I am a Hardball Dynasty player, and also play Out of the Park 11.. Should I try SimLeague baseball? What is the specfiic appeal of this game?

I would be interested to hear from the guys that play SL as well.  Ive oft wondered what the appeal was.  Enlighten us, if you please...

i think the live feature sounds pretty sweet, but i've never played.

Live is fun, but aside from that HBD and OOTP are WAY better. Especially OOTP, if you are looking to use older players from RL. Of course, I have only played 1 season of SLB.

From a historical viewpoint, I think SLB is a lot of fun.  You'll find players that you've never heard of or, at the very least, knew very little about.    Heinie Manush is a Hall of Famer.   Before playing SLB, I'd never heard of him and I've been a baseball fan for 40 years.   Just using the search feature will bring about little "discoveries" that only the nerdiest of baseball nerds know of.   

The progressives and regressives are the best SLB games from my perspective.  You get the best thing about HBD with real players.  It's not as user friendly as HBD, but can be fun to have a dynasty with real players.

Theme leagues can be fun too.  As Mike said, if you're a baseball fan, you can learn more about the history of teams and players by researching a few teams than you ever thought possible.  For example, one of my consummate closers now is 1918 Carmen Hill.  I would never even have known who he was if I hadn't take a Pirates team in one league. 

It's also kind of cool to discover all the teams certain guys played for, mostly at the end of their careers, that you don't really hear about because it was only for a season or two.  It's a totally different draw than HBD.  If I had to loosely sum it up, I would say HBD is for the baseball enthusiast (as in, the game itself) whereas SLB is more for the baseball fan/historian in us.

The thing about OOTP is that you can import the same players SLB uses. It kinda serves the purpose of both HBD and SLB, just in a different manner. It all comes down to the little things.

I'd advise against open leagues because those are infested with cookie-cutter teams where experienced GAMERS constantly use the same players who are known to overperform year after year.  Either that, or check out (without actually joining) an open league and notice which player/seasons show up consistently among the league leaders.  Also, you might want to check out the active teams of the WS champs on the front page.  See if you can find the common player types that link the most successful managers.

You might want to start out with a theme league.  Often the themes are designed to encourage non-cookie players that you might not ordinarily use. 

And it pains me to say this, but jtps is right.  SLB is a way to (re)acquaint yourself with some historical ballplayers and their stats that you wouldn't normally hear about.  If you read the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract or some of the stathead books by Palmer/Thorn, SLB would be a fun way to "see" those players actually play.

Sez the 'tard that regularly finishes last in a world I commish.

Posted by MikeT23 on 8/6/2010 4:28:00 PM (view original):
From a historical viewpoint, I think SLB is a lot of fun.  You'll find players that you've never heard of or, at the very least, knew very little about.    Heinie Manush is a Hall of Famer.   Before playing SLB, I'd never heard of him and I've been a baseball fan for 40 years.   Just using the search feature will bring about little "discoveries" that only the nerdiest of baseball nerds know of.   

You've never read the Bill James Historical Abstract?

FWIW, I've always thought Heine was overrated and Billy Hamilton is consistently underrated.

And I have no interest in Sim League baseball - I just wanted to use Heine three times in a three sentence post.     

Played SLB off and on since it started.  To me the biggest plus is the large number of players (every 50 AB or 25 IP season since 1885).  You always get the players you want, but that leads to the biggest drawback - the same player often plays for several teams in the same league (and can play for the same team, if the seasons are different).  Reading the play-by-play can get confusing really fast, especially when you run up against a team using the same pitcher as you.  Also, I've ignored leaderboards since the time I found Nap Lajoie as seven of the 10 BA leaders. 

The fun comes from trying to figure out how to win with the same budget as everyone else. You get 80mil. So does everyone else. How do you win? Its about learning what works together to make an efficient team.