While I have played various games over the years, I have the most experience with Diamond Mind Baseball. It does an excellent job at replicating key league stats (BA/OBP/SLG, ERA, Fld %), usually finishing within 1-2% of the real life figures. Team and individual player stats/performance are also highly accurate, with what seems to be the right amount of variation from real life that should be expected in a single replay. For some of the reasons covered by other posters the game isn't perfect. I'll add to those items the fact that although the play-by-play is strong, there's a noticeable lack of rare or odd plays, and there are a few scoring errors (earned vs unearned run), though they are editable. Tom Tippett, the game's creator, appreciated the depth of baseball and that's reflected in the program, such as impact of pitch count, the impact of fielding and subtle differences between players' fielding abilities, and encompassing just about every conceivable factor into play results.
Each game and/or game engine has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some games are more accurate in general, but in the end a lot depends on the individual taste of the user, as far as which games are more acceptable or unacceptable.
For example, Diamond Mind Baseball struggles with pitcher fatigue in deadball seasons. It also struggles with pitchers with high pitches per appearance rates like Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller. APBA has an unrealistic batting average against for the better pitchers. Strat-O-Matic struggles with extreme outlier performances, due to its 50-50 engine.
For me, a game is "realistic" if a sufficient number of replays yield a decent degree of accuracy in the major stat categories (runs, ERA, batting average, slugging percentage, walks, and strikeouts), on a league wide basis. You should expect your league leaders to generally be your better players, with a few oddball results thrown in due to randomness.
In my experience, Diamond Mind Baseball and Replay pass that test (and probably Strat-O-Matic, too, though I haven't played it enough to say for sure), with Action PC and OOTP not quite there. APBA is there for more typical seasons, but fails on the more extreme hitting and pitching eras.
Diamond Mind Baseball handles normalization (cross-era play) the best, with Action PC and OOTP getting credit for trying, though not getting there. Most games don't even make an attempt at normalization, and of course card-and-dice games realistically can't.
Realistic might also mean the mental approach to the game, beyond statistical accuracy. Consider how effortless is it to play the game and “see” the game as each play occurs.
What you described happening in OOTP was actually more a result of user error than a limitation of the game.
Your criticism applies to using Auto-Calc in a situation where Auto-Calc was not the appropriate setting for the kind of experiment you were attempting.
OOTP also offers a Pre-Calculated Modifiers setting. That preserves the broader statistical environment of the selected era without recalibrating the modifiers around the exact collection of players currently in the league. (Action PC also has two somewhat similar settings)
Had Auto-Calc and automatic in-game engine control been turned off, and Pre-Calculated Modifiers been used instead, the altered talent pool would have been allowed to change the league’s actual statistical output rather than simply dividing up the same predetermined pie.
It would still be fair to judge the game after using the appropriate settings and to offer your subjective opinion of the results. But it is factually incorrect to say that the game can operate only in the way you presented it.
I played APBA growing up after one season of Strat. Picked up APBA during the pandemic.
To me, game flow is important with the goal of trying to strike a balance between realism and playability. I love APBA but wish they include a couple more options in the basic game: Optional base stealing, playing the infield halfway. But some folks in the APBA Facebook group gave devised ways to incorporate those features into their games.
I prefer DMB because the overall stats (team and individual) usually match up with actual. DMB also seems to allow for most aspects of the game pretty well. Other than the bunt-and-run and the run-and-hit, most strategies are available to the human manager.
Additionally, defensive ratings seem to be all-encompassing. One thing I'm not sure about is whether a good-fielding first baseman ever helps out a poor-throwing infielder.
There is enough variety in the play-by-play to keep the games interesting. I usually play four or five a day, sometimes more, though not usually in one sitting.
Two levels: (1) at the at-bat level how does the game cause interactions between the pitcher and batter if at all; and (2) cumulative statistics, how close are they. In short, I find at the at-bat level, a game like Inside Pitch feels more realistic than strat-o-matic and its 50-50 approach because with Inside Pitch the at-bat is filtered through the pitcher (and they type of out can even be affected by the pitcher). As to cumulative statistics, of the 5 different games I have played, and several hundred games at least of each of them, I have been satisfied with them all. So for me, the issue is more at the at-bat level... do I feel immersed in the game with a meaningful interaction between batter and pitcher.
