About The Game — About The Game

Classic Past Seasons

Features of Classic Past Seasons

Our Classic Past Seasons share most of the features of our Current and Deluxe Past Seasons. They include leagues, schedules, complete team rosters (in almost all cases), extensive batting/pitching/fielding statistics, detailed ballpark information, complete player ratings, and manager profiles tailored for the rosters of each team. In short, you get everything you need to start playing highly-realistic games the moment you install a Classic Past Season.

For modern seasons, we have the advantage of working with play-by-play data that enables us to compile and use certain modern statistics that are not available in baseball's historical records.

For older seasons, we have access to various encyclopedias that provide the batting, pitching and fielding statistics that are set out in the official rules of baseball. And, for some seasons, we have augmented those official statistics by going through every boxscore.

The lack of play-by-play data does not affect your ability to play highly-realistic games, but it does lead to some differences between our Classic Past Seasons and Deluxe Past Seasons.

A comment on left/right splits

Some people feel that the lack of left/right splits inevitably leads to a less-realistic experience than they would get using any of our season disks that include those splits. In some ways that is true, but we contend that there are plenty of good arguments in favor of using standard splits, too.

The use of left/right splits is a plus when you have a player who has established a consistent pattern of succeeding with the platoon advantage and failing when at a disadvantage. For example, some left-handed batters hit righties quite well but are at a complete loss against lefties. And some left-handed pitchers are very effective against lefty hitters but are pounded by righties. Those players tend to be relegated to platooning on offense or being used only in a specialized bullpen role.

On the other hand, every season produces a significant number of players who happened to compile very good or excellent stats against one side or the other in a limited amount of playing time. It's not hard to show that many of these extreme performances are due to chance, not some talent of the players. And many DMB managers are more than happy to take advantage of these fluky performances to give these players a much more important role on their teams than those players would ever get in real life.

The use of standard left/right adjustments for our Classic Past Seasons has the virtue of dramatically reducing the number of players who fall into this category.

Suppose a right-handed batter was 10-for-30 (.333) against lefties and 10-for-60 (.167) against righties. Overall, he was 20-for-90, good for an overall average of only .222. And let's suppose this pattern was not representative of the player's long-term performance but rather a one-year anomaly.

On a Deluxe Past Season, a manager might look at that player and get very excited about the idea of using him only as a pinch hitter against lefties and saving those 30 atbats for critical late-inning situations.

On a Classic Past Season, a manager would look at him as a .222 hitter who could reasonably be expected to bat something like .235 against lefties and something like .215 against righties. For many players, this is a much more reasonable view of that player's ability to contribute.

So there are some good arguments on both sides. The standard splits skew our outlook of certain players who have not shown that they can hold their own when the left/right matchup is unfavorable. But they eliminate a large number of situations where a DMB manager might be able to use 20/20 hindsight to give a mediocre player an important role.

There's no simple answer to the question of which is better.

Pricing

Classic Past Seasons with transactions and lineups are $19.95 each. Classic Past Seasons without transactions and lineups are $14.95.

Deluxe Past Seasons

Update to a DPS Season Database

Our Deluxe Past Seasons share all of the features of our Current Seasons.

All of our Deluxe Past Seasons were developed with the help of pitch-by-pitch and/or play-by-play data from various sources, including STATS, Inc., Total Sports, The Baseball Workshop, and Retrosheet. Using that information and a growing collection of sophisticated computer programs that we have developed, we compile modern statistics and analyze player performance in all areas of the game.

Content

Because these seasons are so similar to our annual Current Seasons, we won't repeat all of the features here. If you're not already familiar with this list of features, please review the information on the Current Seasons page.

Pricing

All Deluxe Past Seasons include a full set of real-life transactions and game-by-game starting lineups and are priced at $24.95.

Current Season Databases

Diamond Mind's Annual Season Database Is Ready Every December

Since 1987, we have been releasing the just-completed season in December of the same year.

