Baseball Mogul 2014

Baseball Mogul 2014 launches March 22nd!

It's official. Baseball Mogul 2014 will go on sale on March 25th.

As you would expect, we have made the following updates for the 2013 season:

• The real 2013 schedule.
• Updated stats through 2012.
• Updated rosters.
• New league format for 2013 (it's so weird seeing Houston in the AL West).

We also have some great new features to appeal to everyone from the pitch-by-pitch player to the stat geek to the front-office genius. These are the most noteworthy:

• Real minor league stats (more than 1 million lines of data, going back to the 1880s).
• Lefty-righty batting and pitching stats for every season going back to 1951.
• New animations, correctly reflecting team uniforms and player skin colors.
• Completely reworked General Manager AI, mimicking real-life trade and contract data.
• New scouting and player rating system.
• Individual strategy settings for each player, including pitch count limits.

We've also been busy with many smaller improvements and fixing bugs (including this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one, as just a few examples).

Time to get back to work. Thanks for reading!

Real Minor League Stats (Baseball Mogul)

For Baseball Mogul 2014, we have added over 1 million lines of minor league batting, pitching, fielding and catching data, going back to the 1880s.

Click for larger image

The above screen shot shows Jurickson Profar, the Ranger's #1 prospect. The Baseball Mogul AI thinks he should be in their starting lineup on Opening Day.

Baseball Mogul 2014: Fixing The Game (Part 2 of 2)

As mentioned last week, we have been reworking the General Manager AI so that computer-controlled teams are much more intelligent when it comes to trades and roster management. This also means that the computer-controlled teams won't have to "cheat" on high difficulty levels just to provide a challenge. But the other weakness that gets abused is the player rating system.

Player Ratings

One solution to the problem of accurate player ratings is to make them less accurate. This works, but leads to some really dumb results, like your scouts telling you that Ubaldo Jiminez has a "95" Control rating.

The other option is to simply turn ratings off. Baseball Mogul lets you do this, and it's actually a good option in my opinion. After all, the game is much more realistic when you turn off the ability to see player ratings. Nobody in Major League Baseball has a crystal ball regarding player abilities. You can't just give your scouts more money and magically gain access to the "true" ability level of every player in baseball. If a GM could view the Strat-O-Matic cards for every single player in his organization, the job of talent assessment would be pretty boring.

Strat-O-Matic Cards

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Submarine Pitcher!

New for Baseball Mogul 2014:

When you have an underarm pitcher on your staff, he will actually throw underhand. A minor change, but very cool.

Baseball Mogul 2014: Team Colors

(Click for larger version)

Just posting a screenshot of the new Uniform Designer for Baseball Mogul 2014 (Release Date: March 22nd, 2013).

As you can see, you can specify the color of various parts of the home and away uniform. Each of those buttons is a "color picker" that lets you choose any color in the spectrum. You can even assign pinstripe colors (or choose no pinstripes).

Each team has 4 alternate uniforms, and the option to choose which days of the week (if any) they are used. Mogul currently loads the 2013 uniforms (and any official alternate uniforms) automatically. A database of uniforms for the last 110 years will be included with the final version.

These uniforms are used for all the batter and pitcher animations, and combined with the correct skin color for the player in question.

The One-Ton Offensive Line?

The NFL is getting out of hand. You can't play on the line of scrimmage unless you top 350 pounds. It's making the game less fun to watch and less fun to play. And leading to more injuries. But the worst part is that high school kids around the country think they need to weigh that much for a shot at playing in Division I in college -- and to have ANY shot at playing in the pros. And the sad fact is that they are right.

Baseball Mogul 2014: Fixing The Game (Part 1 of 2)

Baseball Mogul 2013 is too easy.

There, I said it.

It's possible to take control of a mediocre team during Spring Training and turn it into a playoff team before Opening Day. You go to the Trading Block and offer up some minor leaguers, until you can get a good player at every position. If you keep pestering the computer-controlled teams, you can eventually find a lopsided trade in your favor.

