What's the best baseball sim out there?

by maurerdj on Jan 21, 2008 11:36 AM EST Comment 12 comments

I'm looking for a stat heavy baseball sim. I have heard that Out of the Park Baseball and Baseball mogul are both good choices. The most important element to me is that it is user-friendly. Just wondering what people of this board have played and what you guys think is the bets one out there.

Oh yeah, and I don't care what the online options there are. I plan on playing offline.

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Diamond Mind Baseball is my choice

I have played this for over 10 years, and belong to a play by e-mail league, and I've been very happy with it. They have a projection disk for the coming season, based on a players historical production, and you can sim a season before it is actually played...I believe every year, they do about 100 simulations of the upcoming season and post the results...you can also purchase most seasons from the past, and replay the season, complete with all transactions.

by tbell61 on Jan 21, 2008 12:45 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

OOTP

I've been playing around on Out of the Park Baseball for about a year. It has a lot of downloadables and is a pretty good sim. You can do any historical season from 1901-. It has a moderate amount of stats like VORP and I believe some Bill James stats, composite ERA and range factor. You can download the game on the site and it gives you a free trial for 2 weeks or so. Check it out its a good time. Can't say I know much about Baseball Mogul, maybe someone else can shed some light.

by Bullet Bob Gibson on Jan 21, 2008 1:24 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Diamond Mind

runs circles around baseball mogul, as far as real life simulation goes. Mogul is fun, but I'd liken it more to the dynasty mode on MVP Baseball or something.

I've never played OOTP, so I don't know about that one.

The saber guys use DMB for projections and such, and you can download a couple of programs that compile the season sims for you. I do know that.

by plh903 on Jan 21, 2008 1:35 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

OOTP

Can be VERY user intensive. The learning curve can take awhile. If you want in-depth, it's def the program. In addition to the MLB universe, you can track players in other countries (Korea, Japan, even Afghanistan) and sign them.

That said, the depth can also bog down the playing experience. As much of a minor league fan as I am, it slows things down a lot when you dictate the lineups at Rookie ball, then have to re-calibrate them each time a player is promoted, demoted, etc.

One last note - with OOTP it tends to hog a lot of system resources. I was using a Dell Laptop with dual core processor and 2gb ram while running Vista Business and the game was prohibitively slow. Fwiw.

by airhad on Jan 21, 2008 1:59 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

baseball mogul

is extremely buggy and the ai is as dumb as it gets. I don't recommend it at all. Haven't used any of the others mentioned here.

the bums will always lose...

by SleepyCA on Jan 21, 2008 11:23 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

basebal mogul

is my favorite game of all time; I've been playing it constantly since Mogul 03, and 07 and 08 were drastic improvements.

It doesn't have the absurd depth of OOTP--which I enjoy playing from time to time--but it's lightning fast and it has a great interface. In that regard, its streamlining and its ease of use, it's sort of the iPod of baseball sims. Others may have more features, and others might be better if you have very specific needs, but for general play it's the best there is.

(Note: I don't play a lot of historical sims, because I prefer fictional players, so I can't vouch for Mogul in that regard. It goes back to 1901, but last time I tried to play that far back (Mogul 2004, mind you) there were real problems until the 1910s and 20s.)

by DanUpBaby on Jan 22, 2008 3:51 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

it's interesting

that we disagree so much about BM. I think BM has a ton of potential, but the bugs drive me crazy. Simple things like weighting and adding stats incorrectly; for instance, I recently had a season where pujols hit 67 home runs and ground into 78 double plays (78!!!), yet his player stats page said 51 and 22 respectively. Guys disappearing off of bases, people with 60 speed ratings stealing constantly off of molina or mauer, while sizemore (92) or rasmus (97) get caught 9 times out of ten against michael barrett, etc.

Also, from the confrontational attitude the developers take on the forum I don't get the impression they are interested in fixing game play. For a game that has been in development over 10 years, and whose developers make you pay again every year to get up-to-date patches, these little things are inexcusable imho.

"My other option was to go hunting dogs and cats with Scott Rolen." - TLR

by SleepyCA on Jan 23, 2008 8:09 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Sort of but not really related

Does anyone have any experience with WhatIf Sports? I'm interested in the Hardball Dynasty thing but don't know how to go about getting involved.

by 26thMan on Jan 23, 2008 7:37 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Dodger Sims

I am kind of partial to Dodger Sims (download link on left sidebar). It's more of a sim for sabermetrical purposes than setting up a league etc. It's very realistic in it's game matchups and you can even start a simulation (or many simulations) right in the middle of a game. You setup the game situation, pitchers, batter up, runners on base, outs, inning, score, pitches thrown etc..., and hit 'go'.
vr, Xei

by Xeifrank on Jan 24, 2008 1:12 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

and in the interests of full disclosure, xeifrank

you're the proprietor of Dodger Sims, aren't you?

by lboros on Jan 24, 2008 12:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

of course

I figured that was kind of implied. It's freeware so no harm done. :)
vr, Xei

by Xeifrank on Jan 24, 2008 1:14 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

OOTP

fan here. I've played both OOTP and BM.

OOTP is a very powerful and adaptable sim with a very active community that prepares a lot of league files, uniform skins and other add-ons that greatly enrich the experience. You can build a league crafted on MLB at any point in history rather easily, or make up your own parameters. The posibilities are endless. On the downside, it does run very slowly, even on a fast machine, and the interface IMO is less intuitive than BM.

BM is a fun sim, but far less detailed, realistic, and adaptable than OOTP. I will admit it has been at least 2-3 years (and therefore 2-3 releases) since I have played BM, but I never experienced any bugs. That must be a recent thing.

I have heard good things about Diamond Mind, but I don't believe that it simulates player development / growth at all.

by South Side Cards Fan on Jan 24, 2008 5:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs