Our friend Steve Corino, a professional wrestler who loves OOTP and iOOTP, told us: "With the airlines allowing you to keep your phones on at take-off and landing, iOOTP 2014 is better than ever. My weekly flights are now filled with baseball from take-off to touchdown!" (If you want to learn more about Steve, check out the interview we did with him.)

Download iOOTP Baseball 2014 now and find out why Gamezebo said of last year's edition: "iOOTP 2013 is really a powerhouse when it comes to mobile baseball sims."

Driven by the same astonishingly accurate sim engine at the heart of OOTP 15, iOOTP lets you take control of a major league baseball team and call the shots as you guide it to glory, either in 2014 or during any season dating back to 1901. Or take the fictional route and create your own baseball world with a unique crop of superstars.

iOOTP Baseball 2014 offers these exciting new features and other improvements:

• Real 2014 rosters. Every player on every major league team is available, along with the top 20 minor league prospects for each team. Major league player ratings are based on PECOTA by Baseball Prospectus, the best player projection system today.
• Player Editor. You can edit everything from names and biographical information to hitting, fielding, and pitching ratings.
• Improved AI, including a direct port of the new player evaluation AI from OOTP 15
• Retina display support
• iOS 7 support (iOS 4.3 is the minimum required)
• Various other improvements and fixes

iOOTP Baseball 2014 features:

Three game modes: Major Leagues, which lets you guide your favorite major league team through the 2014 season and beyond; Fictional, which serves up a fresh world full of fictional players, providing a unique challenge each time; and Historical, which offers three exciting past seasons to recreate: 1919, 1939, and 2012.

You can purchase more historical seasons through in-app purchases. (Historical seasons are $0.99 each, 10 for $4.99, or all seasons dating back to 1901 for $19.99.) Real players show up according to history as you play forward, assuming you own those seasons.

The ability to set lineups, pitching rotations, and depth charts as well as make in-game calls, including when to issue hit-and-run and steal signs, how to configure the defense, when to pull pitchers and put in pinch-hitters, and more. You can also let the computer handle those decisions and set a series of sliders that dictate overall strategies, such as aggressiveness on the base paths, how often to pitch around batters, and more. Simulate your season a day or a week at a time, jumping back in to manage games whenever you want.

Minor league prospects who you promote to the big leagues and nurture through their careers. iOOTP also features the annual draft, ensuring you a steady stream of new players as you sim multiple seasons of baseball history. Watch players get drafted, begin their careers, and eventually earn a coveted spot in the Hall of Fame.

A play-by-play text stream that describes what's happening on the field during the game, making it feel like a radio broadcast.

An in-depth financial system that allows you to unleash your inner GM. Are you a "Moneyball" disciple, looking for undervalued players who help the team win while keeping payroll low, or are you a Steinbrenner type, a free-wheeling spender seeking high-profile free agents? You oversee trades, negotiate contract extensions, sign free agents, move players between the active roster, minor league roster and disabled list, and more.

Ready to take the field? iOOTP Baseball 2014 is available only at Apple's App Store, and it's just $4.99. Play ball!

OOTP 15 - Last Chance to Pre-Order!

Road to Release #4:
A Smorgasbord of New Features

We're going to wrap up this year's Road to Release series for Out of the Park Baseball 15 by taking a look at the rest of the new features found in the game. Long-time OOTPers know that we always have several big new features and a lengthy list of smaller ones, and often some of those smaller additions are favorites of those who have asked for them in the past.

Today (Thursday) is the last chance to pre-order OOTP 15 and get it Friday, April 18th, three days prior to the official release on April 21st. If you pre-order after today, you will need until Monday to download the game!

Click here to Pre-Order OOTP 15 for PC Windows and Mac OS X

Click here to Pre-Order OOTP 15 for Linux

But first, let's take a look at the last major new features we haven't talked about yet in the RTR series:

Opening Day Rosters

As in the past, OOTP ships with major and minor league rosters current as of Opening Day, complete with players' historical stats, contract details, and other information. Will your favorite team's veterans perform to expectations? Will the club's top minor league prospects pan out? Time to find out.

