Highlights From Diamond Mind February 2022

More New “Sim Santa” (Easter Bunny?) Site Features

As we noted last month, we’ve been working our way through your “Sim Santa” wish list of ideas. With Christmas in the rear-view mirror and Easter approaching, we’ve continued adding new features, including:

A team settings templates feature, so that you can save team settings that you typically use as a template and apply them to new teams.
A “notes” feature, so that you can save reminders, upgrade plans and anything else that takes your fancy, in drafting and managing your teams.
Adding two new views to the Draft Matrix, which display teams in draft (rather than division) order, and draft picks in list order.

In the works: a loans option for accelerated leagues, and an audio option for play-by-play (thanks, Hoover!)

Register Now to Join The Ladder Leagues Random 600 Association

For those unfamiliar with them, the Ladder Leagues operate like European soccer, with a ranked leagues structure. At the end of each LL season, the top teams from that season are promoted to higher leagues and the bottom teams relegated to lower leagues for the season to follow.

RA600 leagues draft manually from random limited pools of 600 Classic (career-rated) players. They are set alternately in the Moneyball era of play with or without the DH respectively. All other league parameters (cap, income, injuries, etc.) are standard.

The ladder leagues promotion-relegation system ensures highly competitive leagues comprised of similarly skilled owners. If you’d like to join for Season 38, you can register here.

Picked Off!

On August 4, 1983, with Lenn Sakata taking over for the Orioles as “emergency catcher” in extra innings, The Blue Jays thought they could take advantage, but Tippy Martinez was having none of it. He famously picked off three Blue Jays in a single inning, enroute to a 7-4 O’s win (Sakata blasting the game-winning three-run HR).

One might think that such a feat would never be repeated, but that would not be accounting for the huge number of games simulated daily by Diamond Mind Online. Sure enough, on Opening Day for Paul (mirandakatz) Katz’s Bereft of All Sense team in the first round of the 2022 Masters, Paul Hartzell pulled off the feat in the 9th inning against Dan Geary’s Quads squad to secure a 3-2 win.

Here’s the play-by-play (courtesy of Tyler Ensor, who thought it should be preserved for posterity!):

Featured Team Owner Tyler Ensor

Top of Inning 9
Now Pitching: Hartzell, P.
Now Batting: Mueller, H.
Batting for Bobby Del Greco: Heinie Mueller
the 3-2 pitch
it’s just high
Mueller is walked
and with nobody out
is the tying run at first base
Now Batting: Robinson, J.
Jackie Robinson steps into the righthanders’ box
had a two-base hit in the 7th
tying run at first with no outs
the pitch is on its way
Robinson looks to lay one down
he steps away from an inside delivery
for ball one
the 1-0 pitch not coming
a snap throw to first instead
Mueller steps back in quickly
and he’s called out!
from up here
it certainly looked as if he were safe
but it’s not my call
here’s the windup and the pitch
Robinson lays off the pitch
and gets the walk
and he takes first as the tying run
Now Batting: Braun, S.
Batting for Ted Savage: Steve Braun
Hartzell turns and throws to first
catches Robinson leaning the wrong way
they’ve got him pickled-up
Brogna throws to Veryzer
Veryzer chasing him back to first
and he makes the tag
before Robinson can get to the bag!
3-1
Hartzell delivers
just a bit high
Braun will take first on the walk
not what BAS wanted here
Now Batting: Monroe, B.
here’s Bill Monroe, the number 3 hitter
skied one to left last time up
Hartzell eyes Braun
0-2

Hartzell kicks and fires
Monroe
— fighting one off —
flips it into center field for a base hit
Steve Braun is around second
Braun holds at second
Monroe is 3 for 4
Now Batting: Francona, T.
Batting for Jim Hickman: Tito Francona
Hartzell wheels and fires to second
and Braun is out!
a great move by Hartzell
and QUA loses their runner at second

Custom Leagues Kings

If you want to play in a tried-and-true format and create your team right now, standard leagues (Classic and SSG) are open to the public 24/7. But if you want to try something different, Custom Leagues – created by customers – are there in abundance.

There are franchise leagues, progression leagues, captains leagues, high and low salary cap leagues, “rags to riches” leagues, alphabet leagues, place of birth leagues … the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Diamond Mind Online would not be the same if the Community did not include some of the most clever and prolific creators of Custom Leagues. We’ll be featuring one of these in this space each month. This month we’re visiting with Julian (julclash) Sheppard, a regular creator of both Classic and SSG custom leagues.

We asked Julian to answer some questions for us and here’s what he had to say:

Q: Tell us something about yourself: age, occupation, marital status, where you live, and interests (apart from DMO, of course).

A: I live in New York City with my wife and son. I’m a writer and teacher, predominantly at NYU. I’m 51, which is a fact of constant surprise to myself. Aside from DMO and baseball as a whole, both my work and interests revolve around theater, film, and TV. We also have a small house near the Jersey Shore and love spending time at the ocean and beach.

