Hello. For the past three months I've been playing a $10 baseball management sim on my phone every day. Let me tell you about it.
OOTP Go is the complete package for any baseball psychopath. It's a game where you can take on the role of General Manager for literally any team in the history of baseball. You wanna be the GM for the 1963 Philadelphia Phillies? You can. You wanna be in charge of the 1905 Cleveland Napoleons? Go nuts.
Any MLB Season can be yours for the low, low price of $0.99. This game has literally every single player from every single team in the history of baseball.
But I paid $10, which gives me access to the 2024, 2006, 1969, and 1949 seasons. I've been working my way through the 2024 season as the GM of the Minnesota Twins.
What does that mean?
Well, 75% of my time is spent staring at the Game screen. In OOTP Go, you don't actually play any of the games. It's all a simulation, baby.
I tap the “Continue Watch next play…” button in the bottom right corner.
I watch the play happen right in front of my eyes, with text describing the riveting action on the bottom left of the screen.
Then when the play is over, I tap the screen to go to the next batter.
I repeat this series of screen presses I don't know, 100 or so times a game? A game takes 10-15 minutes to simulate in this way. I'm 117 games into the season, so I've spent…19-29 hours just tapping the screen and watching simulated baseball happen in front of my eyes.
It’s pretty great, man. The team is 59-58, which is fine. We've been on a losing streak, but I feel like we'll turn it around soon.
The other 25% of my time is spent actually being a baseball general manager. Check out this home screen, you guys aren't gonna believe it.
The tabs on the top open up to a whopping 36 different pages, which themselves have options and pages within them.
All the options on the right side also lead to pages, too. Or I can swipe the screen to get to different pages. For example,
I can look at any of the 24,711 players in the league.
I can set the Use Squeeze Bunt Play slider to “Frequently.”
I can look at a players ratings page which is a smorgasbord of colors and numbers.
But yeah, between games I look at free agents or players available for trade. I obsess over making the shrewdest, bestest moves to improve my team in the near and long term.
I spent one entire weekend trying to make the perfect trade for one of my outfielders with an expiring contract. I spent literal hours swapping in and out players from every team and agonizing over attributes and ratings to get the best possible deal. I didn't get a single simulated game in because I was so worried about making a bad trade. At one point my wife asked me what was wrong because I was staring at my phone in a distressing way. I explained what I was going through but I don't think she understood.
No game should have this much baseball in it as OOTP Go does. I have to hold my phone in the air when I play because if I have it set on any surface the battery gets too hot. The simulated baseball action is just too much for a simple cell phone battery to hold. My battery dropped 14% just taking screenshots for this blog post.
OOTP Go is the most baseball game for the biggest baseball sickos. I love it. Ok thanks for reading, I gotta go back and watch some simulated baseball. I feel a win coming on.
