Video Game Company Calls the World Series for the Royals (Barely)

We’ve been trying to predict baseball since baseball became a thing. Whether its preseason predictions on who would win the divisions or guesses at who win the Series, we love to take a crack at playing fortuneteller. Some people look at recent performances, some look at pitching matchups or bullpen strength. Heck, some might flip a coin. One gaming company tried to leverage their very powerful software to try and pick a World Series winner this year, and the results are really close.

Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) is a simulation-based baseball game for computers and mobile devices. The game doesn’t let you aim a pitch or swing a bat, it instead gives you control over a franchise on a extremely granular level — drafting players, signing free agents, hiring/firing coaches, constructing lineups — at every level of competition from Single-A up. Games can use current MLBers, historical teams, or a pool of randomly-generated players to create a realistic simulations over one season or the course of many seasons. Our own Bradley Woodrum wrote a complete review of the game for NotGraphs in April.

OOTP takes great pride in their simulations software, and they put that software to the test recently. On their official blog, they outline their methodology and results for the five-series simulation.  You can check out the blog for the full rundown — they even provide a nice spreadsheet for quick analysis — but their numbers show the Royals as their favorite by a very slim margin.

To celebrate the upcoming fun, OOTP is also offering a 50% discount on their game during the World Series and offering the mobile version for a buck. If you haven’t picked the game up yet, now’s a great time as OOTP is a perfect remedy for the throws throes of winter. Plus, if you’re not a Giants or Royals fan, you can take a crack at controlling your favorite team and try and get them into the World Series for your own bit of manufactured joy.