Digital Diamond Baseball V10 User Guide

This guide is designed to help users take full advantage of the game. It contains tips on how to get started, and videos that cover some of the advanced features of the game. We will also be adding "Quick Tip" videos throughout the year.

What's New in Version 10?

Getting Started

In this section we have some videos to help you start playing games! The first video below shows you how to install and organize player libraries:

And these two videos show you how to manually play games:

Part 1

Part 2

Next up is a tutorial on how to make various substitutions (replace the pitcher, pinch hit, pinch run, and make defensive substitutions) during a game:

You can learn how to customize logos, player pictures, and ballpark images here:

Finally, learn how to use the logo auto search feature to save time adding logos to your libraries:

Viewing Rosters, Reports, and Boxscores

The following video shows you how to browse the rosters in your player stats and roster status, and generate a variety of report:

This video demonstrates how to quickly find interesting boxscores using the the new Boxscore Search Tool:

There is also a Quick Tip section in this guide with more boxscore search examples.

Understanding Manager Profiles

Enjoy this three part series on Manager Profiles in Digital Diamond Baseball.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Postseason

Done replaying a season? Check out these videos to learn how to create the postseason.

Automatically Generating the Postseason

Manually Generating the Postseason

Drafting

Want to mix things up a bit? This video will help you take advantage of the draft feature in Digital Diamond Baseball.

Creating Custom Libraries

Digital Diamond Baseball makes it easy for you to create your own player libraries. There are several different options available. The first method is to import teams/players from the modified Lahman database provided with Digital Diamond Baseball (the Lahman DB is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License). The following video covers this process:

The second method is to import teams/players from season libraries that you already have installed. This method takes a little bit more time, but unlike the Lahman DB method, it includes custom ratings for the players that are imported. Here is a video that shows you the process:

The remaining library creation methods are covered in other sections of this user guide.

Tracking Careers

There are two methods for tracking career statistics in Digital Diamond Baseball. The first method is used when you want to replay a series of real-life season libraries and track the career stats for all the players across those seasons. The video below gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do this in Digital Diamond Baseball.

Tracking Career Stats Across Several Season Library Replays

The second method for tracking career statistics involves Digital Diamond Baseball's Career Mode. The Career Mode feature allows you to start with a season player library and then advance it to future fictional seasons by aging the players at the end of each season. The aging process actually changes each player's stats based on their age, their performance in previous seasons, and the positions they played. The next video gives you step-by-step instructions on how take advantage of the Career Mode feature of Digital Diamond Baseball.

Tracking Career Stats Using Career Mode

Active Rosters/Injuries

The Active Rosters/Injuries feature is a great way to add some variety and strategy to your replays. This feature is designed to be a replacement for real-life transactions and as-played lineups. Check out this video to learn more!

Building a Fictional Library

Digital Diamond Baseball provides tools for building player libraries consisting of fictional players. The following video demonstrates how:

The Board Game Companion

Do you like to play table-top baseball games like Strat-O-Matic, Pocket Pennant Run, and Payoff Pitch? The Board Game Companion feature allows you to score your board game results and then take full advantage of the many features built into Digital Diamond Baseball.

Table-top games that you enter into Digital Diamond Baseball will automatically have play by play, boxscore, game summaries, player of the game awards, and more. In addition, the ability to reuse teams, as-played lineups, and transactions included with Digital Diamond Baseball, allow you to complete your board games quicker and with fewer errors. Finally, all of the board games you enter into Digital Diamond Baseball will be included in the rich reporting features that the game provides -- standings, leader boards, awards, player usage, and so much more!

The following videos will help you learn how to take full advantage of the Board Game Companion:

Quick Tip - Backup Your Files!

t is always a very good idea to backup your player libraries. We all spend many hours customizing our libraries and playing games and it is a big bummer when something happens to a library and we don't have a backup.

Making local backups on your computer's hard drive is important. But technologies like OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, and Dropbox make it easy to backup to the cloud. I recommend setting an automatic backup to the cloud of your DigitaDiamondDataFilesV9 folder, and this backup should run at least once a day. This is the best way to product all of your hard work.

