Diamond Mind Baseball, the venerable king of baseball season replays (both current and historical), now has an online game. There are three pricing tiers available: buy one team for $19.95, four teams for $69.95, or nine teams for $149.95. Each team you purchase allows you to play one season, as described below. Seasons are nine weeks long, with a full 162-game schedule, plus playoffs.

This game allows you to draft a roster from over 3500 former players from all eras, whose statistics have been normalized (adjusted for a "neutral" era), and who have been assigned a salary in current dollars. Playing the standard game nets you a 25-man roster with three reserves, in a twelve team league, with a $100 million initial payroll. You get to pick whether or not you're in a DH league, your team name, and your home ballpark from a list of all current and many historical facilities.

A custom version of the game allows you to change many of the aforementioned variables, including whom you're playing against, if you have a few friends who want to join the fun. In addition, custom leagues allow for live drafts, where you make all of the selections, as opposed to automated drafts based upon the pre-draft picks you assign. In an automated draft, you pick a player and an alternate for each position on the roster, and then place them in the order you'd like them drafted. If neither player is available, the computer will find you a close facsimile, and put him on your roster.

The automated draft interface is a bit cumbersome. You start by clicking on a position, which brings up a tool to sort through the database of players. There are several criteria to pick from when sorting players, including position, salary range, and several stats (both conventional and sabermetric) and stat ranges. Many players play multiple positions. The problem is if you find a player that would fit on your roster in a place other than the position you originally selected, you have to exit out of the database, select the new position, and then re-query to find your man. This is backwards. It would be much easier to get to the players first, and then assign positions and alternates as you browse the list based on whatever criteria you're using. There is a mountain of data, but unless you're Ken Burns or Keith Olbermann, you probably won't know a good portion of the players available, anyway.

You act as the general manager for your team. Three games per day are played, with Sundays off, over the nine week season. You can choose to just read the box scores, or "watch" the games unfold via a stripped-down version of Diamond Mind's main game interface (you have to turn on “suspense mode,” or you’ll see the results of the game as soon as you access your team’s page). Basically, it’s a diagram of the field, surrounded by a line score and a box with information on the count, with the action described in a text box as if it’s being called on the radio. It’s a fun way to watch the game, with a lot of league-specific information about the players detailed realistically during the “broadcast.”

In a standard league, trades and free agent signings are allowed. A neat twist is that you actually earn cash each week, and can even borrow against those earnings, to save up for a big-time free agent signing. Interest is earned and charged, making the financial ramifications even more significant. You also get a partial salary refund for any player you release. With the limited number of teams, large pool of players, and cash options available, trades really don’t seem necessary or impactful, but ultimately, that’s determined by the type of owners in your league. Injuries do occur, and players may not perform to your expectations, so there’s plenty of movement on the transaction wires.

Although you don't directly call the shots on the field, you do have a great deal of influence over your team’s manager. You set the lineups and pitching roles, either for every day use, or on a game-by-game basis. You can give instructions in regard to the style of baseball your team plays, including your tendencies for stealing, playing the hit and run, whether to take your starters deep into the game or rely on the bullpen, and so forth. Also, you can give instructions for specific players. For example, if you have Rickey Henderson on your roster, you can tell the manager to give him the green light whenever he's on base.

There are many tools available to help you run your team, including a cash worksheet to evaluate the financial impact of free agent moves. Standard information, like standings, statistical leaders, transactions, and information on your opponents is readily available. Although it’s a little troublesome to navigate, all of the information you used to draft your squad can be found as well. There’s even a message board set up for your league specifically, as well as message boards for the game in general.

The baseball, as expected, is realistic and deep, and it’s relatively easy to join a league and draft your team(s). However, this game is truly built for baseball historians and sabermetricians alike. Casual fans may feel less of an attachment to their teams, due to the complexity of the interface, the amount of data, and the fact that there are so many players in the game who are not common knowledge to the everyday fan.

Plus, for a similar cost over time, you could purchase Diamond Mind Baseball or a similar product yourself, and through some diligence, set up a similar league. In the long run, that’s probably the better value, although you’d have to do a lot of the legwork yourself, or find a commissioner willing to do it. That said, the convenience of just logging in to play and the availability ready-made leagues may be attractive to the stat-head crowd that wants to dive in and compete. For that audience, this game is a good purchase. For the rest of the baseball fans, you should take advantage of a free trial while it’s offered, or at most, try it out at $19.95 before cashing in on the volume discount.