I’ve played WhatIfSports for a long time — 265 seasons and 17 World Series titles — and while the concept is still incredibly appealing, the execution has started to disappoint, especially in terms of gameplay realism and simulation accuracy.

The biggest issue is how disconnected the results feel from actual baseball logic. Too often the SIM produces outcomes that don’t make sense: bench players outperforming all-stars, historically elite teams losing badly to rosters filled with obscure or misused players. It feels like the engine rewards exploiting statistical quirks rather than rewarding balanced, realistic roster-building.

Even more frustrating, strategy seems to have minimal impact. Hours spent fine-tuning lineups, adjusting minutes, and setting coaching preferences rarely pay off. Teams underperform in ways that defy both real-life stats and common sense, while obscure efficiency darlings thrive over true legends who dominated the game in reality.

No simulation will ever be perfect, but the lack of transparency around how the engine actually works — and how easily it can be gamed — makes the experience feel less like baseball and more like solving a numbers hack. Right now, the SIM favors loopholes over authenticity.

I hope the developers take a serious look at how outcomes are calculated and make updates that prioritize realism and strategic depth. What keeps players engaged isn’t just winning, but winning in a way that feels like real baseball.

Best of Luck Everyone, I'm Done

This is how baseball works. Sometimes Shohei Otani strikes out four times. Sometimes a bench player is clutch. Strategy is supposed to have minimal impact in a sport where a regular starter sees 600+ at-bats and prays to hit the ball 30% of the time. Sometimes it doesn't even out, even over the course of an entire season. That is baseball.

Baseball fans are getting older, and they have been losing touch with the younger generations since the 80's when football & basketball passed them in popularity. All sports are quirky and sometimes the outcome defies all logic. As a game site, WIS is losing too many long time paying customers while younger sports fans gravitate to the options offered by the PS4 & other video game devices.

WIS must listen to people like Natic so as to figure out how to retain players like him while trying to add new players to the site. If this game site continues to lose veteran owners as quickly as new people are found it will be doomed. It's just not a sustainable model to build a successful business on. While voices of dissension are troublesome and can be annoying, Natic is not the only one voicing these complaints and they should not be ignored.

It's great that a person that has been a user of the site decided to purchase the game. However, there seem to be wholesale problems throughout all the games on the site, with players of each of the games voicing many of the same complaints. Not sure what's happening or being addressed but if the focus were on one game, and that games issues were fixed then the other games could be fixed in much the same way. The question of which game to fix first, in my opinion, would have to be that game that is generating the most money for the site. At that time, players of each game that have left could be contacted to try to get them to return. Bringing people back to a game that they left because of the flaws makes no sense, bringing them back to an improved game will help retain them.

Seems pretty basic to me.

Skill issue imo

Just yesterday I saw an article on ESPN stating that if the Dodgers win the NLCS, you can expect to see a big motion gaining support for a salary cap. Whereas if the Brewers win, it will let everyone know that the existing system still works.

Real life problems exist in real life too, I guess is what I'm sayin'.

Posted by prezuiwf on 10/11/2025 11:10:00 AM (view original):
Couldn't disagree more. Natic sounds like a complete baby. If you want a game where you always win and everything goes according to plan, maybe a Playstation game is more your speed. Baseball is by definition a game of inconsistency. To say that players or teams randomly underperforming is unlike "real baseball" is, frankly, asinine. He's whining because his barely-.500 team in Walter Johnson lost in the first round of the playoffs. Boo hoo.

Are there problems with this game? 100%. Is one of the problems that sometimes bad things happen to good teams? No.

This is a guy who didn't sign any of his first 15 rounds of draft picks in his final season with us. I really don't like it when guys leave the next owner in a hole just out of spite.