My year as the Braves GM: An OOTP 16 Review

On the evening before Opening Day, the Atlanta Braves shocked the baseball world by trading Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton Jr. to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Cameron Maybin, Carlos Quentin, a couple of prospects, and a draft pick. Naturally, when you trade away a once-in-a-generation closer and a financial anchor, plenty of questions will be asked.

"How could they trade Kimbrel?"

"How did John Hart find someone to take Melvin Upton's contract?!"

"Daggone it, what in the heck are them Braves doin'? They tryin' to ruin this team?"

Meanwhile, once I got over the initial shock of the trade happening, my first rational thought was "Hm, good for John Hart. I traded Kimbrel as well, but he got someone to take Upton as well? He's better than I am, that's for sure."

Now, how would I know for sure that John Hart is a better General Manager than I am? I mean, he's an actual baseball executive who's probably forgotten more about baseball than I know, while I'm just some random blogger on the internet. It's not like I have any experience in being a GM, right? Wrong. Thanks to Out of the Park Baseball, I now have one full year of being the General Manager of the Atlanta Braves under my belt. As a result, I felt fully qualified to judge Hart on the trade considering that he is now one of my colleagues in the small club of active General Managers.

★★★

Of course I'm being a tad bit facetious here, but that type of immersion can happen when you're playing a game that's as deep as OOTP Baseball is. It's not the type of immersion that you'll get from a game that'll put you out there in the field making highlight-reel catches and hitting balls over the fence, but it's the type of game in which you get to have control of nearly everything you could possibly think of. Seriously, I mean everything. If you disagree with the current era of free agency and want things to go back to the era of the Reserve clause? Not only can you bring the reserve clause back to 2015 (I don't know why you'd want to do this, but you can do it!), you also have the ability to play any season from just last year until 1871, so you can go back to the old days and manage there, if you want.

In addition, you can manage in leagues all over the world; From the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan to the Cuban National Series, you can ply your trade wherever they have baseballs to throw and bats to hit them with. Of course, this means that you can manage right here in North America, but for the first time in the game's history, MLB.com has given OOTP its official license. That means that this beautiful simulation now has Major League (and Minor League) Baseball's stamp of approval, which means that you no longer have to use an add-on to make MLB look like MLB in this game. The names, logos, and uniforms are right there, right out of the box.

So, with the world at my fingertips, what did I decide to do? I could go to Japan and try to become a foreign legend there, or I could start in the Independent Minor Leagues and work my way up to the big time. The possibilities are endless, and yet I decided to keep things relatively simple. I like a good project, and what better project is there than the current state of the Atlanta Braves?

After I created my (handsome) profile and took control as the GM (you have the options of being the Manager, the Manager/GM, the GM, or Commissioner of MLB), this was the first screen that I was greeted with. As a veteran of the series, I should be used to this but every year when I see it for the first time, I can't help but say "Whoa," to myself as I try to take in everything that's in front of my eyes.

I figure that the first thing to do would be to touch base with the owners and see what their expectations are. Keep in mind, this was done the week before Opening Day, so the roster isn't that much different from what you saw on Opening Day in Miami. This is their expectation for the season:

Welp. There goes any idea I had of tanking. My intention coming into the year was to go for broke on my way to the cellar in order to make sure that we had ourselves a good draft pick. However now that the ownership is expecting a winning season out of this ragtag band of misfit toys, we've got to keep things respectable.

So, the season starts and even though we run into a small bit of trouble on Opening Day in Miami, we eventually won the game and got the season off to a winning start. Also, I'm posting this because as far as the actual on-the-field action in this game is concerned, this is as close as you'll get. It's definitely not MLB: The Show, but it's good enough.

My first month in charge of the team is a successful one; Well, succesful for our expectations. The Braves finish April 10-12, and still in the thick of things. However, this month brought a bad omen: Melvin suffered an injury. This hurts because now it's even harder to try to trade the guy away. To be honest, I wasn't ardent in trying to trade poor Melvin, because every time I included him in any trade talks, this is the reaction I got.

Well played, OOTP. Well played.

