We Have An Opening In the SDMB Out Of The Park Baseball League. Want to Join?

The Game Room
1

The Unofficial SDMB Out Of The Park Baseball League is starting it’s 23rd season and has an opening.

Out of the Park baseball is a baseball simulation game where you take on the role of GM. You draft, trade and release players, sign free agents and decide who stays in the majors and who needs more time in the minors. You set the lineups and pitching rotations.

Our league is a long-running stable league. We started in 2002 and have completed 22 seasons.

Each week, we simulate two weeks of games. Between each simulation, you can make changes to your roster, make trades, etc. You upload your changes to the FTP site (all done with a button that is pressed in-game – you don’t have to have any advanced computer knowledge for this) and wait for the results.

The team currently available is the New York Gothams. The Gothams finished last season in second place in the Signorino Division (albeit with a losing record). The team has some very good young sluggers on the major league roster, including:

[ul]
[li]CF Jim Edwards, a fleet-footed CF who slugged 66 home runs and stole 64 bases over the last two seasons[/li][li]3B Larry McCormick who, last season hit .346 with 24 home runs and 96 RBI. He also stole sixteen bases and finished with an OPS of 1.017. McCormick was also the winner of the 2020 Outstanding Newcomer Award (our version of the Rookie of the Year).[/li][li]2B Gene Reynolds who blasted 37 shots out of the park last year, while batting .299 and finishing with an OPS of .869.[/li][/ul]The pitching staff is the team’s weak point. The rotation led by Joseph Brown, a young, rising pitcher. Brown is 24 years old and finished his first full season in the league with a 15-10 record. Another good starter is Luis Salazar, who just finished his rookie year with a 15-14 record. The rest of the staff is mediocre, and you will have to find a way to improve it, but Brown is the type of pitcher whom you can build your staff around.

New York has the third best minor league system in the game. Current top prospects include 1B Thomas “Nitro” Lyons, RF Yvon Settignano and SP P Derek Hanson.

We’re currently in the preseason – shortly before Spring Training and the annual Amateur Draft. When you take control of the team, your first task will be to become familiar with your team during Spring Training and make decisions about who makes it to the Opening Day roster and who gets released or demoted to the minors. You can also negotiate trades with the other owners, allocate your resources in scouting and determine which players should be in the majors and which should be in the minors (and at what level).

You can view the league site (where you can get stats, league history, etc.) here , and the league blog (where we analyze the game, talk trash, boast, discuss statistics, etc.) is located here .

The game is called Out of the Park baseball and can be downloaded from here. We are using version 13 of the game. It can be downloaded from here. The cost for the game is $19.99. To participate in our league is free.

Are you interested? Up to the challenge? Let us know. Please feel free to ask questions; either I or another league member will answer for you.

Zev Steinhardt

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Giving this a bump - I only joined last season but can vouch for the game - if you like baseball, you will -love- this game, just be warned it can be addictive! - and for the league, which is pretty active and a good group of guys.

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OK, help a brother out, here. Last bump for those who think baseball sims are the best thing around.

Because this is, fellow babies. This is.

4

Baseball sims make me wish I liked baseball.

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I’ve done this thing a couple of times before (Pursue the Pennant, Stratomatic). I’m unfamiliar with OOTP, though. How long would the new owner have before they need to do something that’d have bad consequences for themselves?

I know I haven’t posted a lot here, so I might not be trusted, but I’m at least tentatively interested at this instant.

6

I find this really tempting.

But, I can’t play at work and if I put too much time into it at home, I would develop marital problems.

7

Kimble,

I’m not sure I understand your question.

The league is a simulation league – imagine playing two week’s worth of Strat-O-Matic games at once. However, unlike SoM, the focus here is on the GM’s seat, not the manager’s seat. You do set the lineups, but you won’t be making pitching changes, sending up pinch hitters or calling for a squeeze play. Instead, you’ll be looking over the progress of your minor leaguers, deciding who gets to stay with the big club and which free agents to chase after.

Zev Steinhardt

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Falchion,

During the season, you’d only have to log in once a week. Most times you’ll probably spend less than an hour managing your team.

During the off-season, we do have sims more than once a week, but if you miss some of those, it’s not as big a deal.

Zev Steinhardt

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Sorry – I was in a rush and didn’t phrase that well. I was mostly wondering when the games (both spring training and actual) would start being played, but trying to give myself wiggle room in case there was some other deadline (free agent acquisition? minor league call-ups?) I’d need to meet that I couldn’t imagine. (I’m still in a rush, so I hope that made more sense.)

Based on what you said, this question comes to mind: Do the GMs have any idea of the “true” value of each player (like player X will walk 10.3% of the time, strike out 12.1%, hit a home run 5.9% of the time, etc.?) Or will everything be based on observations of the “players”?

(I’ll try to download the demo when I get home late tonight; that might answer (or raise) more questions for me.)

10

Kimble,

We’re currently in the pre-season (the current game date is Feb 5, meaning that Spring Training is a bit less than a month away). There only firm deadline that’s coming up in the near future is to have your roster down to 25 people by Opening Day.

As for the quality of the players, you have scouting reports. Each scout is different, so the way you view a player may be different than the way a different owner views him. As in real life, there are no guarantees.

If you’re going to download the demo, please keep in mind that we are using version 13 (not 14, which is the latest version). We usually upgrade every two or three versions.

Zev Steinhardt

11

After getting a chance to look over the league website and the game’s instruction manual, I think I’ll pass. The amount of detail is impressive, but I don’t think I’d enjoy taking the time to learn all the details about all the players I own – not to mention all the others in the leagues.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, though, Zev. I wish you the best of luck in finding an owner.

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I’ll chime in here - marital problems are no fun! There might be somewhat of a learning curve depending on how well you understand baseball contracts and roster construction (40-man rosters vs 25-man rosters, minor league options, how the designate-for-assigment/waiver wire works, etc). But once you’re in-season, you don’t need to micro-manage at all. As Zev said, an hour a week is often plenty.

Of course, the great thing about the game is that you -can- micro-manage as much as you want to :smiley: but the game itself doesn’t -require- a massive time investment. I’d also note the league is great at answering questions and such.

If you were tempted, by all means give it a shot for at least a season and see how it goes?