Contents

Each Current Season includes:

- basic information about every player who appeared in the big leagues that season: names, birthdates, batting and throwing hands, primary positions, and real-life salaries

- two versions of the inter-league schedule (as-scheduled and as-played)

- updated ballpark information, including physical characteristics, weather patterns, and statistical park factors

- a complete set of batting, pitching and fielding statistics, including many modern statistics such as holds, inherited runners, run support, and defensive innings

- full left/right splits for all batters and pitchers

- games started at each position versus left- and right-handed pitchers

- detailed ratings for all players

- manager profiles for every team

- a complete set of real-life player transactions

- actual starting lineups used for every game that season

We are able to provide all of this information and develop highly-accurate player ratings because we license pitch-by-pitch and play-by-play data from Major League Baseball. Using that information, a growing collection of sophisticated computer programs that we have developed, and an extensive database of player notes that we compile during the season, we analyze player performance in all areas of the game.

Pricing and availability

The 2021 Season is priced at $29.95 and was released December 16th, 2021.

Season Features

DMB Season Database Structure

All Diamond Mind Baseball season include everything you need to begin playing highly-realistic games and/or organizing fantasy leagues the moment you install them -- team rosters, a large pool of players with detailed ratings and statistics, league schedules, ballpark ratings, and so on.

Complete team rosters. With the exception of a few players on a few of our Classic Past Seasons, all season include everyone who appeared in a big-league game. Those exceptions involve a small number of players who rarely played and had almost no impact on their teams.

Combined players. If a player appeared on more than one real-life team, we generally create one player record for each of his teams and one combined record. The team-specific records are used for detailed season replays using real-life rosters; the combined record is used for leagues that draft new rosters. With the exception of a few players on a few of our Classic Past Seasons, all of our season include combined records for all multi-team players.

Leagues. Every season is set up with one or more leagues. In most cases, that means putting the teams into their real-life leagues. For greatest teams sets, we use a fictional league.

Schedules. Every season includes at least one set of league schedules. In most cases, we include the real-life "as-played" schedules for the two leagues. An as-played schedule shows all games on the dates they were actually played, reflecting rainouts and other changes.

Current Seasons and some recent Deluxe Past Seasons also include an "as-scheduled" version to the real-life "as played" schedule as an alternative that you can install.

With greatest teams sets, we supply a fictional schedule involving those teams.

Parks. Every season contains detailed information about the home parks for the teams included. The park information includes physical details (such as wall distances and heights, size of foul territory, playing surface), weather information (temperature, rain frequency, wind strength and direction), and statistical park factors.

Real-life batting statistics. All seasons include a full set of real-life batting statistics, including all of the categories set out in the official rule book.

Real-life pitching statistics. All seasons include an extensive set of real-life pitching statistics, including all of the categories set out in the official rule book. Current Season and Deluxe Past Seasons also include a number of modern pitching statistics such as holds, blown saves, opposition stolen bases, inherited runners, and run support.

Real-life fielding statistics. All seasons include real-life fielding statistics, broken down by position. For the Current Season and Deluxe Past Seasons, these statistics include games, games started, defensive innings, putouts, assists, errors, double plays, fielding percentage, and passed balls, plus three modern stats for catchers, passed balls, stolen bases allowed, caught stealing, and pickoffs.

Some Classic Past Seasons and Greatest Teams sets are missing the data for games, games started, and double plays. None of the classic seasons include defensive innings or the catcher stealing and pickoff information.

Real-life left/right splits. The Current Season, and Deluxe Past Seasons include complete left/right splits for all batters and pitchers. Performance in DMB games is based on these splits.

For Classic Past Seasons, left/right splits are not available in the historical record, so we give each player a standard left/right advantage based on the results of a multi-year study we conducted. This way, left/right strategy remains a very important factor in your games even if you are playing with a season disk that doesn't have left/right stats.

Because many of the Greatest Teams come from the classic era, the players are rated based on standard left/right differentials rather than actual left/right stats.

Games started by position. The Current Season, and Deluxe Past Seasons include games started at each position versus left- and right-handed pitchers. These values are quite interesting but do not affect player performance in the game. They are included mainly to help generate manager profiles that reflect how each player was used in real life.

Ratings. All seasons include a full set of batting, pitching and defensive ratings for every player. Offensively, players are rated for skills such as sacrifice bunting, bunting for a hit, stealing frequency and success rate, and taking extra bases on hits and fly balls. Pitchers are rated for such talents as their ability to hold runners close, their tendency to balk and throw wild pitches, and their durability as starters or relievers or both. Defensive ratings cover range, error rates, passed ball rates, and throwing.

