The developers behind Out of the Park Baseball 27 are making major changes to one of the most crucial parts of the franchise: trade logic.
According to comments from the team, OOTP 27 completely rebuilds how CPU-controlled teams evaluate and execute trades, particularly as the trade deadline approaches. Here are the comments from the OOTP 27 development team
I’ll go into it in a Road to Release video, but for this year we totally overhauled (from scratch) how buyer/seller type trades between CPUs are matched. So in 27 the AI does a better job deciding whether they are buyers/sellers/on the fence, and use factors like players they would shop, players they might need, strengths, weaknesses, etc. to pair teams a lot more effectively.
This isn’t every trade that will occur, but closer to the trade deadline it is the primary type of CPU to CPU type trade, so you’ll see a much more realistic trade deadline.
We included a screenshot of a sim of last year’s trade deadline run in 27 (I believe it was a live start started on like July 20th and run in OOTP27 up to the deadline). And that was to show that the moves made in OOTP27 are a lot more sensible and often reproduce the actual trades that occurred irl (see Suarez to Mariners, Bednar to Yankees, etc.).
So in general in OOTP27 you’ll see guys that you expect teams to deal at the deadline actually get dealt, and if a team decides to go into sell mode, they’ll usually actually sell all the guys they can. There’s more to it, but that’s the gist.
The OOTP franchise is best known for pure simulation, but the CPU-to-CPU trades were often criticized as unrealistic. Deals would often involve questionable prospect valuations and inconsistent trade logic. It made the game feel less authentic, which is a major flaw for a franchise that markets authenticity over anything else.
The new system in OOTP 27 aims to correct that by overhauling the decision-making process from scratch.
What This Means For OOTP 27
The updated AI is smarter at identifying whether a team is a buyer, seller, or somewhere in between. It takes into account multiple factors, such as roster strength and weaknesses, positional needs, and the types of players the team usually shops for.
The logic becomes more prominent near the trade deadline, where buyer-seller dynamics are the most active. This results in a trade experience closer to that of real life.
The team also showed an example via a screenshot. They simulated last season’s deadline in OOTP 27 to show the difference. The test was actually successful as it closely mirrored real-world MLB trades like Suarez to the Mariners and Bednar to the Yankees.
Another key improvement is how selling teams behave. If a club commits to sell mode, it will more consistently move the veterans and expiring contracts fans would expect to see on the market. Rather than holding onto obvious trade chips or attaching unnecessary high-end prospects to expiring deals, the AI is designed to pursue more coherent roster strategies.
For long-time franchise players, this upgrade will drastically improve the immersion. After all, OOTP is designed to give you the most realistic MLB team management experience. With this update, the game is only going to get better when it comes to realism.
Plus, with OOTP 27′s rebuilt engine, the developers are trying to simulate the complexities of real-world office decision-making, especially during baseball’s most chaotic time period, the trade deadline.
