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| Baseball Mogul 2013 |
It’s been a few years since I posted about one of the best
baseball simulations on the market: Baseball Mogul. Baseball Mogul has been around for quite
awhile (BBM 2013 is the 15th edition), and the series has proven to
be one of the most realistic, yet fun-to-play baseball sims available. So, it
was with eager anticipation that I downloaded the newest version onto my
computer.
The first thing to know about Baseball Mogul is that the
game titles run one year ahead of the starting season. So, Baseball Mogul 2013
starts off (in normal league play) in 2012. You get all of the players from
each MLB team’s opening-day roster. Each team has its own home stadium, fan
base, reputation, TV deals, and many more features, even down to the prices of
hot dogs at the concession stands. Players have their own salaries, contracts,
attitudes and statistical trends. All of these things must be managed on the
way to crafting a league champion!
The heart of Baseball Mogul (in my opinion) lies in the
ability to manage a given organization over many seasons. If you want to try to
win in 2012, but sacrifice the future, you can spend big money on free agents
and trade away your prospects for superstars. Trying to trade with other General
Managers isn’t always easy, though. If you throw a lousy offer towards another
team, you might not be able to work out any deal with that team for awhile. My
strategy is usually to sacrifice the first season or two in order to build a
long-term contender. My team, the Oakland A’s, is such a project (2012
real-world success not withstanding!)
I started off the 2012 season by looking over the A’s roster,
adjusting lineups and the pitching staff. Your batting lineup must be set
against right-handed pitchers, and southpaws as well. I also shuffled a few
players between the big leagues and AAA. You have four different minor league
levels that you can put players at, so you can place them according to their
ability level. Finally, there’s the Disabled List. The A’s started the season
with some big names on the DL: Dallas Braden, Bret Anderson and Daric Barton.
After I had set my roster, I took a look at the Free Agent
list. The best player available at the start of the season was Roy Oswalt.
However, his asking price was $4.6M for one season. I decided that even though
his salary would be too much for my low-budget A’s, I would offer him something
lower over two seasons. Well, we negotiated with his agent back-and-forth, and
then the Yankees got into the bidding. I drove the price up to $4.9M, and then
bowed out when Oswalt countered with $5.1M. I decided this was too much to pay,
and let the Yanks have him.
Others on the Free Agent list included aging former stars
like Vladimir Guerrero, Miguel Tejada and Hideki Matsui. These guys were more
affordable than Oswalt, but their production was also definitely declining. I
decided to look at someone who could help the team over the next couple of
seasons at a decent price. With a couple of starting pitchers already on the
shelf for much of the season, I made an offer to Joel Pinero, who was asking
for $2.1M for one season. I offered $1.8M for two years, and we quickly settled
at $2M for two seasons. I quickly inserted Pinero as my #3 starter, booting
Graham Godfrey down to AAA.
I placed a few offers on the trading block prior to
beginning the season, but didn’t get any satisfactory responses, so I decided
to head into the 2012 regular season with my roster as-is. We opened up with
two games against the Mariners in Japan, splitting the first two games. In my
third game of the season, we were tied 2-2 against the M’s in the eighth
inning, and the simulation asked me if I wanted to join the game in
Play-By-Play Mode. I thought that sounded fun, so I said ‘Yes’.
We joined the action with two outs in the top of the 8th.
My starter, Bartolo Colon, was tiring, but I thought I would try to eke one
more out from him to try and get out of the inning. He was able to induce a
groundout, and we went to the bottom of the eighth still tied.
We led off the bottom of the frame with Jemile Weeks, who
promptly smacked a single to right. I decided to go against my Moneyball
principles and play a little small-ball to see if I could manufacture the
go-ahead run. I set the next play option to steal second base, and Weeks
successfully swiped the bag. Now, with Cliff Pennington up, I wanted to move
Weeks over to third in hopes of sacrificing him home. Getting the bunt sign,
Pennington laid down a successful sac bunt, putting Weeks at third with one
out. I designated the next hitter, Yoenis Cespedes, to try to hit a sacrifice
fly to drive in Weeks. He successfully hit a fly ball to Michael Saunders in
center field, but it was fairly shallow…would it be enough to score the run
from third? The screen indicated the depth of the fly ball, the length of the
throw, Saunders’ arm strength, and the probability that Weeks would score if he
tried…70%. I sent him home, and he slid in safely with the go-ahead run!
Leading 3-2 going into the top of the 9th, Colon
was pretty much done, so I looked at my bullpen options. The Mariners were
scheduled to bring up three left-handed hitters. My normal closer, Grant
Balfour had worked both of the previous games, although they were the games in
Japan the week before. I decided to turn to much-maligned set-up man Brian
Fuentes to close the deal, hoping that the southpaw would have an advantage
against the lefty hitters. My strategy worked! He got the first batter to fly
out harmlessly to right, and then struck out the next two hitters to close out
the game.
Playing Baseball Mogul 2013 is a lot of fun, whether you
want to play through a bunch of seasons quickly, or frequently use the
play-by-play mode to manage the game’s finer points. There is so much detail in
this simulation that it could make your head spin. However, you don’t have to
choose the normal-style, 2012 MLB season if you don’t want to. BBM ’13 offers
other game types. For instance, you can choose to run a team from the past,
with accurate team rosters going back to 1901. Or, you can create a totally
fictional league with made-up players and teams, too. You can even play as an
expansion team (such as the 1961 Washington Senators or the ’98 Diamondbacks).
You also have the ability to import your own database to fully customize your
Baseball Mogul experience.
Right now, my 2012 A’s team is sitting at 20-21 through the
first couple of months of the season. We’re holding steady with a bunch of
youngsters, rag-tags and rejects that other teams didn’t want. Oh, and our #1
starter, Brandon McCarthy is out for 99 games with a broken elbow. Thus, our
chances of winning this year just took a nosedive, so I’ll be looking even more
toward putting a winning team out on the field in future seasons. That means I’ll
probably look to dump some salaries, like those belonging to Fuentes ($5M),
Balfour ($4M) and Barton (I already traded Barton and his $1M contract for a
minor-leaguer.)
I’ll continue to post on Baseball Mogul 2013 as I work
through a few seasons in regular play mode. I’ll try out the other play modes
as well, to see how they function. I’m particularly interested in setting up my
own league with fictional teams and players.
Until next time, Go A’s!!
