Deadball

Deadball is a dice baseball game by W.M. Akers. It's a very accurate representation of baseball in dice form.

One of the first rules of Deadball is "modify the rules and make your own". The following is a list of changes, clarifications and tweaks I've made to the game to fit how I want to play it.

As a note, I play with pre-2000 players, so the following represents those player stats.

BETTER ACCURACY

Swinging vs Called Strikeouts

There are no balls or strikes in Deadball only strikeouts and walks, so there's no information about the swinging (or lack thereof) at the plate. But in a normal scorecard people will score a swinging strikeout (K or Ks) differently than a called strikeout (backwards K or Kc).

League average of called strikeouts is close to 33%. Deadball's out table has 3 roll results for strikeouts, so I'm changing one of them to called strikeout and the other two to swinging strikeouts. This gives us more info on what happened at the plate.

Modified Out Table

Errors

On an error runners take an extra base, but the batter does not. To me this only makes sense in the infield. If an error occurs in the outfield, it seems obvious that the batter would also take an extra base. So I've changed the error rules to adjust for this.

Batter Handiness

I noticed quickly that Deadball seems to have more lefties than I would expect. Looking at stats of actual batters and pitchers, this is actually the case. Here's the makeup of actual batters in the majors:

But based on d10 dice rolls, here's what Deadball will end up giving you:

Deadball Handiness Table

However, we can do better by rolling a d12 as such (note I changed the order because of a pitcher change as well, discussed below):

Modified Handiness Table

While left handed batters are off by the same amount, righties and switch hitters are closer to being accurate.

Pitcher Handiness

Pitcher handiness has a similar issue. Here's the makeup of actual pitchers in the majors:

But because Deadball's d10 dice rolls have 10 = Left handed, here's how Deadball will generate it:

If I instead change the new d12 roll for switch batters (12) to also be a righty pitchers (as noted in the Modified Handiness Table above), here's how it plays out in the more accurate version:

Age

Deadball rules show how to create player ages for Prospects, Rookies, Veterans and Old Timers. The age brackets make sense, but they overlap. If you were to make an equal amount of all four types you'd have extra 22, 23, 24 and 33 year olds. Unfortunately the largest age brackets for MLB players are from 25-30 exactly where Deadball rules would not give you extra players.

Deadball also does not have a way to randomly generate ages of players, so I came up with one that more closely mimics actual ages of MLB players, and adds a "Seasoned Vet" age bracket. Roll a d12 and d4 on the table below:

Age Roll Table (Roll D12 and D4)

Example, D12 roll is 10 so player is a Seasoned Vet. D4 roll is 1 and 1+30 = 31 so player is age 31.

Aging

As players age year-to-year Deadball give advantages to very young players, upping their skill level quickly. But in MLB, player's skill tends to exponentially increase around age ~25, hold steady and then decline, not move high at age ~20 and taper off throughout their career. As such here's an updated Aging Roll Modifier table to reflect this more exponential increase in skill:

Modified Aging Roll Modifier Table

The only real difference between this and the normal rules is the first two rows, we swap +1 and +2. We also start at age 19 since players can't be age 18 like the rulebook says.

You may also notice that Prospects get a slight bump as they age to Rookies and Rookies get a big bump as they age to Veterans. Veterans plateau at their career peak and then slowly decline as Seasoned Vets and Old Timers.

MISC

Pitcher Fatigue After 7th Inning

Since I play with players from pre-2000 I start pitcher fatigue after the 7th inning instead of 6th. This is in the rulebook but not the cheat sheet, so adding it here.

Multi-Trait Weirdness

When you roll for traits, if you get one you can roll for a second, but this can produce weird multi-traits like P+ P- or P+ P++ which make no sense. So instead if a second trait ends up being the same type as the first one, I ignore it.

Clarifications

- All base runner advance 1 base on a single, 2 on a double, etc (unless otherwise noted). Should be obvious but it's not specifically laid out in the rules. So a player on 3rd scores if the batter hits a single.

- Switch hitters will always bat opposite of pitcher handiness so pitchers never gain advantage.

Tips

- Write any D- or D+ players from the opposing team and their positions in the Notes field on the scorecard. That way when you have a DEF roll, you will know if you need to modify it without having to look at the other scorecard. This apparently was added to the scoresheets for the Deadball Masters expansion!

Todo

Automate bunts/steals via dice rolls every turn on odds and manager aggression. Will allow single players to not be as biased on decisions when rolling for opponents.