Baseball Mogul 2014: New Uniforms

A very cool feature this year is new animations for the batter and pitcher. I realize that Baseball Mogul isn't about cutting-edge graphics. But it was pretty annoying that every single batter and pitcher was a white guy with bad posture and a dark blue helmet.

Old Animations

In case you were wondering, the old batter animation (and pitcher animation) was me. Filmed in my backyard, with a giant green tarp used as a green screen. There was snow on the ground.

So, this year features a new animation system, with the ability to change uniform colors and skin colors.

Examples of New Animations

The cool thing is that this feature is being added by an artist and another programmer, with very little effort on my part. So I get to keep working on the meat of the game.

The Skin Color Project

Over the years, I have heard baseball researchers ask if there was a "race database" somewhere.

For example. the National League was better than the American League throughout the 1960s and 1970s. From 1960 to 1982, the National League won 23 All-Star Games. The American League only won 2.

I would surmise that the National League dominated because they integrated more quickly, adding the best black players to their teams while a number of American League teams (most notably, the Red Sox) continued to stay all-white.

But I haven't seen data supporting that theory. That's because we have stats going back to the 1870s, but we don't have a database of racial/ethnic categorization. One reason is that every time it comes up, it becomes clear that "race" is a cultural phenomenon, not a scientific one. For example, President Obama is (at least) half-white and yet we call him the first "black" president.

So, forget "race". I'm working on a skin color database, ranking everyone from 1-9 like so:

Marvin Miller Dies at 95

Marvin Miller (1917-2012)

Marvin Miller, the father of free agency in baseball, died today at the age of 95. For those unfamiliar with baseball's labor history, I'm including below the history of baseball labor relations that we published 7 years ago (with some updates as part of our efforts to provide more realistic historical labor relations in Baseball Mogul 2014).

The Worst Front Office Move Ever?

Babe Ruth (1918)

It's not hard for most people to come up with a list of "dumb front office moves" in the history of baseball. Here are 10 off the top of my head:

• #10. Philadelphia Phillies trade Larry Bowa and Ryne Sandberg to the Chicago Cubs for Ivan DeJesus. (1982)
• #9. The Cincinnati Reds trade Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles for Milt Pappas. (1965)

National League's Best Pitching Staff

Billy Beane

"My job is to get us to the playoffs. Everything after that is fucking luck." - Billy Beane

Billy Beane was pretty much right. Over the course of a 162-game season, the best teams tend to make it to the playoffs. But in a short series, it's much more likely that the weaker team will advance.

1992 Dream Team vs. 2012 Team USA

Kobe Bryant just announced that the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team could beat the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team (more commonly known at the Dream Team).

Michael Jordan's response: "I just laughed".

For some bizarre reason, there is no baseball today. So I'm going to break down the Dream Team vs. Team USA matchup.

Dickey's "Angry Knuckleball" Added To Baseball Mogul 2013

Photo by MG_4618 on Flickr (Creative Commons license)

Thanks to R.A. Dickey's recent success, we're adding a 3rd type of knuckleball to Baseball Mogul.

The game already had a "Knuckleball" and "Slow Knuckler" as options (Wakefield throws both of these). We also of course have a knuckle curve, but that isn't actually a knuckleball. With Dickey having a Cy Young season throwing what some have called a "Power Knuckleball", we're taking a close look at the physics behind this pitch and adding it to the game.

Baseball Contract Analysis

We've been going through contract and salary data, in order to improve the artificial intelligence in Baseball Mogul 2013 and future versions.

Contract Lengths for Major League Baseball Players (n = 516)

We examined the 516 players on Major League 40-Man Rosters (as of opening day) that had reached either arbitration or free agency. The first fact worth noting is that the vast majority (84%) of all player contracts are between 1 and 3 years. The longer deals get all the headlines, but the shorter deals dominate team rosters.

