RFI: Baseball gamez!

just wondering - how do you all approach seasons in baseball video games? if you're like me, you try to play every single game, and you always get burned out around early May. but if you simulate games, then the stats start to lose meaning because they don't reflect the games you actually played. i recently bought mlb 2k12 (i have an xbox so i'm fucked - and i didn't want to buy 2k13), and i decided to just play one game out of each series. it's helping a little bit, but my simulated team seems to really suck.

anyway. how do others approach this? i'm envious of football games because it's much more reasonable to play 16 regular season games, and to do multiple seasons with a franchise, than the baseball equivalent.

I usually sit down and play a game or two, and then if I want to keep playing, I fast forward a bit (a few days) and see what's up. I play the show and maybe the stats are better in that one? TBH I don't want it to keep the "stats" for my guys based on the way I play because they'll all have .400-.600 BAs and insanely high K rates and LOB rates. I tend to get a lot of singles. I think simming sort of "normalizes" it and I put a lot of focus on raising my young players, trading for a good team, etc -- which is more front-end level stuff than in-game.

I WANTED TO CRY HERE THOUGH because I almost threw a fucking PERFECT GAME on Saturday night... perfect through 6, lost the perfecto because I MADE AN ERROR where it was a routine grounder to first, I thought I stepped on the base but DID NOT APPARENTLY? so fuck it, went for the no-hitter anyway... routine pop-up to 3rd in the 9th inning, 2 outs left... DOESN'T CATCH IT... COUNTS AS A BASE HIT. WTF. So I think "well complete game shut out at least?" Nope. Antoher single and a homer. Win 5-3 but GOD. I WAS SO CLOSE.

This was all with Dylan Bundy, ace pitcher in 2014 for the San Diego Padres

baseball is the best

TBH I don't want it to keep the "stats" for my guys based on the way I play because they'll all have .400-.600 BAs and insanely high K rates and LOB rates.

i try to adjust the sliders so that my average game is fairly realistic - i'm getting around maybe 9-10 hits, maybe a home run per game. occasionally i'll blow the other team out, and occasionally i'll suck and only get 3-4 hits. the one thing that i can never fine-tune is walks. when i'm pitching, i never walk anyone. maybe one walk for every 10 games i pitch, if that.

i wish i could play the show. mlb 2k sucks so, so bad. :(

I ended up buying a PS3 last summer... just to play the Show. I mean, the entire library of PS3 exclusives/blu-rays is a nice bonus, but yeah... I mostly bought it to play the show. I heartily recommend it if you can find a cheap one/can justify it.

I also walk guys very infrequently... more often than I used to because I'm not as scared to throw junk. But when I play against my buddy who lives down the street NOBODY EVER WALKS. I find I hit very few homers in my game, though, which is weird because the first 5 or so game I played, it was like 4 homers a game easy. Not sure if I changed sliders or something... gonna tweak it more eventually, but for now I'm ok.

I usually play every game until I get bored, and then I skip ahead a bit until my lead starts to dwindle, and etc. But I play or sim a full 162 season.

kinda wanna turn this into a "post your ridiculous franchise team's roster" thread... and kinda thinking I might try to do it from memory.

picked the padres because i like picking teams with decent looking backdrops to hit home runs, and i like picking teams that suck to start. playing the show, loaded the operations sports roster once it got released. team is something like this now:

C: Grandal / i forget the backup
1B: Freeman (every day)
2B: Gyorko / Zobrist sometimes
SS: Hanley most days
3B: Headley
LF: Quentin / Billy Hamilton sometimes
CF: Maybin / Billy Hamilton too
RF: Zobrist / Yasiel Puig

I also signed ancient Michael Young as a bandaid utility guy and his production jumped off a cliff so I waivered him and brought up... somebody? Maybe another swiss army knife young player, or a middle infielder or something...

Really struggling to remember all of my pitchers, I know I have a currently dominant Dylan Bundy as my ace, somewhere in the middle of my rotation I have a quickly improving Jameson Taillon, Clayton Richard is a spot starter, still have Street closing, upgraded an RP here or there...

Eventually my team will be Grandal / Freeman / Gyorko / B. Hamilton / Headley infield, and Gotta-Get-an-LF / Maybin / Puig outfield... all cheap, all dominant... this is why I sim.

how do you all approach seasons in baseball video games

usually until i can afford laser swords for all the players.

btw Base Wars is the only baseball game i've ever played.

I always try to make my roster moves be as realistic and fair as possible, which is sort of pointless I guess. My only addition to my Padres was Alex Gonzalez at SS as a defensive/power upgrade.