[The Wolf]

Damn, you guys can be persistent. Okay. Turn off ratings and stars and be sure to check the box for the AI not to use ratings in its player evaluations. Set your AI evaluation criteria to 0% ratings, 50% current year, 33% last year, 17% two years ago. Set scouts on and to average accuracy or lower if you dare. Use feeder leagues, both HS and college. If it's a fictional league, sim ahead for five years or so, that cycles the feeder leagues and gives every player a statistical history that you can use for evaluation.

Now take over a team. Do not be in Commissioner mode. Do not be unfireable. Start making decisions about players based on stats and scouting reports. Suddenly discover that the game is far, far harder than when you could see ratings and potentials.

You will either love the uncertainty or you will hate it. You will make some great trades and some awful ones. Some of your draft choices will be crap, and some will be golden. You will find yourself agonizing over player decisions - is your third baseman just in a slump or is this the beginning of the end for him? Is your catcher ever going to return to his pre-DL form, or will he be a shadow of what he was from now on? Why does your bullpen suck so badly? Should you draft this guy or that guy? Damn, you're thinking like a real-life GM.

And that's because without ratings and without potentials, you will actually have to make decisions just like a real GM does, and not like an all-knowing video gamer. And you will suddenly find yourself thinking like a GM and dealing with limited information like GM's do.

To me, it's the best way to play OOTP. But it's not for everybody, and you may not like it. But there is a hard core of stats only players who do think it's the best way to play, and if you try it you may find out you are one of us. Or not. But what have you got to lose by trying it? You already bought the game.

"It's your game, play it your way." My way is stats only. Maybe it's your way, too. Maybe it's not. Try it and see.