OOTP X Catch-All

Not sure if this game is gong to draw enough attention to really deserve a catch-all, but the Latest Out of the Park Baseball game is a really great game. This is pretty much my first foray into OOTP baseball, as I was more of a fan of the replay series, Diamond Mind. Back when OOTP was just coing out, it just did not produce realistic enough stats to worth my time, and the GM AI was not all that great.

But I decided to give the game a try this year, as DMB has gotten stale, and I'm not a fan of where the product is going. I was pretty blown away by the new UI and the depth of the game. I have not delved in enough to really generate realistic stats and test the AI, but as a human vs. human league game, this is going to be a blast. Right now I am working my way through a 1975 season, with the goal of recreating a new history of baseball without free agency. I predict that the Expos are going to be damn good.

Check out Todd Brakke's (ubrakto on GWJ) review of the game on. If you are interested in a new text based baseball sim, this is a nice game to delve into.

I'm in a fictional league with Todd and Bill Abner, but would also like to find a nice league based on real players. Anyone else playing this game?

I have been hemming and hawing on this game for a few weeks now, because I've tried previous iterations of the series, and I just can't do the kind of consistent number-crunching it feels necessary to do to succeed.

Is this game too much for someone who just wants to manage (maybe GM) a few seasons, present and pass? How are they on upgrading their rosters? Is this a once a year product? Do they continue to support older versions?

Thanks,

Donan

Yeah, I'm kind of with Prederick. I'm playing last years' version (my first year), managing the Pirates' Single-A team. When you manage in the minors, your big league GM does all the roster move and finances for you and all you do is player eval, lineups and in-game coaching. It's a good complexity level for me right now, since I don't feel comfortable with too much more than that.

I'm also not sure if v.X is that much of an upgrade over v.9 for me to fork over $40, especially since I'm such a rudimentary player.

re: human vs. human league, we are still talking about the same mode of play, ie. manage your roster/finance, set your lineup/pitching rotation, and let the AI simulate the games, right?

EDIT: BTW, I remember getting a promo email from OOTP for All-Star week, they are having a sale for v.X for $29.99 (regularly $39.99).

I'm looking at getting this .... I sunk hundreds of hours into OOTP 5 years ago and X is looking pretty good.

Picked up the Demo today, and it's clearly a fantastic game. I can only wish that someday, someone will step up and make the Pro/College football equivalent we are so desperately in need of. Between OOTP, Eastside Hockey Manager, Football Manager and Wolverine Studios has basketball covered. It's about goddamn time someone made a really awesome Football sim. Thank god the latter's working on a Pro Football game, even if their track record isn't fantastic.

Hilariously bizarre question, but the screenshots I've seen didn't answer it: are hitters still rated with separate "contact" and "gap" skills? It sounds like the most innocuous thing (because it probably is) but, when I tried a version of OOTP from a few years back, my OCD-addled brain kept getting hung up on the fact that player evaluation -- a major factor in almost all of the mechanics of the game -- was based upon redundant ability types.

Prederick wrote:

Picked up the Demo today, and it's clearly a fantastic game. I can only wish that someday, someone will step up and make the Pro/College football equivalent we are so desperately in need of. Between OOTP, Eastside Hockey Manager, Football Manager and Wolverine Studios has basketball covered. It's about goddamn time someone made a really awesome Football sim. Thank god the latter's working on a Pro Football game, even if their track record isn't fantastic.

You never tried Solescismic Software's Front Office Football ? The 2007 version is still available, and is very good. I'm pretty meh about Wolverine's game's bought a couple in the past that were clearly a way off being ready for release.

OzymandiasAV wrote:

Hilariously bizarre question, but the screenshots I've seen didn't answer it: are hitters still rated with separate "contact" and "gap" skills? It sounds like the most innocuous thing (because it probably is) but, when I tried a version of OOTP from a few years back, my OCD-addled brain kept getting hung up on the fact that player evaluation -- a major factor in almost all of the mechanics of the game -- was based upon redundant ability types.

You can find a pretty good breakdown of hitting skills in OOTP X here. Basically there's contact, gap power, homerun power, eye (for walks) and avoid Ks. Whereas contact determines a player's ability to merely put the ball in play, Gap Power determines a hitter's ability to hit for extra bases.