Q: When did you start playing DMO and how did it first come to your attention?

A: I started playing when it came to ESPN in late 2001. I was at an artists’ colony, and we weren’t able to have wifi in our residential spaces, so after dinner I’d go online and check ESPN. I noticed the link, clicked on it, and proceeded to spend more time than I should have figuring out my first team. It was called the nyc abracadabras and featured the 1-2 punch of Lefty Grove and Steve Carlton.

Q: Where do you get the inspiration for your Custom League ideas?

A: Most of my Custom Leagues come from trying to create rules which create limited pools of players to draw from to fulfill those rules. I looked back; I created a league back in 2007 that required you to draft players across fourteen eras – pre-1890s, 1890s-2000s, and Negro Leaguers. So although you had access to the whole catapool, you had to work within confines and be inventive and flexible about how you create your rosters. In the last couple of years I’ve done a few Classic Leagues that are literally called 28 Rules. You must have one player for each rule, which can be something statistical, or name-based, or geographic, or about a team they played on. I also like active leagues, where there are upgrade opportunities, or quirks. During Covid, I’ve started playing SSG, and have now run three SSG Custom Leagues, and all have had a twist so that the player pool is a bit more intricate. One was based off teams that made an in-season trade between leagues, and you were allowed to make an in-season pickup from across leagues, going outside your rosters to bring in new blood, just like “real life”.

I tend to like mid-size caps, in the 130-145 million range, because while I’m not as into pure all-star teams, I like the teams to be limited by whom you can draft, but still have access to a breadth of salary.

Q: What have been your favorite leagues?

A: My favorite was a series of leagues based off of people’s or team’s careers. I started with Gaylord Perry in September, 2009, and went through 21 leagues, the last of which was based on Roger Peckinpaugh in 2015. There were 28 rules, riffing off the subject’s career. Because some of the pools were so small, you really had to do a manual draft, and I stopped having time to do manual drafts, so I curtailed them. They were always extremely competitive leagues, and after the first few I got the rhythm of how complex and complicated to make them. Generally the same group of owners stayed with the league – I think Andrew Bywaters was in every iteration – and that carryover made it feel like one long league. You had to be extremely strategic with your drafting and upgrade strategy or you could get stuck a bit. You’d have drafts were your draft was based around getting a 500K backup catcher in the first round, because it took care of a brutal pool of players.

My favorites in that series were the ones based on Bobo Newsom; Alan Trammell/Lou Whitaker; Jimmy Sheckard; The Whiz Kids; and Darryl Strawberry/Dwight Gooden. (The full list is available upon request.)

In the end they were each a definite challenge and also let you unlock a pretty specific chunk of baseball history. So you not only had fun – maybe you learned a little.

I want to try one of these in SSG down the road.

Q: Is there any advice you would give to people who haven’t created a league before, but would like to give it a try?

A: Sure. Think about what you enjoy in leagues and try and create something that brings that to life. Don’t be afraid to make requirements – owners here tend to seek out and thrive with restrictions on their roster building.

Also – listen to the people joining the league. It’s your league, but they might have insights about things you missed. And if you miss something – own it.

But mostly, be inventive and make it a league you’ve never seen before.

* * *

Why not try creating a Custom League one yourself? Just click on the Start a League of Your Own link top left of your My Teams page to get started!

Start a League of Your Own

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The Tipping Point

Each month we’ll offer a few tips in this space that may come in handy for the beginner as well as the experienced team owner.

This month’s Tipping Point focuses not so much on a “tip” as an observation. A frequent topic for discussion is how to set your team and player instructions, and a frequent cause for complaint is the computer manager allegedly ignoring them.

Some team owners are very hands on in adjusting, and readjusting, team and player settings. Others (and count me amongst them) tend to leave well enough alone and make very few, if any, adjustments.

But the focus of this Tipping Point really isn’t on the Hamlet-like “to adjust, or not to adjust, {that is the] question,” but rather on how the computer manager treats your team and player settings. I’m not sure what I was looking for at the time, or why, but this Tipping Point was prompted by my stumbling upon a 2018 Fangraphs blog, Kyle Schwarber Bunted With Two Strikes and the Bases Empty.

It’s a very interesting breakdown of the frequency of two-strike bunts (and keep in mind, should you choose to read it, that, since it was dated July 12, the blog figures cover just half a season). But what it drives home is that the way DMO settings work reflects “real life”.

Your settings do not dictate a “yes” or “no” result or decision in every instance. Rather, they alter the likelihood that some tactic will be employed or decision made. Unless you set individual player instructions to Never (and there are some caveats even there, which I won’t go into at this point), there is always the possibility, however remote, that some attempt will be made, or tactic employed, that “goes against” your settings.