About The Hot Seat
Every major-league season from to is in here. You pick two of them and manage the game.
The 1927 Yankees against the 2025 Dodgers. The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords against whoever you like. A club built entirely of Martinezes. A real 162-game season as the 1986 Mets, in the real NL East, with a real schedule.
What you actually do
Set the lineup. Set the rotation. Send the runner or hold him. Bunt him over or trust the man at the plate. Draw the infield in, play no doubles, shift, pitch around him, walk him outright. Go to the bullpen a batter early and find out.
The game will play itself if you let it. The decisions are the part it won’t make for you.
Where the numbers come from
Every player is his real season. Batting rates, strikeout rates, arm, legs, glove — all of it derived from the record, and all of it judged against the league he actually played in. A 1968 hitter is measured against 1968. A shortstop is graded against the shortstops of his own decade, because fielding in 1925 scattered twice as wide as it does now.
The Negro Leagues are in here as leagues, not as a footnote. The Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League play to the Colored World Series in the years they both fielded a league; the second Negro National League and the Negro American League play to the Negro World Series in theirs — the same as the AL and the NL, because that is what they were. The American Negro League, the East-West League and the Negro Southern League are here too, each running the one season it had, to a pennant. Play a full 1935 season as the Crawfords and you get the pennant race those clubs actually played.
Every plate appearance is settled by the two men in it — his real rates against the pitcher’s, adjusted for the era and the ballpark they’re standing in. Ballparks are measured, not invented: Fenway’s doubles factor is the Green Monster. of them, with the fences drawn where they stood.
What it isn’t
It isn’t a card game with dice, and it isn’t a spreadsheet. It won’t tell you the right call — it’ll give you a bench coach with an opinion, and the three of them disagree on purpose. It doesn’t want an account, a subscription, or your email. Nothing here phones home. Close the tab and the only thing you lose is the game.