EDIT: Also, thanks for the review plug Jayhawker!

I bought the game mid-July or so, the last version I played was OOTP 2007, and I like the changes. I like the rating of individual pitches, and having MLB included with the game rather than downloading a database/save file makes it easier for me as I have barely tried fictional leagues.

In OOTP X, it does seem more difficult to lay down bunt singles than 2007, which means no season with Chone Figgins batting above .400. On a stat-related note, has anyone played the game over a number of decades? I remember in 2007 I had a 3B with 750HR and my DH broke 800 in his career. I know you can adjust everything in the settings, but that is a little over my head.

One thing I'm not really happy with is the dearth of quality trainers. Generally you can find very good or great "generated" coaches, but to find a quality trainer is a rarity. I had the same problem with 2007, so maybe I should head over to the official boards and drop a line.

ubrakto wrote:
OzymandiasAV wrote:

Hilariously bizarre question, but the screenshots I've seen didn't answer it: are hitters still rated with separate "contact" and "gap" skills? It sounds like the most innocuous thing (because it probably is) but, when I tried a version of OOTP from a few years back, my OCD-addled brain kept getting hung up on the fact that player evaluation -- a major factor in almost all of the mechanics of the game -- was based upon redundant ability types.

You can find a pretty good breakdown of hitting skills in OOTP X here. Basically there's contact, gap power, homerun power, eye (for walks) and avoid Ks. Whereas contact determines a player's ability to merely put the ball in play, Gap Power determines a hitter's ability to hit for extra bases.

EDIT: Also, thanks for the review plug Jayhawker!

Thank you for posting that link, Todd. That definitely answers my question, though it still leaves me feeling a bit cold. How many players in baseball history really fit into a low-contact/high-gap/low-power (or even a low-contact/high-gap/high-power) profile? Can't they get the same "player types" by simply combining the various permutations from contact and power? If they wanted to model hit distribution more effectively, why not supplant the "gap" skill with a slider with gradations from pull hitter (more HR, more strikeouts due to less strike zone coverage) to all-fields contact hitter (less homeruns, less strikeouts due to better plate coverage, but more extra base hits)?

I'll concede, it's super nit-picky, but it just seems a bit odd to me as a baseball fan.

Points taken, but my suspicion is that if you look at a wide cross-section of players in OOTP, what you'd find is that there aren't an unreasonable number of guys with both a high gap power and an ultra low home run power rating (or vice-versa). I'm sure there are some, but even then I don't think the existence of such players is that abnormal. My suspicion is that if you really scour stats, you'll find guys who are good at hitting for extra bases, but really don't hit the long ball that much (comparatively). I'm not the most knowledgeable baseball nut out there. I love the game, but at the end of the day, I'm pretty much just a homer for the Tigers. That said, I know that team pretty darn well.

For low contact, high gap, high power, if you look at players like Brandon Inge and Marcus Thames, they're perfect examples of guys who really don't hit for average, but when they connect, there's a good chance it's gonna go pretty far. Thames has (had?) one of the highest home runs per at bat total in the league, believe it or not. And Inge before his knees buckled on him this month was on pace for between 30-40 home runs despite hitting around .250 - .260 (I think). It's a shame about his knees too, because he was having a phenomenal year this year relative to his usual standards. (Plus, he's an outstanding defensive player at 3B.)

As for high gap, low home run power, I'd say the last two years (before this year) a player like Magglio Ordonez fits that sort of mold pretty well. Maggs won the batting title in 2007 and was in the mix for a large part of 2008 before his total power drop off this year. In '07 he hit 54 doubles relative to 28 home runs. Now, 28 homers is nothing to sneeze at, but compared to his league leading 54 doubles? (Also most of the homers, to the best of my recollection came in the first half of the season. After the all-star break that year he really struggled to clear fences, but was still mashing the ball all over the park.)

Anyway, I'm cherry picking a bit. But I really think if you were to dig deep enough, you'd be able to find a bunch of example of guys who are able to hit for extra bases pretty routinely without having home run totals to match. This link should point you to a sortable 2009 stats page at MLB.com where it's sorted by doubles. There's a bunch of guys among the league leaders in doubles on there who have as much as four times the number of doubles as home runs. Like the manual says, I think that with Gap Power you're really talking about a player's ability to drive the ball between outfielders, not so much an ability to launch baseball sized satellites into low Earth orbit. For many players I think those numbers do go hand in hand, but for many they don't.

