2003 Season Disk Changes

Last updated: April 16, 2004

Using the link at the bottom of this page, you can download a patch for the 2003 Season Disk. The patch is not a complete copy of the season disk; it is a program that applies the changes to a copy of the season disk that you have already installed on your computer.

Please read this page to learn more about what the patch does, how to know whether you already have the corrections, and how to download and install the patch.

Important update: We posted a revised patch program on February 23 after discovering that the patch we posted on posted February 20 failed to correct two of the ratings that were meant to be changed.

Don't worry if you have already applied the first patch. It was incomplete, but it did no harm. You will end up with exactly the same ratings if you apply both patches or just the revised patch. We apologize for our mistake and for the inconvenience.

Version 9 edition: The patch program that was posted in February works with season disks in version 8 format. In April, we posted a version 9 edition of this patch program for those of you who installed the 2003 Season Disk for version 9 before applying the patch.

Scope of the changes

On February 23, we updated our master copy of the 2003 Season Disk to correct one player salary and the HBP ratings for some batters and pitchers with limited playing time. These changes are described in more detail below.

You may not need to do anything. The best way to find out is to check the date of the sd2003.exe file on the CD we sent you (or, if you received it via email, the sd2003.alt file). If the date of your file is 2/23/04 or later, you already have the corrected version.

If you received the previous version, you have three options:

(a) request a free update,
(b) download and apply the patch (see below)
(c) continue using your existing season disk

The free update option makes sense if you haven't already started any projects using the original version of the season disk. The patch is the best option if you have drafted a league or started a season and wish to preserve those results. The "do nothing" options makes sense if your style of play would not be affected by these changes.

Salary information

Because of an error in the newspaper listing that serves as our source for player salaries, Sean Burroughs is listed on the 2003 season with a salary of 3020. The correct value is 302.

Salary information is not used by the game in any way, so this would affect you only if you play in a league that uses a financial system based on the salary information included in the season disk.

Hit by pitch ratings

If a batter or pitcher posted extreme stats in very limited playing time, we don't rate them to match those statistics, because that would be unrealistic and leave the door open for managers in DMB leagues to abuse the game. For example, a batter who goes 2 for 3 with a homer is not rated to hit anywhere near .667 or crank out a homer every three atbats.

We've been making adjustments like this for quite some time, and they've been working quite well. However, we recently discovered that the adjustments for players with extremely high HBP rates have not been as strong as we now believe is necessary. The adjustments for walks, strikeouts and the various ball-in-play outcomes are not affected.

Tim Wakefield, for example, was hit by a pitch in his only plate appearance last year. We certainly didn't rate him to get hit by a pitch every time up, but because our adjustment wasn't large enough, he will get hit by a pitch in your DMB games far more often than that we think is reasonable.

Wakefield is the most extreme example, but he's not the only one. Mandy Romero was hit by pitches twice in three plate appearances versus left-handed pitching. Tom Gregorio was hit once in two PAs versus lefties. There are some other, less extreme cases, but these examples show the type of player who needs a larger adjustment.

If you play a season using real-life rosters, transactions, and lineups, these changes won't make much of a difference. These players simply don't play enough to affect your results too much. And if you crave statistical accuracy, the existing ratings are more likely to produce the HBP these players actually experienced in real life.

On the other hand, your results could be adversely affected if you allow these players to play much more than they did in real life and/or allow these players to be used in critical late-inning pinch hitting roles.

For instance, if Wakefield takes his regular rotation turn in a non-DH league, he'll get 60+ plate appearances instead of one, and his on-base percentage will be much too high due to his unrealistically high rate of HBP.

If you download and run the patch (see below), the HBP ratings for these players will be adjusted downward to a reasonable level that is much more consistent with how we adjust limited-playing-time players in other statistical categories.

Downloading the patch

When you download the patch, it is saved on your hard drive in the location that you specify. Before you apply it, you'll need to make sure it is stored in the folder into which you installed Diamond Mind Baseball -- that's c:\dmb8 or c:\dmb9 if you accepted the default location, something else if you chose to install the game elsewhere. It doesn't matter whether you download the file directly into that folder or download it somewhere else and move/copy it there later.

Before you apply the patch

If you plan to apply the patch to a DMB database in which you have invested a lot of time -- playing games, migrating a league, making roster moves, running a draft -- we recommend that you take the precautionary step of using the Backup command on DMB's File menu to save your database. It's always a good idea to back up your files from time to time, and it's an especially good idea when you are about to run a program that makes changes to those files.

Applying the patch

To apply the patch, find the downloaded file -- it's called dmbfix03.exe or dmbfix03v9.exe -- using Windows Explorer (or some other tool for browsing your hard drive). Make sure this file is in the same folder into which you previously installed the Diamond Mind Baseball game. If it's not there already, move or copy it there now.

NOTE: If you try to run the program from a location other than the DMB game folder, you'll get an error message indicating that a DLL couldn't be loaded or a different message indicating that it was unable to find the BASEBALL.INI file.

When you are ready to apply the patch, use Windows Explorer or My Computer to find the DMB game folder and then double-click on the dmbfix03.exe or dmbfix03v9.exe file to start the process. You'll see the following window:

This window displays a list of all of the DMB databases that are in version 8 format. (The version 9 edition of the patch lists databases in version 9 format.) To make the corrections, select the database from the list and click on the "Make corrections" button. If you have installed the 2003 Season Disk more than once, do this for each of those databases, one at a time.

We have built some important safeguards into this patch program:

- if you select a database (such as agt2) that has nothing to do with the 2003 Season Disk, it will tell you that it couldn't find any matching players and therefore did not apply any changes

- if you accidentally apply the patch to the same database more than once, no harm will be done

It takes only a second or two to make the corrections, and the patch program displays a "successful completion" message when it is done.

Download links

Version 8 edition (dmbfix03.exe, 80 KB, updated 2/23/2004)

Version 9 edition (dmbfix03v9.exe, 148 KB, posted 4/16/2004)

Free updates available on request

To request a free update, call us at 800-400-4803 (9am-5pm Pacific time, Mon-Fri) or send email to info@diamond-mind.com.

We apologize for these errors and for the inconvenience.