What Out of the Park Baseball 20 taught us about the 2019 MLB season

Welcome to a series of what should be a mildly entertaining (possibly at my expense) series of pieces I produce this season using the latest iteration of a popular, now two-decades running baseball simulator: Out of the Park Baseball 20. If you want a quick intro of the game, check out this article.

To be honest, having never used it before, the vastness of OOTP 20 was daunting and intimidating at first, so I summoned the internet’s omniscience for guidance. Unfortunately, the instruction manual wasn’t terribly helpful and the nascence of this release left me to my own devices, as the tutorials for previous versions have likely aged a bit much to invest an hour of my time watching them. So I bravely forged on into the great wide open fields of OOTP 20 on my own to learn how to use this powerful simulation engine.

While the main screen is rather cumbersome, once I figured out how to initiate a standard regular season simulation of the 2019 baseball season, I was on my way... to a dark prediction for my beloved Tigers. Below are the results from my very first simulation and the AL Central standings that ensued.

While the results aren’t overwhelmingly surprising, the American League Central as a whole performed much better than most could expect, with everyone but the Tigers finishing with 70 wins or more.

But results of the initial run of the simulator produced a bit more of interest than just the win-loss records. There’s the #LOLWUT stat of 221 stolen bases for the Royals — which persisted in two subsequent simulations — rivaling the St. Louis Cardinals teams of the 1980s, and the absence of Justin Verlander from the top pitchers list in all three simulations run, due to injury.

Here are the overall results from the initial 2019 simulation. What do you see in the numbers?

Below are the results for the American League teams.

Below are the top results for individual players on American League teams.

Below are the results for the National League teams.

Below are the top results for individual players on National League teams.

I’ll be running many more simulations this summer, employing a wide assortment of variables as I climb the learning curve and descend down the slope of Dunning-Kruger in my efforts to master this powerful program. Feel free to suggest scenarios for me to run in the comments here, or on Twitter @AdamDubbin or @BlessYouBoys, and I’ll try my best to accommodate your desires.

Just as long as I don’t injure myself somehow along the way.

Out of the Park Baseball is available for purchase at various places on the internet, including their website, on Steam and at something called Origin. Those who purchase the game via these links by March 29 will receive 10 percent off. Bless You Boys received a free download code for this game, but was not asked to provide a review or other content in exchange for the code. We are writing this article (and any future editions) simply because the game is awesome and we support the amazing work Out of the Park Developments does year in and year out.