I think what I would really question with these ratings is if you saw a bunch of players with high contact, low gap, and high HR power. I suspect that would be a very unusual combination in real life, but then I can't say I've seen any players in OOTP that fit that description either.

Anyway, just some thoughts for what they're worth.
---Todd

ubrakto wrote:

For low contact, high gap, high power, if you look at players like Brandon Inge and Marcus Thames, they're perfect examples of guys who really don't hit for average, but when they connect, there's a good chance it's gonna go pretty far. Thames has (had?) one of the highest home runs per at bat total in the league, believe it or not. And Inge before his knees buckled on him this month was on pace for between 30-40 home runs despite hitting around .250 - .260 (I think). It's a shame about his knees too, because he was having a phenomenal year this year relative to his usual standards. (Plus, he's an outstanding defensive player at 3B.)

Yeah, it hit me that there are a number of players that fit under a low/high/high profile after I posted and, indeed, both Inge and Thames (in particular) are great examples of that archetype.

Though, once again, the "gap" skill in the case of these two players isn't all that different from the "power" skill, is it? Both of these guys put a charge into the ball whenever they hit it (high power), but they don't make contact all too often (low contact).

ubrakto wrote:

As for high gap, low home run power, I'd say the last two years (before this year) a player like Magglio Ordonez fits that sort of mold pretty well. Maggs won the batting title in 2007 and was in the mix for a large part of 2008 before his total power drop off this year. In '07 he hit 54 doubles relative to 28 home runs. Now, 28 homers is nothing to sneeze at, but compared to his league leading 54 doubles? (Also most of the homers, to the best of my recollection came in the first half of the season. After the all-star break that year he really struggled to clear fences, but was still mashing the ball all over the park.)

I emphasized the mention of Magglio's batting title in your quote above because that's exactly the kind of thing that would be indicative of a high contact hitter, in my opinion, somebody who consistently makes more base hits than the average player.

When considering his doubles and homers in conjunction with that high level of contact, I would return to my previous suggestion of "dead pull vs. all fields" hit distribution slider instead of a specific gap skill. I see Magglio Ordonez (not just in 2007, but throughout his career as a whole) as being a very balanced hitter with high contact / high power scores, whose hit distribution slider would be all the way to "all fields." If he was struggling to clear fences, but still mashing the ball all over the place, that could be "explained" in the model through a slight (but not major) dip in power contrasted against high contact and "all fields" hitting style.

ubrakto wrote:

Anyway, I'm cherry picking a bit. But I really think if you were to dig deep enough, you'd be able to find a bunch of example of guys who are able to hit for extra bases pretty routinely without having home run totals to match. This link should point you to a sortable 2009 stats page at MLB.com where it's sorted by doubles. There's a bunch of guys among the league leaders in doubles on there who have as much as four times the number of doubles as home runs. Like the manual says, I think that with Gap Power you're really talking about a player's ability to drive the ball between outfielders, not so much an ability to launch baseball sized satellites into low Earth orbit. For many players I think those numbers do go hand in hand, but for many they don't.

And almost all of those guys near the top also have a high batting average, which would more directly correlate with a high contact skill.

To take the point one step further, consider the top five single-season leaders in doubles (and limit it to active players only, just to keep things familiar):

Single-Season Doubles Leaders, Active Players

  • 59 - Todd Helton, 2000 (BA = .372)
  • 57 - Carlos Delgado, 2000 (BA = .344)
  • 56 - Garret Anderson, 2002 (BA = .306)
  • 56 - Nomar Garciaparra, 2002 (BA = .310)
  • 55 - Lance Berkman, 2001 (BA = .331)

All of them hit over .300 for that season and, with the exception of Carlos Delgado, all four players have career averages at or extremely close to .300 as well.

ubrakto wrote:

I think what I would really question with these ratings is if you saw a bunch of players with high contact, low gap, and high HR power. I suspect that would be a very unusual combination in real life, but then I can't say I've seen any players in OOTP that fit that description either.

