Appreciate the reminder. I tried Hardball Dynasty for about five minutes and was totally confused right away. Plus fictional characters instead of historical players don't appeal to me, but to each his own.
Same when I play Out of the Park Baseball - many prefer fictional leagues with fictional players, but it is baseball history that interests me. Though the similarity between HBD and OOTP now means I could probably handle the deadlines (Rule 5 draft and that sort of thing which completely lost me at first).
I think that it would be great if all the functions of Hardball Dynasty - minor leagues, prospects etc. were available here in SIM Baseball but with historical players (that is how I play OOTP, so called historical leagues) which would be a considerable upgrade in quality here, and make things more interesting, including things like injuries for longer periods of time and so on, that throw you back on your heels and force you to improvise.
I do think that being knowledgeable about baseball up to a point is one thing, but taking the time to learn the use of stats, building a team for your ballpark and the rest is another. I admit to being a mediocre simleague baseball player - so no offense taken there.
One of the missed opportunities are that WIS has not really made the Career Diamond leagues more interesting with different pricing so that you can't just load up on the same four best ever pitchers well within the $80 mil budget, rendering it pretty useless, though there is one interesting prog league that uses these stats.
Anyway, thanks for the reminder, maybe one day I will take another shot with Hardball, just don't understand the excitement about non-existent players, can't get that interested in them, and have trouble focusing on them and their abilities, which is what you need to be good at it.