Another good practice is to make a copy of the libraries that you install (using a different name) and to do all of your work in the copy. This practice protects you from accidentally having your library overwritten when you reinstall the original library. There is a good video in this guide that shows you a good process to follow when managing your libraries

Quick Tip - Fonts and Colors

The User Interface Options Group allows you to adjust the font size and background color used on the game's UI. Specifically, there is an option that allows you to change the base font size used throughout the user interface, except the Play Ball Page. The Play Ball Page auto-scales the interface based on your current screen resolution.

Smaller font size values will decrease the font size and larger values will increase the font size. This allows the user to adjust fonts to accommodate their screen's resolution and eyesight. The default values are optimized for a 1440x900 screen resolution. Users with higher resolution will want to enter a larger value and users with lower resolution will want to enter a smaller value.

In addition, there is an option that allows the user to customize the background color used in many of the user interface screens. We recommend that you use a darker toned color when setting this option.

NOTE: If you generally have trouble reading small fonts on the computer, your best option is to reduce your computer's resolution. By definition, higher resolutions make fonts and other screen elements smaller. The easiest and most effective way to make your screen easier to read is to reduce your resolution.

Quick Tip - Screen Resolution Support When Playing Games

Digital Diamond Baseball supports a wide variety of screen resolutions, but the best support is for resolutions from 1280x800 up to 1920x1200. Here are some tips to taking full advantage of the game's support for different screen resolutions when playing games:

• The Base Font Size option located in the User Interface Option Group is used to change the font size of all text displayed on the game screens except for the Play Ball Page. This option will not have any impact on the Play Ball Page. The Play Ball Page screen elements are controlled using Digital Diamond Baseball's auto scaling feature described next.
  
• The Auto Scaling option located in the User Interface Option Group is used to control the appearance of the Play Ball Page. When enabled, Digital Diamond Baseball will scale the components on the Play Ball Page based on your current screen resolution. NOTE: this feature works best if you have Windows Display Settings set to 100%. In addition, you need to either restart Digital Diamond Baseball or right-click on the game screen and select "Reload Page" whenever you change your computer's screen resolution.
  
• There are also several options that control the size of the screen elements on the Play Ball Page.
  These options are available to you during a game by selecting Menu->Options.

NOTE: If you generally have trouble reading small fonts on the computer, your best option is to reduce your computer's resolution. By definition, higher resolutions make fonts and other screen elements smaller. The easiest and most effective way to make your screen easier to read is to reduce your resolution.

Quick Tip - Hot Keys

Digital Diamond Baseball has several hot keys that you can use when playing a game so you don't have to rely on the mouse as much.

Lineup Actions

• 0: displays detailed stats for the current pitcher.
  
• 1-9: displays detailed stats for the corresponding batters in the lineup (spots 1-9).
  
• space: displays detailed stats for the batter currently at bat.
  
• a: displays the bench/pen dialog box for the away team.
  
• h: displays the bench/pen dialog box for the home team.
  
• l: swaps the teams currently displayed in the lineup panel.

Game Actions

• control+i: rotates through the many different ways to position your fielders.
  
• control+h: toggle holding the runner.
  
• control+w: walk the current batter.
  
• control+r: execute a hit and run.
  
• control+t: execute a bunt.
  
• control+s: attempt a steal.
  
• enter: throw a pitch or swing.

Switch Manager

• control+m: display the toggle manager popup.
  
• control+1: set managers to human vs. human (requires the manager popup to be visible).
  
• control+2: set managers to human vs. computer (requires the manager popup to be visible).
  
• control+3: set managers to computer vs. human (requires the manager popup to be visible).
  
• control+4: set managers to computer vs. computer (requires the manager popup to be visible).
  
• control+5: close the manager popup.

Fast Play

• control+f: display the fast play popup.
  
• shift+1: fast play the current half inning (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+2: fast play the current inning (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+3: fast play to the top of the 7th (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+4: fast play to the top of the 8th (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+5: fast play to the top of the 9th (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+6: fast play until someone gets on base (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+7: fast play until a runner is in scoring position (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+8: fast play until a runs scores (requires the fast play popup to be visible).
  
• shift+9: close the fast play popup.

Other Hot Keys

• esc: hides all currently visible popup windows.
  
• control+q: save and exit the game.
  
• control+b: display the boxscore window.
  
• control+o: show the in-game options dialog.
  
• control+c: show the bench coach dialog.
  
• control+u: undo the last play.

Quick Tip - Data Files

The DigitalDiamondDataFilesV10 folder is the folder that contains all of your libraries, backups, exports, and custom image files. For this reason, it is important to know where this folder is and to give yourself quick access to it.

The location of this folder depends on our operating system. If you are using Windows you will find this folder here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Digital Diamond BaseballV10\DigitalDiamondDataFilesV10

And on MacOS it can be found here:

Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Digital Diamond Baseball V10/DigitalDiamondDataFilesV10

NOTE: Staring in the Lion update for macOS, the user Library is hidden by default. Consult this help page[helpx.adobe.com] for tips on how to make it visible again

You can also make it really easy to access your DigitalDiamondDataFilesV10 folder. This can be done on Windows by pinning the folder to the Quick Access section of the File Manager.

On MacOS you can add the DigitalDiamondDataFilesV10 folder as a favorite in the Sidebar of Finder.

Quick Tip - Import/Export Team Attributes

Digital Diamond Baseball simplifies the task of setting the names, logos, and colors of teams in your library by allowing you to export team attributes from one library and import them into another library. For example, suppose you installed the 2021 library and configured all of the team attributes:


Then you install the 2020 library and want to use the same names, logos, and colors for 2020. Instead of entering this information again, you can export the team attributes from the 2021 library and import them into the 2020 library. To export the attributes from the 2021 library just click on the Export Team Attributes button. This will export the data to a file in the Export\TeamAttributes folder.
The file name will be TeamAttributes-2021.txt:


Next, open the 2020 library, click on the Import Team Attributes button, select the TeamAttributes-2021.txt file, and click on the Import button. You can check the Import Division Membership checkbox if you want the the teams to be in the same divisions in your league organization that they were in for the 2021 library. If you uncheck the Import Division Membership checkbox the league organization in the 2020 library will not change.


After the import, all of the teams in your 2020 library will have the same attributes that you set in the 2021 library. This includes the city, name, logo, and colors for each team!

Quick Tip - Player Cards

Each player in Digital Diamond Baseball is assigned a combined player card and may also have a player card for performance against left-handed batters/pitchers and against right-handed batters/pitchers. These player cards determine the probability that a player will produce one of the eight possible game outcomes.
The player card contains the dice roll required to produce each of the outcomes and also shows the probability of each event. Finally, in the third column the player cards show the cumulative probability of the out events and on base events. The cumulative probability of outs is shown in red and the cumulative probability of hits is shown in green.

For example, consider Jason Giambi's player card shown here. A roll from 745-889 will produce a single and the probability of this happening is 14.5%. The cumulative probability of a strikeout or any other type of out happening is 56.5% (16.3% + 40.2%). In addition, the cumulative probability that Giambi will get on base (HBP% + BB% + 1B% + 2B% + 3B% + HR%) is 43.5%.

During a game, the pitcher's player card and the batter's player card are combined using either the Morey-Z algorithm (default) or log5 algorithm to produce the matchup player card for that at bat. The matchup player card is shown in the bottom left of the play ball page during a game.

Quick Tip - Player Notes

Quick Tip - Custom Ratings

In Digital Diamond Baseball, custom ratings consist of the range rating, the outfield arm rating, catcher arm rating, and the pitcher hold rating.

All ratings are between 1 and 5. A rating of 1 is the best and a rating of 5 is the worst. A rating of 3 represents an average rating.

Ratings only have an impact on game play for players that do not have an average rating (3).

The range rating is based on the Rtz field provided by Baseball Reference This is the number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made. This value is currently only available on or after 1954. Currently, all fielders except for the pitcher and catcher are given a range rating.

The outfield arm rating is based on the Rof field provided by Baseball Reference. This is the number of runs above or below average the outfielder was worth based on baserunner kills and baserunner advance. This value is currently only available on or after 1954.

The catcher's arm rating is based on the Rctch field provided by Baseball Reference. This is the number of runs above or below average the catcher was worth based on baserunner kills and baserunner advances. This value is currently only available on or after 1954.

The pitcher's hold rating is based on the RspP field provided by Baseball Reference. This is the number of runs above or below average the pitcher was worth based on baserunner kills and stolen baserunner advances. This value is currently only available on or after 2003.

All plays that are influenced by the range rating of a fielder are annotated in the PBP window. If the fielder makes a great play because of their range rating the PBP will end with "(+)". If the fielder makes a poor play because of their range rating the PBP will end with "(-)".

If you don't agree with the default player ratings, change them! This is very easy to do. Just go to the "Player Editor" page and edit the player's rating.

If you decide you want to disable any or all of the custom ratings, you can do so in the "Ratings Options". This does not remove the ratings from the library. As a result, you can easily enable them again at any time.

Quick Tip - Pitcher Fatigue

Every pitcher in Digital Diamond Baseball is given a durability rating (DUR). Durability ratings specify how many pitches a pitcher can throw before they are susceptible to fatigue. The performance of a fatigued pitcher will decrease with each additional pitch they face after they are fatigued. The durability rating shown for a pitcher is estimated. The actual durability for a pitcher can fluctuate from game to game, and is not known to the human or computer manager.

Fluctuations in a pitcher's durability is determined by library specific settings such as the durability bonus and certain manager profiles settings. These settings can alter a pitcher's durability at the start of the game. These changes to a pitcher's durability are hidden from both the computer and human manager and represent how many more or fewer pitches a pitcher can throw before becoming susceptible to fatigue

Each time a pitcher throws a pitch their pitch count increases. When the pitch count reaches their actual durability, a pitcher becomes susceptible to fatigue. This does not mean the pitcher is tired; it just means that they may be getting tired soon. Pitchers that are susceptible to fatigue will only become fatigued at the start of an inning or if they allow a base runner. When a pitcher is close to becoming tired, they will have an orange shadow box around their field icon and on-field image. When a pitcher actually becomes fatigued their icon and on-field image will have a red shadow box.

Let's look at a specific game. Suppose CC Sabathia has an estimated durability rating of 92 and his actual durability for this game is 97 (which is hidden). This means that he will become susceptible to fatigue when he has thrown 98 pitches. However, he will not actually be fatigued until he either allows a base runner, or is on the mound at the start of the next inning.

A pitcher's pitch count carries over from one game to the next. However, the number is reduced based on how much time they rest between appearances. At the end of every game, each pitcher's pitch count is decreased. By default, starting pitchers typically need around four days of rest before their batters faced total is reduced to zero. Relievers, on the other hand, are often fully rested in time for next game. However, if a pitcher pitches two games in a row, they are likely to need an extra day of rest before the are fully rested.

In Digital Diamond Baseball, a pitcher's estimated durability rating and pitch count total are displayed using the following format: durability/pitch total. For example, CC Sabathia's DUR column might look like this 92/18, which indicates that he is estimated to be able to throw up to 92 pitches before being susceptible to fatigue, and that he has thrown a total of 18 pitches.

Pitchers that qualify as both a reliever and starter use a slightly different format that looks like this: starting durability|relief durability/pitch total. For example, Ivan Nova's DUR column might look this: 84|43/12, which indicates that his estimated durability is 84 pitches when starting and 43 pitches in relief. In addition, Nova's total pitches thrown is currently 12.

Quick Tip - Changing Managers

Digital Diamond Baseball supports changing team managers during a game. Changing the managers can only take place when the Edit Managers dialog box is visible. A screen shot of the Edit Managers dialog box is shown below:




This dialog can be shown three different ways:

• You can goto the Menu Button and select Edit Managers.
  