I agree that it would be very unusual, but it does happen and I think it could be effectively modeled through a high contact/high power/dead pull profile...in other words, somebody who either cranks the ball over the LF/RF wall or makes solid contact straight to the corner outfielder, ensuring they never really get more than a single. Mark McGwire is probably the best example of that archetype, especially his record-breaking 1998 season: .299 average with 70 home runs, but only 21 doubles.

You know, I kinda like it better when people just say, "Gee, Todd. You're right. You're awesome!" Why does that never happen? Why!?!?

Anyway, points taken, and I'm sure it's completely plausible to configure the hitter ratings the way you propose and get good results. That said, I'm not sure why you'd view the current system as a negative. Personally, I do like the notion that I have an idea of who's going to hit for average, who's likely to put up the extra base hits and who's gonna blast the ball. Or, more accurately, how those ratings are all used together to give me a decent picture of what kind of player I'm looking at.

It would be interesting, for someone with more dedication than me, to have a look at a wide cross section of players in the game and see if there are combinations of contact, gap, and power that cause the game to produce poor statistical results.

Jayhawker wrote:

Not sure if this game is gong to draw enough attention to really deserve a catch-all, but the Latest Out of the Park Baseball game is a really great game. This is pretty much my first foray into OOTP baseball, as I was more of a fan of the replay series, Diamond Mind. Back when OOTP was just coing out, it just did not produce realistic enough stats to worth my time, and the GM AI was not all that great.

But I decided to give the game a try this year, as DMB has gotten stale, and I'm not a fan of where the product is going. I was pretty blown away by the new UI and the depth of the game. I have not delved in enough to really generate realistic stats and test the AI, but as a human vs. human league game, this is going to be a blast. Right now I am working my way through a 1975 season, with the goal of recreating a new history of baseball without free agency. I predict that the Expos are going to be damn good.

Check out Todd Brakke's (ubrakto on GWJ) review of the game on. If you are interested in a new text based baseball sim, this is a nice game to delve into.

I'm in a fictional league with Todd and Bill Abner, but would also like to find a nice league based on real players. Anyone else playing this game?

Yes, I think I'm in the same league, cast as 'Sinister British Villain'. I'm learning everything about managing from the Pittsburg Pirates and Matt Millen

For those interested, here is our league web site. My team is the Free State Browns.

This is the web site that is generated for online leagues. I'm not sure how much time it takes to upload, as Bill Abner has been doing the heavy lifting, and it seems to take him some time each night to get everything updated. But it seems to be worth the effort.

But the finished product is damn cool. I was a little apprehensive about doing a fictional league, but the game interface, combined with a cool web site has really made this a fun league. I'm already growing attached to some of my players. What I have not done yet is really learn about all of the other teams in the league yet. but the game and web site make that pretty easy and fun. If you check outthe site, be sure to click on the BNN link. We not only have access to our teams and minor league affiliates, with news and boxscores, but the game also keeps track of high school and college players that we will be drafting in the June Draft.

I'd still like to see if some of you would like to start league based on real players at some point.

I wish there were an American Football version of this game.

Did you really have to post that (says he, 16-30 and 12 games behind already) ?

As for an American Football version, the last text sort of game was Front Office Football, which is actually very good but I'm not sure about whether it's online capable.

davet010 wrote:

Did you really have to post that (says he, 16-30 and 12 games behind already) ?

I'm not much better off, as I am 19-27, in last place and 10 games out. That nine game losing streak I had already really put the screws to me. I'm suffering the effects of not drafting any pitching until way too late. I'm now resorting to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Thanks for posting the link to the website Jayhawker, I had not realized how tuned the game's interface is to online leagues. In my single player experience, using the league/team news pages has been frustrating for me, as clicking the hyperlinks brings you to the player's "news profile" rather than the "player profile" (yes, I know you can right click... I forget... a lot). Having it that way completely makes sense for online leagues and I can now see why it was designed that way.

On another note, that's a massive league. Listening to Three Moves Ahead, I thought it would be 10 teams split into 2 divisions. To have 30 teams and 30 guys committed is quite the feat. In my time with some hockey sim leagues, having all 30 teams with GMs was difficult at times, especially when a vacant team wasn't good.

