A few years ago, I reviewed a web-based baseball text sim called Dynasty League Baseball Online. In that article, I praised its depth, accessibility, and ability to generate tense and exciting games.
Beyond those positive characteristics, its online delivery means Dynasty League Baseball Online can push in updates and features seamlessly. Below are some new features added in the past few years along with some brief impressions.
New Informational Displays
Multi-season leagues now include a list of past pennant and championship winners on the homepage. A league injury list is also readily available on the homepage.
Probably the neatest new addition is the career stats pages that displays a player’s entire statistical history within your league. It’s similar to something you’d see on baseballreference.com. You can also view an entire season’s worth of statistics for any batter.
Solitaire play has been expanded to historical season replays. Setting these leagues up is pretty easy; after assigning a CPU manager to a team, an auto-populate option drafts players who would have played for that team in the given year. I was able to set up a 2016 season replay pretty quickly.
Refined Statistical Accuracy
Dynasty League Baseball Online touts the statistical accuracy of its engine, which is actually based on a dice-driven boardgame. In a replay of the 1970 season, the Cardinals team ERA was only .05 points off of their actual stat (4.06 vs 4.11). Also check out these stats from the 1970s Minnesota Twins:
Actual W-L 98-64/Simulated W-L 98-64
Actual ERA 3.23/Simulated ERA 3.26
Actual BA .262/Simulated BA .258
Actual OBP .327/Simulated OBP .327
Actual SLG .403/Simulated SLG .411
Updated Rule Set
While an appreciation and understanding of the core rules is helpful, it’s not necessary to enjoy Dynasty League Baseball Online. The game’s rule set was recently updated to include changes made to the 7th and 8th editions of the Dynasty League Baseball rule book. This may not mean much to a user who only sees the front end of the game, but it does add some twists to strategy. For more info, see this post on the Dynasty League Baseball Online blog.
Graphical Updates
Since it is a browser-based game, don’t expect a ton of flashy graphics. However, Dynasty League Baseball Online does contain some nice high-resolution photographs from both inside and outside stadiums. The outside shots set the mood prior to first pitch, while views from inside the stadium serve as the field of play.
This year, Dynasty League Baseball Online added 10-plus parks, including Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and Camden Yards.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking for a historically accurate text sim that you can play in a browser alone or with other users, Dynasty League Baseball Online continues to fit the bill. A strength continues to be its reliance on a transparent simulation engine that is able to produce accurate and detailed results.
