'MLB Manager 2017' Out Now, Baseball Nerds Rejoice

This is a good week for baseball fans with so many baseball games releasing on mobile, so this has been a good week for me, one J. Carter Dotson. The latest edition of MLB Manager, the mobile baseball simulator series from baseball simulator experts OOTP Developments is now available, MLB Manager 2017 [$4.99]. The biggest new feature is the new interface. It's mostly a visual overhaul, and if you've played the Manager games before, you'll know how it feels. Yet, it feels just a bit nicer to use, the interactions are quicker, things are ordered in a way that makes sense. There's still some oddities, like tapping on a name to switch a pitcher, but you have to tap on the substitution icon for a pinch hitter. It still has that MLB Manager quirkiness, but the whole thing feels just that much more smooth and a little more streamlined, and over the dozens of hours this game is designed to encompass for players, that's a great feeling.

Some changes to the league haven't been quite implemented yet. The disabled list is still shown as being a 15 day disabled list when in reality, it's a 10 day disabled list now. Checking the Rangers, I was impressed to see that all the players who were on the real-life disabled list were there, including Prince Fielder, whose career is done, but for procedural reasons is still on the 40-day disabled list. Obviously, some issues like real-world lineups and opening day rosters aren't quite there yet because, well, opening day and managers' lineups haven't quite been revealed, but the initial rosters seem quite good.

Ultimately, you're playing this for the fresh 2017 rosters, as the core simulation of the game, if tweaked at all, would require dozens of hours to note changes. And the historical leagues still work in previous versions. But, if you're jumping in fresh, or for the first time in the MLB Manager line of games, now that they have both MLB and MLBPA licenses, hard to go wrong for $4.99 when there's so much to even possibly do here. If you're a baseball nerd, and haven't played an MLB Manager game yet, I highly recommend it. While OOTP on the PC feels like a more advanced game, this does a great job at straddling the line between being for baseball nerds, but also remaining accessible.

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