While I have played various games over the years, I have the most experience with Diamond Mind Baseball. It does an excellent job at replicating key league stats (BA/OBP/SLG, ERA, Fld %), usually finishing within 1-2% of the real life figures. Team and individual player stats/performance are also highly accurate, with what seems to be the right amount of variation from real life that should be expected in a single replay. For some of the reasons covered by other posters the game isn't perfect. I'll add to those items the fact that although the play-by-play is strong, there's a noticeable lack of rare or odd plays, and there are a few scoring errors (earned vs unearned run), though they are editable. Tom Tippett, the game's creator, appreciated the depth of baseball and that's reflected in the program, such as impact of pitch count, the impact of fielding and subtle differences between players' fielding abilities, and encompassing just about every conceivable factor into play results.
Each game and/or game engine has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some games are more accurate in general, but in the end a lot depends on the individual taste of the user, as far as which games are more acceptable or unacceptable.
For example, Diamond Mind Baseball struggles with pitcher fatigue in deadball seasons. It also struggles with pitchers with high pitches per appearance rates like Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller. APBA has an unrealistic batting average against for the better pitchers. Strat-O-Matic struggles with extreme outlier performances, due to its 50-50 engine.
For me, a game is "realistic" if a sufficient number of replays yield a decent degree of accuracy in the major stat categories (runs, ERA, batting average, slugging percentage, walks, and strikeouts), on a league wide basis. You should expect your league leaders to generally be your better players, with a few oddball results thrown in due to randomness.
In my experience, Diamond Mind Baseball and Replay pass that test (and probably Strat-O-Matic, too, though I haven't played it enough to say for sure), with Action PC and OOTP not quite there. APBA is there for more typical seasons, but fails on the more extreme hitting and pitching eras.
Diamond Mind Baseball handles normalization (cross-era play) the best, with Action PC and OOTP getting credit for trying, though not getting there. Most games don't even make an attempt at normalization, and of course card-and-dice games realistically can't.
Realistic might also mean the mental approach to the game, beyond statistical accuracy. Consider how effortless is it to play the game and “see” the game as each play occurs.
What you described happening in OOTP was actually more a result of user error than a limitation of the game.
Your criticism applies to using Auto-Calc in a situation where Auto-Calc was not the appropriate setting for the kind of experiment you were attempting.
OOTP also offers a Pre-Calculated Modifiers setting. That preserves the broader statistical environment of the selected era without recalibrating the modifiers around the exact collection of players currently in the league. (Action PC also has two somewhat similar settings)
Had Auto-Calc and automatic in-game engine control been turned off, and Pre-Calculated Modifiers been used instead, the altered talent pool would have been allowed to change the league’s actual statistical output rather than simply dividing up the same predetermined pie.
It would still be fair to judge the game after using the appropriate settings and to offer your subjective opinion of the results. But it is factually incorrect to say that the game can operate only in the way you presented it.
I played APBA growing up after one season of Strat. Picked up APBA during the pandemic.
To me, game flow is important with the goal of trying to strike a balance between realism and playability. I love APBA but wish they include a couple more options in the basic game: Optional base stealing, playing the infield halfway. But some folks in the APBA Facebook group gave devised ways to incorporate those features into their games.
I prefer DMB because the overall stats (team and individual) usually match up with actual. DMB also seems to allow for most aspects of the game pretty well. Other than the bunt-and-run and the run-and-hit, most strategies are available to the human manager.
Additionally, defensive ratings seem to be all-encompassing. One thing I'm not sure about is whether a good-fielding first baseman ever helps out a poor-throwing infielder.
There is enough variety in the play-by-play to keep the games interesting. I usually play four or five a day, sometimes more, though not usually in one sitting.
Two levels: (1) at the at-bat level how does the game cause interactions between the pitcher and batter if at all; and (2) cumulative statistics, how close are they. In short, I find at the at-bat level, a game like Inside Pitch feels more realistic than strat-o-matic and its 50-50 approach because with Inside Pitch the at-bat is filtered through the pitcher (and they type of out can even be affected by the pitcher). As to cumulative statistics, of the 5 different games I have played, and several hundred games at least of each of them, I have been satisfied with them all. So for me, the issue is more at the at-bat level... do I feel immersed in the game with a meaningful interaction between batter and pitcher.
Being able to make my own decisions for both teams. I play fair even with my home team.