Baseball Mogul
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| Baseball Mogul 2007 | |
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| Developer(s) | Sports Mogul |
| Publisher(s) | Enlight Interactive |
| Designer(s) | Clay Dreslough |
| Engine | Baseball Mogul engine |
| Release date(s) | 2006 |
| Genre(s) | sports simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: E (Everyone) |
| Platform(s) | PC |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| System requirements | Pentium 300 or equivalent, 32 MB of memory (64 MB recommended), Windows 98/2000/XP |
Baseball Mogul is a series of baseball simulation computer games created by Clay Dreslough and first published in 1997. The latest installment, Baseball Mogul 2007, was released in March of 2006 and the 2008 version began beta testing in November, 2006.
All owners of the 2007 game are involved in the beta-testing through further patch upgrades beyond 9.50 being part of the 2008 Beta Test. The 2007 installment had a closed beta where potential beta testers had to email Davenport and request to be involved in the test. They were rewarded by having their first and last names placed in the names database that pickes random names for fictionally generated rookies, being allowed to keep the final beta of the game for free with no obligation to purchase the full version (though if they did not purchase the game, they would not be able to receive further patches for the 2007 game.) and having discounts for subscribing to the online version of the game, Baseball Mogul Online.
Prior to Baseball Mogul 2007, all games were simulated. As of the 2007 version of the game, a play-by-play option has been added for those who want to control every single pitch of the game. You play the role of a general manager/manager/owner running a Major League Baseball team.
Baseball Mogul is a low-budget product compared to games like MVP Baseball, since it relies primarily on text-based menus, but it is popular among baseball fans because of its expansive simulation aspects. In later editions, players have complete control over an entire baseball franchise, and have the ability to set batting lineups, make trades, and set ticket and concession prices.
The game can be purchased at traditional stores or online.
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[edit] Online Version
There is also a separate online version of the game that allows you to play against other humans via a web interface. In the online version, each player controls one major league team in user-created divisions. Different subscription plans allow players to control more teams. However, the online version of Baseball Mogul is not as advanced as the 2007 installment of Baseball Mogul - Some features are not implemented and scouting reports are not as detailed.
However, the online leagues usually cost money to play. It is possible to play in a "Free League" without paying a monthly charge, but such leagues are very inactive and the message boards are virtually dead.[1]
The prices for BMO range anywhere from $4.95 for the Bronze level (one team) to $19.95 per month for Platinum. (twenty teams, three custom)
Those who Beta Tested Baseball Mogul 2007 receive 15% off on Bronze, 25% off on Silver, and 35% off on Gold.
[edit] Player-Run Leagues
Additionally, many players choose to run leagues using Baseball Mogul 2007 where each player is given a copy of the saved game and required to post his or her adjustments to their teams on a public forum. This allows for the experience and challenge of human opponents coupled with the full functions of the 2007 version and without the cost of BMO. However, this also is more time-consuming, especially for the commissioners of the leagues, who must put every change into the rosters before running a simulation.
[edit] Versions
Baseball Mogul has gone through many versions, and the series has incorporated many new features in current years. Examples include sortable statistics in more than 30 categories, more realistic aging curves, and detailed scouting reports judging players in categories like clutch, hitting eye, and speed. User-made roster patches are also available to account for players switching teams in midseason, and historical simulation is possible with a player database dating back to 1901.
[edit] Sales
Baseball Mogul 2007 was the best-selling baseball computer game of 2006, selling over 110,000 units according to NPD data.[2]
Less than one month after its release, Baseball Mogul 2007 sold its 1000th copy. To celebrate this milestone, Sports Mogul pledged $1,000 to fight world hunger. [3]
[edit] Latest Improvements
- Animated play-by-play for all games.
- An in-game Manager Mode that lets you call plays and make substitutions.
- A new pitch-by-pitch mode allows complete control of the game, and a new graphical batting and pitching interface gives you pinpoint control over each pitch.
- Individually researched ratings for every pitch in each pitcher's arsenal, going back to 1901.
- Platoon statistics (lefties batting against righties, and vice versa) are accounted for.
- A Minor League simulation engine ensures that every pitch from AAA to high school is realistically simulated for the entire league. Upgrades to player development coding are implemented each year.
- 11-point personality profiles for every player and every team. Each profile affects contract negotiations, and personalities can impact on-field performance and team chemistry.
- New roster tools allow better creating, editing and tweaking of custom rosters.
- Faster simulation speed means a full season, complete with computer-controlled trades and other roster moves, can now be completed in less than 30 seconds.
