Review: Out of the Park Baseball 19

I’m a long time fan of the Out of the Park Baseball franchise. I’ve been playing it forever. Each year they tweak it a bit, and normally for the better. I’ve had the latest version since the day it came out and, yep it is the same game, with a few little adjustments.

And, of course, each year’s version comes with team rosters as they start the current season. Since got it right when it came out, before the season started, the roster wasn’t exactly how the it was at the start of the season. If you buy it now, the rosters are a lot closer to the opening day rosters.

The quick review. It’s great, I really enjoy it. It’s well worth the money.

• They have improved “3D” view. It isn’t anything exciting, if you are looking for great graphics, this isn’t the game for you. But you can see where the ball goes. I do get a kick of of watching the defensive players stand still, expect for the one guy going after the ball. Most plays everyone has a job to do. Not so much with OOTP, but then I don’t play the game for the graphics.
• They have changed the way scouting reports are done. I’m still getting used to it. Here is the scouting report for Vlad Jr.

Different scouts, in the game, can have different opinions on players. Sort of like Keith Law didn’t like Devon Travis, while most other scouts liked him.

• And they have changed how they show pitchers fatigue during the game. Before it was a fairly binary thing. They could be ok, tired or exhausted. Now they have a heat graph thing. Here is an example of Marco Estrada pitching in the fifth inning of a game.

• One that used to bug me, you now have delayed substitutions for injured players. Up till now, if a player gets hurt you had to replace him in the lineup right at that moment, when, in real life you can wait until he’s needed on defense or in the batting lineup.
• They improve the AI each year.
• Like in the last few years of the game, you can play a historical game, pick any team in baseball history (from 1871 to 2017). Or if you like you can play it running a team in the Japanese or Korean league. Or play Honkbal if you like.

If you are interested, the game can be purchased here.

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I’ve played 65 games into the Blue Jays 2017. And my Jays are doing very well:

But I’ve had some injuries:

Also Jaime Garcia was out for about 4 weeks.

I was able to trade off Troy Tulowitzki (and I’m using Bo Bichette at short, he isn’t hitting but but neither was Troy) , but no one will take Kendrys Morales off my hands.

Josh Donaldson is asking for too much for an extension:

Course they always ask for too much, I might try to re-sign him later in the season, if he’ll take fewer years and less money, or if we fall out of the race, I might look to trade him.

My outfielders aren’t hitting much, except for Granderson:

But Granderson should only hit against RHP: