select One player to have the DMB computer general manager (GM) choose a player for the first unmade pick in the draft. If the next team in the draft order has a human GM, you will be asked if you are sure you want the computer GM to make the selection.
select Until next team with human GM to have the computer GM make picks until the next team with a human GM comes up in the draft order.
select Until end of a round to have the computer GM make picks until the end of a round. DMB displays a small window so you can enter the round number. If you choose this option, the DMB computer will make picks for each team, regardless of whether the team has a human or computer GM.
select Until draft has been completed to have the computer make all picks until the end of the draft. The draft will end when the last pick has been made or the free agent pool has been emptied, whichever comes first. If you choose this option, the DMB computer will make picks for each team, regardless of whether the team has a human or computer GM.

WARNING! If you choose this option, there is no command that allows you to stop the draft once the computer begins making picks.

How the computer GM chooses players

When evaluating the available free agents, the computer GM looks at the needs of the team to make sure that it fills all of the roles (starting pitchers, relievers, players rated at each defensive position, and so on). And it looks at the ability of each player to help the team win in ways that go beyond hitting and pitching to include things like defense (range, error rates, throwing, holding runners), speed and bunting.

All hitters and pitchers are judged on a park- and league-neutral basis so the true ability of the player comes through. This is appropriate because Diamond Mind Baseball makes these adjustments when you play the games, and it doesn't make sense to ignore them when choosing talent in the first place.

If, for instance, a pitcher was effective despite facing the DH and/or playing in a hitters park in real life, he may well be chosen higher in the draft than someone whose stats look better but who had a more favorable real-life environment in which to do his work.

And you might see a slugging first baseman drop lower in the draft than you might expect. Why? Because first basemen are expected to produce more offense than players at other positions, so it's harder to stand out. And because some first basemen don't supply the other things -- defense, speed, bunting, the ability to play more than one position -- that make a player more valuable to a team.

We believe we have come up with a pretty comprehensive way to evaluate the overall contribution that these players make to a team, and for that reason, we think the computer GM will provide a worthy companion in your drafts, whether you're trying to out-think it or whether you're asking for its help in choosing players for your team.

As with any system that attempts to emulate the process that human GMs go through in something as complex as building a baseball team, there's more we can do in the future to make the computer GM even more sophisticated.

At present, it has no way to know which players are considered to be future stars despite mediocre-to-awful stats. It relies only on the statistics and ratings in the database. Since most of our Season Disks are based on a single season, that means the computer GM will consider only the player's performance in that season when making its picks.

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