your changes and then upload to the site for me to grab the following Tuesday.

Martin, the original version 5 was a bit buggy, but they’ve patched up most of the issues since the original release.

Zev Steinhardt

16

Ok, it all sounds good.

And apologies for asking so many questions, I’ll download the demo and such later, but I’m at work right now.

I think I’d like to give it a shot, unless there’s someone else who REALLY REALLY wants to do it. There’s just the one-time buying-the-game cost, right?

17

Yep. And if they’ve fixed the bugs in OOTP 5 like Zev says then and you’re a baseball sim fan like me the game will pay for itself many times over with hours upon hours of enjoyment.

18

OK, the spot’s been filled. Thanks everyone.

Zev Steinhardt