• You can click on one of the Manager Buttons displayed next to a team in the linescore.
  
• You can press control+m.

The different options available for changing team managers are:

• Setting both team managers to Human, allowing you to manage both teams. The hot key for this mode is control+1.
  
• Setting one manager to Human and the other to Computer. This allows you to manage one team and the computer manager will manage the other. The hot key for this mode is control+2 if you want to manage the away team and control+3 if you want to mange the home team.
  
• Setting the managers to Watch mode which will set both team managers to Computer and allow you to watch the game in real-time. You can exit watch mode by setting at least one of the team managers back to Human. The hot key for this is control+4.
  
• Setting the managers to Quick Watch mode, which will set both team managers to Computer and allow you to watch just the next plate appearance. After the plate appearance (or when there is a wild pitch, passed ball, or successful steal) both managers will automatically be set to Human. The hot key for this is q.

Finally, keep in mind that the Edit Managers dialog box must be visible in order to change managers during a game.

Quick Tip - Bench Coach

Are you in a close game and contemplating bringing in a pinch hitter or reliever? To help you with the decision you can call on the Bench Coach to get the combined event probability card for any possible batter/pitcher matchup in the game.

You can access the Bench Coach at any time by clicking on Menu->Bench Coach or by pressing Control+B. In the Bench Coach Dialog Box you can choose any pitcher and any batter and the combined card will automatically update with the combined probabilities for the matchup.

Quick Tip - Out Of Town Scoreboard

The Out Of Town Scoreboard feature allows you to manually play a game and keep an eye on the progress of other games being played on the same day. This feature is disabled by default and can be enabled via the In-Game Options Group. If enabled, when you are playing a manual game all other games on that day will be played simultaneously and the Out Of Town Scoreboard can be viewed by clicking on the Today's Games button located in the linescore.


The out of town games will progress as your game is progressing. When an out of town game has completed you can click on the word 'Final' in the Out Of Town Scoreboard to view that game's boxscore.


Staring with V10, it is possible to manage/manually play more than one game per day and still take advantage of the Out Of Town Scoreboard. The key is to mark the teams you want to manually play as 'favorites' (favorite teams are covered in a different section of this guide). Games featuring one or more of your team favorites can be manually played when the Out Of Town Scoreboard is enabled.

NOTE: doubleheader games will not be auto-played on the scoreboard. Instead, you should fast play the doubleheaders or play them manually if they contain the team the you are managing.

Quick Tip - Boxscore Search Tool Examples

The Boxscore Search Tool provides a powerful interface for searching for boxscores based on a wide variety of conditions. Below are several examples of interesting queries that can be used in the Boxscore Viewer.

Road Gane Shutouts Pitched by Erickson (MIN)


Come From Behind Wins For Boston


Philly Home Games Where Starter Pitched At Least 7 Innings


Philly Home Games Where Schmidt Hit a HR


Yankee Games With a Grand Slam

Quick Tip - Installing Custom Libraries

Follow these steps to install a library backup file that you have downloaded from the Internet:

1) Download the backup file
2) Run Digital Diamond Baseball
3) On the Library Page click on Restore A Backup
4) Click on "Click to select a file" and browse to the file you downloaded

This will install the player library and you will be all set to play ball!

NOTE: One popular place to download custom player libraries for Digital Diamond Baseball is: http://www.digitaldiamondbaseball.com. You can install any of these libraries by following the steps above.

Advanced Tutorial - Importing From Baseball Reference

Video

Advanced Tutorial - Import Custom CSV Files

Advanced Tutorial - Importing Minor League Teams

his tutorial describes how to import minor league teams into Digital Diamond Baseball. Please be sure to consult the previous advanced tutorials on importing players before reading this tutorial.

In this tutorial we will be importing the 2021 Reading Fighting Phillies from Baseball Reference. You can access data on Baseball Reference for any minor league year/team here: here[www.baseball-reference.com].