- The amateur draft was not included in early versions of the game, as instead the computer randomly generated new players and put them in the minor leagues at the start of each new season. It was not until Baseball Mogul 2004 that the amateur draft was created.
- The game now has MLBPA licensing, while early versions required players to input their own team names and used fake player names. (i.e.: Bill Mueller is Bert Mack and Barry Bonds is Bert Brundage. Players had the same initials as their major league counterparts but different first and last names.)
[edit] Features No Longer Included
- For a couple of versions, Baseball Mogul used a "point" system instead of dollars for assessing values for contracts.
- Players used to be graded by letter grades, and are now graded numerically. This allows for more variation in statistics. For example, both an 80 and an 83 would be a B-, but one is better than the other and the numerical scale covers that difference.
- Telling the computer how much of different types of players you wanted to be put in your system each year. This has been eliminated due to the implementation of the amateur draft.
[edit] Gameplay
When the user starts a new game, they must first choose from which year they will start. They then choose which of the 30 teams (or fewer, depending on what year they start in) to choose from. They also have the following options:
Equalize Cities: Equalizing the cities allows a player to play the game where all the cities have identical populations. Every city has 1,500,000 people and every region has 4,500,000 people. This gives an advantage to teams located in smaller regions, such as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Shuffle All Teams: Randomly shuffles the players on every roster so each team has a new random set of players.
Fictional Players: Generates a whole new set of players with randomly generated staticics. One small concern with this mode is that it does not account for baseball's expansions. For example, a randomly generated player on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays team might have started his career with the Devil Rays in 1992, but the actual team did not come into existence until 1998.
Fictional Teams: Despite its name, it does not create new teams or use new cities that were previously not in baseball. It only changes the names of all the current teams and gives them new nicknames. (I.e: San Francisco Giants become "California Cowboys")
Historical Rookies: Uses historical baseball players and their associated data for the rookies in the Amateur Draft each January. (If you start in 2006, it is thus impossible to use historical rookies, and impossible to unselect Fictional Rookies.) If you elect to only use historical rookies in the late 1990s or beyond, there are often not enough players to draft due to a lack of data for rookies. Only players with major league experience can be drafted, thus it is impossible to draft players using Historical Rookies that never made it to the majors/are yet to make it to the majors.
Fictional Rookies: Uses randomly generated rookie players for the Amateur draft. Both historical and fictional rookies may be used together.
Simulation Mode: Decreases the fluctuations in players performances, allowing for a more accurate prediction of how a team will perform.
There are four levels of difficulty: Fan, Coach, Manager, and Mogul. In harder modes, the AI is tougher and your starting budget is smaller.
[edit] Ratings
Players are given numerical ratings for a variety of attributes ranging on a scale from 1 to 100, though no one is likely to have lower than a 40 or 50 on any score. The ratings vary over time due to players developing, aging, and suffering from inuries.
[edit] All Players
- Overall: The player's current ability level, calculated by combining all other ratings (and weighting them appropriate -- for example, 'power' is more important than 'speed').
- Peak: The player's current ability level, calculated by combining all other ratings (and weighting them appropriate -- for example, 'power' is more important than 'speed').
- This indicates the player's likelihood of suffering an injury. Players with excellent health ratings will very rarely miss games due to injury. Health tends to decline with age and after major injuries.
[edit] Batters Only
- Contact: The ability to make good contact with a pitch, leading to a good number of line drives and few strikeouts. Contact hitters tend to have a strong batting average due to their ability to hit the ball cleanly.
- Power: Power is best reflected by a batter's ability to hit the ball out of the park. But good power also shows itself in a good number of extra base hits and sacrifice flies.
- Speed: This refers to a player's speed on the base paths. It is best seen in his stolen base numbers (and his likelihood to not be caught stealing). Fast players will also get a greater number of doubles and triples and will beat out some ground balls for hits.
- Eye: This is the skill of choosing to swing at good pitches and not swing at bad ones. A player with an excellent batting eye will walk more often than he strikes out.
- Bunt: A player's ability to lay down a bunt is crucial to advancing the runner in a close game. When combined with excellent speed, this can also be an effective tool in getting on base.
- Arm: The strength and accuracy of a player's arm is essential to throwing out runners. This trait is especially important for third baseman and shortstops (who often throw across the infield to force the batter at first) and the catcher (required to throw out runners stealing bases). A strong arm in the outfield (especially right field) will lead to a good number of runners thrown out at third and home.
