Manage Your Own MLB Team Through 'Total Baseball Manager 2008' on Facebook

Following last week’s post on Diamond Mind Live, I’m going to profile Total Baseball Manager 2008, our fantasy baseball application on Facebook.  We also offer on Facebook Total Baseball Manager Classic which uses historic players, but for this post, I’ll focus on the contemporary version of the game. 

TMB 2008 gives you a chance to act as the manager of your very own baseball franchise for a 162-game season and compete against your friends or anonymous users on Facebook who have added the application.  Note that this 162-game schedule operates independently of the real-life MLB season, so if you get a hankering for some head-to-head baseball action during the dead of winter, you can have at it. 

Naturally a free Facebook account is needed to play (or log-in if you already have one).  Once you get that, you’ll find over 11,500 monthly active players to compete against. 

To get started, you simply select your favorite baseball team franchise (I chose my long-time favorite SF Giants as you’ll see in the screenshot).  We then give you a budget of nearly $179 million to work with in creating your lineup of 21 players:  9 starters, 3 bench warmers, 5 starting pitchers and 4 relievers.  By the way, if you are having trouble knowing which players to put in your lineup, you can use our 2008 projected player stats as a crutch.

Once you’ve set your line-up (which can take as much or little time as you’d like, depending on your amount of analysis), it’s time to play ball.  The game will give you a list of other teams/Facebook users to compete against.  One click on “Play” sets the game in motion.  The game begins and simulates through the game application and spits out the results, which you can also watch pitch-by-pitch or inning-by-inning.

Check out more screenshots of TMB 2008 on Facebook. 

Winning & Losing
Your standings are tied to your lifetime win-loss record, your win %, your average income per game, and your lifetime earnings. Ultimately, it’s the competitiveness of your roster that will drive your record and ranking in the standings. Your skills in establishing the optimal player mix and line-up strategies will make the difference between winning and losing.  A Leaderboard gives a snapshot of who’s on top.

Tricks for Increasing Payroll
You earn money with each game you play, and you can earn more money to improve your franchise by inviting friends to play.  When you invite friends, you earn $100,000 in earnings, and another $100,000 each when friends join and then begin playing.

When you have completed 162 games, the season ends and you can either renew your team or get a new one.  You can only field one team at a time and the game does not yet feature a playoff system.

Have fun!

- Dayne

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