An even darker omen came in May, which is when Jason Grilli came to me and complained about not being the closer. Keep in mind, Kimbrel is still an Atlanta Brave in this world, so it seems a bit ludicrous that the 38-year old journeyman wants to take Craig freakin' Kimbrel's job. The game doesn't allow me to tell him that, though, so I just hope that Fredi deals with it in the clubhouse.

As if that isn't enough to deal with, a week later is when horrible injury #1 strikes. Nick Markakis suffers torn ankle ligaments and is out for four months. A month later, horrible injury #2 strikes: Andrelton Simmons strains his hamstring, and I'm guessing that it was a grade-3 hamstring strain, because it put him out for three months. Just like that, two starters are out for nearly the entire season. I blame it on the fact that they both traded facial hairstyles.

Those two injuries hit us hard, and while we were hovering around .500 even with Markakis out, the Simmons injury hurt us and now we were starting to make the descent towards the cellar.

In late July, we got a random message from Milwaukee's GM, who wanted to give us Carlos Gomez in exchange for Freddie Freeman. There's no way I was going to give him Freddie, but I was still interested in picking up Gomez, so we went into trade talks that lasted a legit hour in real life (I'm ashamed to admit that it took that long). Eventually, this was the trade we agreed upon:

Blockbuster, right? Now, one of the questions you might have is "Why'd you trade Zoilo? He's hitting .285, he's got 14 homers, and he's got amazing sideburns?" I don't know, man. It hurt me too. Also, another question you might have is "Why'd you trade Rio Ruiz (of all people)?" Because this happened earlier:

Yep, there's my take on the Craig Kimbrel trade. Instead of San Diego, he got Minnesota and we also got an even better 3B prospect in Miguel Sano. In addition, all these deals ended up making Jim Johnson the new closer for the Braves, so I guess Grilli's problem was solved after all.

Anyways, on July 24th (the day of the Carlos Gomez trade), we were 44-52 and had won only three of our last thirteen games. How did we fare in the immediate month afterward?

A winning month! Can't complain about that! Eventually, the winning slowed down again as the team entered into a tailspin in September (I mean, it's Braves baseball: What else is new?) and we eventually ended the season 75-87. Considering the roster and the craziness that went down this season, finishing only 4 games worse than a more talented team last season was a success in my mind. Plus, since we finished in the cellar, this means that we're going to have a decent enough draft pick next season, so that always helps in a rebuild.

In addition, guess who won the batting title this season? Yep, you guessed it: Freddie Freeman.

So, a non-disastrous season combined with our franchise's cornerstone winning a major individual award should be considered a success, right? It wasn't a success in Malone's mind, though. He wanted a winning record, and I didn't give it to him, so someone had to go. That someone was Fredi Gonzalez.

Additionally, my Assistant GM John Hart decided to retire, so that left two important spots open. Instead of doing the conventional thing and just hiring people from this side of the globe to help me run the Braves, I decided that this was OOTP and I was going to act as a free spirit. Welcome to Atlanta, Haruki-san and Hatsuhiko-san!

How will this turn out? I don't know, but I know that it's going to be fun. Ultimately, that's what this game is all about: Getting lost in your own baseball world and having fun while wading through this murky world. One thing is for certain: I hope this world never comes to fruition in real life, though. Did you notice who came in second place in the NL East? As if that wasn't bad enough, look at who won the World Series and also check out who they chose to interview in the clubhouse afterwards:

My heart -- my brittle heart.

★★★

So yes, I cannot recommend this game enough to anyone who likes baseball. Granted, the learning curve is pretty steep and it'll take hours upon hours before you really feel like you're getting into it. But once this game gets its hooks into you, they'll stay there forever, and you'll be glad that a text-based baseball game has its claws in you. This game is totally worth the 40 dollars, and once you get into it, you'll be wondering why it didn't cost more. If you choose to go down this path (and believe me, what I just posted here was just the tip of this game's iceberg), then I hope you enjoy it.

As far as I'm concerned, I've got to sit here and hope that Shelby Miller accepts this contract extension. He had 5.0 WAR this past season! Roger McDowell worked wonders with the kid, so I've got to lock him down.