Well, between an injury to my ace (Gratten), who was looking like a Cy Young candidate until he got hurt, and the fact that I have absolutely no hitting in my lineup (why the f#$@ am I paying you, Reyes?!?!) my Noblesville Hops have finally dropped to the cellar my division. I'm four games under .500 thanks to a four games and counting losing skid, but I'm also now 9 games out of the division. Now I remember why I hate this game!

I'm not sure we should just start a new thread, but this does say, 'X', so here is a ARISE of this thread for OOTP 12 and the upcoming versions for iPhone, iPad.

First, here's link for the iOOTP version. Check out the FAQ. iPhone version first that can be downloaded to iPad, but not a 'real' iPad version till sometime later. Price $4.99. Release: end of this month. AND hopefully if you bought it for the iPhone, it won't cost you again for the iPad 'true version'. OH! One last important thing (well 2). NO on-line play at this time. AND no editing.

Also, check out the 'Road to Release' posts. They show you an example on how the game will be played

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...

And other link(s):

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showth...

OOTP 14:

re: a function that keeps stats of the players's stats as opposed to the AI stats generated when simming...

Location: PNWWednesday, May 8th, 2013 - 3:47pm
Slumberland wrote:
That would be a fun stat. It feels like I win about half the games I play, and with all the supplemental simming my team ended up at exactly .500, so... maybe it's the team construction after all, and my skills on All-Star are roughly in line with the sim engine (if such a comparison is even possible).

Most of my OOTP these days is relegated to the GWJ league, but when I play it I barely "play" anything. I like watching the standings change, stop, make changes, etc.

I enjoy checking each day's top performers , so I go into the schedule and scroll back the week I didn't play and check that each day's games and such.

I play a couple games a week if I can. I enjoy stat watching, but I like the tenseness of games and reading about close plays that can drive me nuts:) And I get a kick seeing overall stats compared do that days stats. Etc. I just jump around to inside a game and look at the 3 screen options and so on. All fun, but yes, can be slow going.

My one newbie think is to do drafting, free agency etc. I usually just want to 'play', not worry about GM stuff. But giving it a go in my new game. Scary! LOL. (whoops. Sorry-OFF Topic with OOTP. I'll stop! and find the right thread)

XBL:DonanGWJ
PSN: Toxdon
Wii: 4724 0545 4093 9099

My last OOTP 14 game broke after 15 or 16 seasons or so (the amateur draft caused a crash, no matter whether I simmed it or tried to run the whole thing manually).

I meant to wait until 15 to play anything new, but decided to start a new game that I could sim a long background for during this weekend's final packing rush (the move happens Monday morning).

My father should have made it as a pitcher, but he made some decisions as a young guy that meant he never made it past college (which turned out well for me ... he's technically my step-father, and it is unlikely that would have been true if he had stuck with baseball). I've always wanted to create a MLB-structured fictional league that included him and follow through to see how that turns out. So, I started the league in 1979 (he turned 19 that year, I was born that year). I created him in a college feeder league. I had intended to try to create a player that matched what I know of his potential talent at the time ... but got rather carried away and created a god amongst men. My Dad was a starting pitcher, but could also hit for power. So, I created fictional Dad as an SP with ridiculous pitching and offensive skills. I figured the offensive skills would likely go to waste, but though that perhaps the AI would decide to turn him into an offensive player, so why not. As it turned out, the AL dropped the DH rule in the early 1980's, so he did get some chances to show off his hitting skills.

I forgot to mark him as ineligible for the draft, and didn't actually add him to a team, so he was drafted by the White Sox that year instead of developing through college like I had hoped. He threw his first major league shut-out in August of the same year. It is now 1996, and Dad has won 9 Cy-Young awards, and been selected on for the All-Star team 10 times. He's been injury prone and been stuck with several incomplete seasons thanks to injury. He was 'fragile' from early on, and in 1996 is now 'Wrecked'.

In 1995, I created my high-school self. I never had any chance at playing baseball at any level in real life, but thought I would make myself a potential baseball. Unlike with my Dad, who I had bumped up his current skill as a youngster, I left my current skill at the very low numbers I began with and just made my potential very high. I left the position to 'random', and it made me a pitcher. I remembered to make myself ineligible for the draft ... but forgot to assign myself a team, so I was somehow signed to a minor league contract almost immediately.