In addition, our hard-working roster team has re-rated each major league team's top 30-40 prospects and stacked the 2014, 2015, and 2016 draft classes with real players from top to bottom, so you can compare your picks against the guys your favorite team chooses in the June draft. The roster team has even ensured that the Dominican and Venezuelan Summer Leagues have real players, complete with their historical stats.

The hardest-working roster team in the sports sim industry has also diligently filled in the rosters for the seven real international leagues we added this year:

• Japan (including one minor league)
• Korea (including one minor league)
• Taiwan (including one minor league)
• Mexico
• Cuba
• The Netherlands
• Italy

For an overview of the international leagues and their top players, see the first installment in this RTR series.

Retired Numbers

Major league teams have been retiring players' numbers for decades, and now you can too in OOTP 15. The game ships with each team's real life numbers retired as of the beginning of the 2014 season, and you can add to them as you play forward through your league's history, complete with editable summaries. Ever wanted to make sure no one else will ever wear the number of that third baseman you drafted in 2016 and nurtured into a Hall of Famer? No you can.

AI-controlled teams will retire numbers too, based on criteria similar to what is used to determine which players enter the Hall of Fame.

More League Options

We know many of you love to turn on commissioner mode and modify your leagues in various ways, so every year we sprinkle in some new settings to satisfy the inner Selig (or inner anti-Selig) in you. OOTP 15 is no different - it features:

• Editable accomplishment and milestone limits
• Customizable spring training length (1-6 weeks)
• Option to set a roster size for Spring Training; together with the option to sign players to minor league contracts which include a major league option, this results in the possibility to invite free agents to Spring Training. - Non-roster invitees are now supported for Spring Training as well.
• Option to allow teams to 'post' players who are not yet FA-eligible for foreign leagues, including an editable maximum posting fee
• Option to assign a reputation level to a league, which is used in the player contract AI
• Option to set age limit rules and prohibit foreigners in minor leagues
• Option to limit contract length and prohibit contract extensions
• Option to have a non-editable ticket price
• Added a setting that prevents leagues with a disabled amateur draft to auto-generate fictional free agents (useful for independent leagues)
• Option to set a fee for which teams from other leagues may purchase contracts of players.
• The trading AI frequency no longer is a global setting, but can be set for each major league individually
• Playoff Matchup Editor allows you to directly set up the matchups you want for the playoffs.

Lots of Little Stuff

And there are even more things we've tweaked throughout the game, including:

• A new "Acquired" field in player profiles that displays the most recent trade involving a player, assuming there was one since you started the sim. Click it to view the transaction.
• The ability to offer jobs to coaches and scouts even when you have warm bodies occupying those roles.
• Improved news stories, play-by-play, AI, first-year player draft and negotiation.
• Enhanced player history tracking that includes yearly salary, grand slams, walk-off hits, 2nd and 3rd place award finishes, and more.

Congrats to GCL Champs USBL

We wanted to close out this RTR series by congratulating the United States Baseball Leagues (USBL), who won this year's edition of the Grand Championship League (GCL), which brought together 26 of the top GMs from OOTP's online leagues and tested their managerial mettle. In addition to scoring an Amazon gift card for himself, USBL rep Steve Crandell earned free copies of OOTP 15 for everyone in his league!

Congrats to Steve and the rest of USBL, and many thanks to all the leagues and their GMs who participated this year.

The GCL is an annual event, so if you are part of an online league and would like to join the fun next year, contact PR and Marketing Manager Brad Cook.

Time to Warm Up Your Starting Pitcher

Thanks for joining us on this year's Road to Release. OOTP 15 is the greatest version of our venerable baseball management game yet, and with the addition of 3D, the best is yet to come. See you at the ballpark!

The OOTP Developments Team

Pre-Order OOTP 15 for PC & Mac

Pre-Order OOTP 15 for Linux

Purchase FHM 2014