- Range: This measures a players ability to get to and catch a batted ball. This is often correlated with a player's speed. But some players with good instincts and experience will get to more balls than their speed would suggest. Good range is especially important 'up the middle' (at 2B, SS and CF), where a lot ground needs to be covered.
- Fielding: This measures the overall skill and consistency of a player's fielding. A good rating indicates a player that should make few errors, relative to other players at his position.
[edit] Pitchers Only
- Endurance: The endurance rating gives a rough indication of the number of pitches the player can throw in a game before becoming tired and thus losing velocity, control and/or movement. The average starting pitcher will last into the 7th inning, while a real workhorse can consistently pitch eight or more innings.
- Power: A 'power' pitcher generally throws with high velocity and strikes out a lot of batters. The Power Rating is a good indicator of the pitcher's ability to strike out batters. An average pitcher strikes out about 5 batters per nine innings while a prototypical power pitcher will set down one or more every inning.
- Control: The ability to deliver the ball to the plate with accuracy. A pitcher with excellent control will walk as few as one batter per game. Good control is also key to getting ahead in the count , and thus gaining the advantage over all batters.
- Movement: This indicates the 'action', or lateral and vertical movement on the pitcher's pitches. Good movement can come from excellent breaking stuff (e.g. a curveball[ that 'drops off the table') or from a fastball that 'hops' or tails away from hitters. Good movement doesn't guarantee strikeouts or prevent walks but it does mean fewer batters will get good wood on the ball, leading to more ground balls and popups.
- Defense: The pitcher's overall fielding skills, compared to other pitchers. This is a combination of the Arm, Range and Fielding ratings used for batters.
- Hitting: The pitcher's overall batting skills, compared to other pitchers. This is a combination of the Contact, Power and Eye ratings used for batters. However, a pitcher with even a 90 on hitting would not be good enough to be a starter for his or her bat. A pitcher with hitting stats that would be good enough to land a starting job on a team would automatically result in a "100" for the Hitting rating.
[edit] Issues/Concerns
- Big-market teams constantly winning and small-market teams constantly losing. The New York Yankees, run by a computer manager will average more than 100 wins a season, while the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will average fewer than 60. (This can be helped by equalizing all the cities when starting a new game so no teams (Yankees, Mets) have the advantage of living in a more populated city that provides them with more money that allows them to big large teams.
- Often, a player that is still able to play decently well and could be a starter on some teams will lie in free agency until they decide to retire, even though they still could have played in the major leagues for several more years at their current skill level.
Another way to achieve parity is to operate one's team in the above mentioned "PLAYER" mode,whereby one has complete control of one's team batters and pitchers. Played at the Fan level this is an especially favorable way for the beginner to compete against the computer, as a recent example, one Mogul player, using the Player mode at Fan level, recently guided the expansion team Toronto Blue Jays of 1977 (the actual team finished last) to winning the World Series for that year.
- Injury terms are sometimes unrealistic when compared to the effects it has on a player's performance. For example, a "broken wrist" is a severe injury that takes away a year out of a player's playing time and can even end a career.
- The game has limited opportunities for adding new teams to the league and expanding the total beyond 30. The new teams are not allowed to have an expansion draft, and are forced to spend their first year relying on the very poor randomly generated players that are created to fill up the roster of newly-created teams. Thus, they often will win fewer than 30 games in their first year and struggle to play even at the level of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Furthermore, when you add more teams, the game's scheduling falters, often forcing teams to play one month of consecutive home games or away games, and having teams play one game series or play the same team for a week straight. This does not have a huge effect on game play, but playing a month of consecutive road games can push teams further in debt due to not getting the benefit of their fans and concession sales, and the schedule loses its aesthetic appeal.
- If one plays for hundreds of years, teams will eventually lose all their attendance because city populations will grow so much causing an error in attendance calculation.
- The game actually expands to a 40-person roster by September, but it does not inform you that it is doing so and gives you no control over what players are called up. It calls up the first nine hitters and the first six pitchers in the minors (though by moving minor league players up into these positions at any time, they will become available in your 40 man roster for the next game).
- Shortstops are too often given the rookie of the year award even with sub par stats. It is not uncommon to have a rookie of the year that is back into the minors the next season.
- When a player retires, his or her overall numerical statistics are developed only by their actual major league numbers. Thus, someone whose entire career consisted of one at-bat in which they earned a double, their ratings after retirement show them as having both Contact and Power at 100, even though the ratings they had during their career were not nearly so high.
[edit] See also
- Football Mogul