The import process has been simplified because the import format files for minor league data on Baseball Reference have been automatically included with Digital Diamond Baseball V9 and can be found in the DigitalDiamondDataFilesV9\Import folder. This will allow you to select the MinorLeagueFormat when executing the import.

The first step in the import is to create a comma-separated text file containing the batting statistics for the 2021 Fighting Phillies. The batting data on Baseball Reference is shown below:


These statistics can be converted into comma separated text using the Share & Export tools provided by Baseball Reference. This is covered in detail in the previous player importing tutorials in this guide.

The next step is to create the file containing the pitching stats. The pitching data on Baseball Reference is shown below and it can be saved to a text file using the same comma separated data provided by Baseball Reference.


Unfortunately, creating the fielding data files are a bit more work when importing minor league teams. This is because Baseball Reference does not provide the Share & Export tool for fielding data. To get around this, you have to highlight and copy each fielding table and paste it into your text editor. Then, you need to clean up the file by adding commas.

The first base fielding table on Baseball Reference for the 2021 Fighting Phillies is shown below:


And here is the fielding data after it has been copied and pasted into a text editor is show here:


And finally, here is the first base fielding data after the commas have been manually added:


The comma separated data files for the Reading Phills should be saved in a subfolder of the DigitalDiamondDataFilesV9\Import folder. The screenshot below shows this folder, which has been named MILB-REA. NOTE: In this case only the batting, pitching, and first base data has been created. When you are done you should have files for batting, pitching, and all of the nine fielding positions.


Once you have created the batting, pitching, and fielding text files you are ready to do the import. The process for completing this import is similar to the one shown in earlier tutorials for major league data. However, in this case we will be just importing a single team at a time. As a result, the team name must be included in the import dialog (REA in this case). The import tool will automatically create the team for you if it does not exist yet.

The other important difference in the import process is that you must select MinorLeagueFormat for the Format field. Notice that in the screenshot below I have only provided fielding data for first base. When you do the import you should have all of the fielding data files created and selected before doing the import. The completed import dialog box is shown below:


When the import is complete the Fighting Phillies team will be created and the players will be added to the team. Here is a screen shot of Madison Stokes after the import was completed.


You can repeat this process for each team you want to import into your library.

Advanced Tutorial - Custom Play By Play

Advanced Tutorial - Custom Game Summaries (Coming Soon)

Coming Soon!

Advanced Tutorial - Playing the 2022 Season In Real Time

This video shows you how to replay the 2022 season as it unfolds in real time. Please be sure to watch the video on importing stats from Baseball Reference before watching this video.

[bgewing52]

Clarifying This is not an as played league but 1 I am managing the schedule and lineups

[bgewing52]

I got a notice that my SP is unavailable due to retired, inactive or injured. He's not retired, I've activated him several times and can't be injured because he hasn't played- what do I do, the color codes on the players is very confusing- why not just signal clearly like R/retired Inj /Injured can't even tell what needs to be fixed. Is there a way to change status like injured or rest players by days

[DDBBAdmin]

Thanks for the feedback on the squeeze. I have entered it into our issue tracking system so it can be addressed in an upcoming release.

[bgewing52]

On Squeeze bunts I think you actually need an 8th option - FC batter safe at 1rst runner safe at home- what's the comand if there is a play at the plate on a bunt- in real life its a fc batter safe at 1rst not a 1b

[usndp1]

Is there a way to edit assists. as sometime there are rundowns (no more than 2 assists and a putout) or if a ball comes off someone glove such as 1-4-3 with the ball hitting the Pitchers glove, They are rare but just asking

[DDBBAdmin]

Glad you are enjoying the game! Rare plays happen outside of the dice rolls. This means that every once and a while an interesting play may replace the play that would have happened based on your roll. In the next version (V11) the plan is to have rare plays happen based on certain rolls (for example 000, 111 ,222, 333, 444, 555, ... )

I hope this helps!

[darkroadtohell]

love the die-roll aspect of this, curious how rare and unusual events are baked into the system.
thanks