Event tables. All batters and pitchers have an event table, a hidden set of ratings that play a large part in resolving the outcome of the batter-pitcher confrontations that make up a game. These ratings interact to determine how often a pitcher throws strikes, how often a batter swings, how often those swings result in a swinging strike, a foul ball or a ball put in play, and what events take place when the ball is put in play.

These event tables are adjusted for the context in which each player compiled his statistics -- the era, league rules, and effects of his home park.

They play a fundamental role in providing you with very high levels of statistical accuracy and the flexibility to do such things as (a) play games pitch-by-pitch or batter-by-batter, (b) draft new rosters and have player performances automatically adapt to the new level of competition and new home parks, and (c) play meaningful games between teams from very different eras.

Salaries. We began compiling salary information with the introduction of our 1999 Season and plan to continue including salaries on newly-developed Current Seasons. Because this information is not used by the game in any way, and because historical salary data is not widely available, we have no plans to add salaries to any other seasons.

Real-life transactions and game-by-game lineups. All of our Current and Deluxe seasons, and some of our Classic seasons, include a complete set of player transactions (including trades, disabled-list moves, promotions, demotions, and suspensions) and the actual starting lineups for every game played that year.

If you choose to play the season using real-life rosters and the transaction feature turned on, Diamond Mind Baseball ensures that the right players are active on each day of the season. And if you turn on the use of real-life lineups, DMB automatically loads those lineups when you start each game.

These features are optional. You can still play the season with any lineups you want, making transactions as you see fit, or even with a totally new set of team rosters. But for folks who enjoy recreating past seasons, the transactions and lineups enable you to achieve higher levels of realism with no additional effort.

Manager profiles. The Diamond Mind Baseball computer manager uses a manager profile to guide its decision-making. A manager profile contains starting lineups versus left- and right-handed pitching; depth charts that are used to set up platoons, defensive replacements, and utility players at every position; the starting rotation; relief pitching assignments (mopup, long relief, setup, closer); and tactical preferences such as bunting, using relievers, pinch hitting, and positioning the defense.

Every season includes a manager profile for every team. Whether you want to autoplay entire seasons, play games with the computer manager handling the other team, or just quick play a few innings a game, the profiles are already set up and ready to go.

Summing up. It should be clear by now that there's a ton of information in every one of these season disks, regardless of the category they fall into. But there are a few differences, and here's a table comparing the different categories of season disks:

In the above table, an entry of "Most" or "Varies" indicates that some season disks in that category include the information and some don't. The details are provided on the pages that describe each category of season disk in more detail.

Player Profiles

Working With Player Profiles

When you're playing a game, choosing lineups, thinking about making roster moves, setting up a manager profile, or participating in a draft, you often want to know more about the players you're working with. How does he do against left-handed pitching? How many positions is he rated at and what are those ratings? Is he healthy right now? How many pitches did he throw yesterday?

That's why we give you access to the player profile window from most places in the product where player names are displayed.

The batting tab provides two blocks of batting stats (on tabs labelled primary and secondary), full left/right splits, and a summary of the player's most important ratings.

The pitching tab shows five blocks of pitching stats, plus full left/right splits, and key pitching ratings.

The fielding tab provides a full set of fielding statistics broken down by position.

The status tab summarizes fatigue information (pitches thrown in the past five days, batters faced as a catcher over the past ten days), injury status, and other usage information.

And the starts tab shows how often each player was in the starting lineup at each defensive position against left- and right-handed pitchers.

This information provides a very complete picture of each player, but we know that sometimes you wish to look at more than one player at a time. That's why the player profile window has a list of players in the upper left corner with two arrow buttons that allow you to cycle through a relevant group of players. If you've called up the profile window from a team roster, that group includes the players on the team. If you've called up the profile window from the game window, that group may consist of the current batting order for the team. Call it up from a list of free agents and it includes all of those free agents.

For players who appeared on more than one team in your DMB season, the 'Show combined stats' checkbox allows you to toggle between showing that player's stats for one team and his combined stats for all teams that he played for.

Finally, to the right of that checkbox is a drop-down list of the stages of the season. If you're in the midst of a post-season series, you can choose to look back at this player's performance during any previous stage of the season (the regular season or a previous playoff series).