MLB FOM May Be A Gem

I’ve only had my copy of MLB Front Office manager for a couple hours but my initial impression is that the game is clearly better than reviews have led on and that it will be much more accessible than NFL Head Coach. It makes it all the more unfortunate that 2K Sports didn’t fully support it prerelease.

I first wanted to figure out the Online Fantasy Mode. What I had thought would turn out to be like fantasy baseball does come through in some sense. I didn’t expect to be using MLB teams, but the concept works. You can start with the current rosters and work your way through or do a fantasy draft. I’d imagine the fantasy draft is the way to go as stacked lineups like the Yankees would dominate statistically at least in early years. They have the mode for offline play as well and it requires at least two of the teams to be user controlled. I won’t be able to fully explain this mode until I get more time with it but I do think it is promising and feel better about running a league. So I’ll have a post for signups in the near future if everything goes well.

I simmed up to the first game of the regular season and decided to go in and manage it. This is the first pleasant surprise in that I found doing so to be enjoyable. There are a number of options to consider while managing without overwhelming you. In that regard it replicates managing an MLB game vs coaching in the NFL where they are far more hands-on.

I really like having the ability to speed things up. “Real Time” actually breezes through pretty well but you can bump that up to 2X and things really move along at a very quick pace. Once you commit to what your pitcher or batter will do there is no way to change it. A downside to that is if you choose to bunt and then the batter gets two quick strikes you can’t get him to swing at the next one. But things move so quickly that doesn’t really bother me. One thing I looked for but isn’t included is allowing for the game to sim ahead and then jump back in to manage. If you quit out of the game it will sim to the end, otherwise you are stuck managing the whole way.

A few other quick notes:

• The simming process moves along quicker than anticipated

• The box scores are laid out really nicely

• Simming through the Spring Training it went through the rotation and used my #1 starter in the last game. That meant the regular season opener was started by my #2.

• Simmed games I’m seeing a lot of runs scored against my team. 18 and 16 on multiple occasions and double digits half the time. Maybe it’s just bad pitching (given that I didn’t work on my roster at all) or maybe its a problem. Too early to tell.

I’ll have much more on the game after I put some more time in with it but I wanted to get something up now. This feels to me like it could be another success like The BIGS from Blue Castle only this time with a sim management offering. Videos, screenshots, and more impressions to come on Wednesday.