By the White Sox! I had hoped to get a chance to play on the same team as Dad ... but at the end of '96 he was a free agent, and ended up being picked up by the Reds.

I've had quite a bit of fun with this run of OOTP already, and I haven't even made it to the part where I actually play in any fashion.

I've started a lot of games of OOTP myself, just because watching the game re-create baseball history is amazing.

I think I've simmed over 500 years of baseball in OOTP 14 alone, and y'know, I've never seen anyone break Joe DiMaggio's hitting record. Ever. I've seen 80 HRs, 30 wins, 200+ RBIs, sub-1.50 ERAs, 400 K's, batting averages of .450 or better, but never a 57-game hitting streak.

I've not simmed nearly as much, but have never seen any streak past the low 30's, and I think only past 30 once. Searching around for anyone who has seen longer streaks, I ran across an OOTP forum thread where he followed a 23 year old player to 43 hits. A month later that player was suspended for drug use ;p

In 1997, Dad was clear in decline but still doing well. By the end of September he had a 13-8 record, with a 3.54 ERA and 1.24 WHIP (1994 was his first season with a WHIP greater than 1). On September 29th he was injured, and on the 30th put the on the DL with a 'torn triceps', expected to take 3-4 months to recover. His contract with the Reds was up, and the Royals signed him for a 2 year $10 million contract in November. On January 7th the doctors told him he wouldn't be able to play baseball again, and he was released. He didn't officially retire until May, the same month that fictional me was called up.

Since I was summing a year at a time, I didn't see all of this until January 1st of 1999, and I immediately turned him into a coach. I'm not familiar with how the game determines what kind of coach a player will make, but they turned him into a bench coach with very low skills, that after a couple of years no one has picked up. Fictional me won my first Cy Young that year.

Just to get you in the mood to get a fictional league going here's a post that pop's up in the OOTP forum every so often, from a fellow who posted it years ago. Great read and get's your heart pumping to get it going again(!).

http://tinyurl.com/pbycwxb

Is there any sort of idiot/beginners guide for this ? I've had a couple of versions in the past, and either end up taking about 3 real weeks to play 20 games because I'm playing them all, or getting beaten senseless because I'm making rubbish decisions.

Part of this may be because I'm British and refer to it as 'posh rounders', but still...

A idiot/beginner's guide? Well, not really, other than other users. Like us!

Well, first off, don't play every game unless you're THAT into it. There's a 162 games to work with, and decades of baseball to recreate. I mean, you totally can go game-by-game, but most people I know who play only play a few important games each year, because they actually want to get through a season faster than real-time.

What kind of questions do you have? If you'd like, feel free to stop by the OOTP League thread and ask us, we're all novices as well, so it wouldn't hurt for people to answer your questions and therefore help themselves better understand the game.

davet010 wrote:

Is there any sort of idiot/beginners guide for this ? I've had a couple of versions in the past, and either end up taking about 3 real weeks to play 20 games because I'm playing them all, or getting beaten senseless because I'm making rubbish decisions.

Part of this may be because I'm British and refer to it as 'posh rounders', but still...

The OOTP team created some tutorial videos a few years back, but they are pretty basic. If you've played a few versions, I'm not sure there's a lot new in there, but they may be worth a shot.

Anyone picked up 15 yet?

I broke down yesterday and got it. I haven't gone much beyond just tooling around in league creation and a bit of set up for my franchise (Scherzer extended! I say, this game is nothing like real life!)

They really have done a nice job of streamlining the UI. It's not easy to see the impact of this from the promo screenshots, but menu/screen navigation is much better and there are some nice tweaks to a bunch of management screens that just make it better to work with. You can now sort columns in organizational overview, for example. And the Personnel screen is totally revamped so you can see the entire organization's list of coaches at once, see when a position is vacant, see when you've made an offer on a vacant position, etc. So far, so good!

Yeah, I definitely like the UI tweaks, especially now that we can see more stats at one time. Though I don't particularly like the fact that Batting Stats 1 has a bazillion stats but leave wOBA on the Batting Stats 2 screen!

Haven't played enough to get a feel for the incoming and outgoing international players and whatnot, but anything that adds extra stats to help get a real feel for a player is a good thing in my book.