Windows Screen Resolutions (and Operating Systems)

Baseball Mogul 2013 in a 640x480 window

Just an update for game designers and web designers, since it can be hard to find all of this information in one place. The following is a list of the most popular screen resolutions for Windows machines:

Resolution	Share	Width	Height	Ratio	Type
1366x768	20.8%	1366	768	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1024x768	17.5%	1024	768	1.33	Video (4:3)
1280x800	12.1%	1280	800	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
1280x1024	7.0%	1280	1024	1.25	Video (5:4)
1440x900	6.4%	1440	900	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
1920x1080	5.6%	1920	1080	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1600x900	4.1%	1600	900	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1680x1050	3.6%	1680	1050	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
768x1024	2.4%	768	1024	0.75	Vertical (3:4)
1360x768	2.4%	1360	768	1.77	Widescreen (16:9)
1024x600	2.2%	1024	600	1.71	Widescreen (5:3)
1280x720	1.6%	1280	720	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1280x768	1.5%	1280	768	1.67	Widescreen (5:3)
1152x864	1.4%	1152	864	1.33	Video (4:3)
1920x1200	1.1%	1920	1200	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
800x600	0.9%	800	600	1.33	Video (4:3)
1280x960	0.7%	1280	960	1.33	Video (4:3)
1093x614	0.6%	1093	614	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
2560x1440	0.4%	2560	1440	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1311x737	0.4%	1311	737	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
Other	7.5%

Some facts to take away:

• "1024 x 768" is no longer the most common screen resolution.
• About 96% of Windows machines have a width of 1024 pixels or more.
• About 75% of Windows machines have a width of 1200 pixels or more.
• About 65% of screens are now "widescreen". That is, they have an aspect ratio closer to the new High Definition format (16:9) than the old Low Definition format (4:3). 
• A significant share of monitors (probably 3-5%) are being used vertically.

And here's the operating system breakdown (among Windows machines):

	Windows 7	Windows Vista	Windows XP
Game Players	69.6%	12.6%	17.8%
Classrooms	62.8%	4.9%	32.3%
Installed Base	50.6%	11.3%	38.1%
Average	61.0%	9.6%	29.4%

Baseball Mogul's Simulation Engine

If you're a fan of the Baseball Mogul series, you might be wondering why, after 17 years, I chose this year to fully rewrite the simulation engine.

Well, first, some history:

Pythagoras Explained

Pythagoras of Samos, mathematician and philosopher, died about 2500 years ago. Nevertheless, his name is familiar to baseball fans. The "Pythagorean Expectation", invented by Bill James in the 1980s, predicts a team's winning percentage from runs scored and runs allowed. Despite the intimidating name, Pythagorean win expectations can now be found on mainstream sites like ESPN and MLB.com.

Baseball Mogul 2013 - Version 15.07

We have just released Version 15.07 of Baseball Mogul 2013. This is an update to Version 15.00 (which was launched on April 3rd). Simply put, if you were waiting to make sure the bugs were worked out of the initial release, this is the version to buy:

1. Fixes a crash bug that was occurring when viewing Scouting Reports for certain players.
2. Fixes a bug where a called strike sometimes didn't count on hit-and-run (or run-and-hit) plays.
3. Fixes calculation of season and career WAR ("Wins Above Replacement").
4. Includes year-by-year lefty-righty stats for every player going back to 1950 (alas, Retrosheet doesn't have complete data before that).
5. Improves manager AI and pitcher usage patterns.

If you already bought Baseball Mogul 2013, download and run this file to automatically upgrade to Version 15.07.

Happy simming!

Clay

Kickstarter Project

Just a quick plug for a very cool project I'm working on with some friends (for October, when the weather is great and my brain isn't knee-deep in baseball code). Live-action gaming is one of the world's most maligned hobbies. But my experience is that getting out into the woods with other people and killing zombies in the middle of the night is a lot less dorky than sitting at home alone playing World of Warcraft. Please pass this link along to anyone who might be interested (in New England, or willing to drive). Game World Character Creation Weapons Sign Up (on Kickstarter) Role Models (a very funny movie)