How to Play 162-0: A Complete Guide

162-0 is a free browser game with no account and no download. A full run takes a few minutes. Here’s exactly how it works.

1. Choose a draft mode

On the welcome screen you pick one of two modes:

• Classic — every candidate’s ratings are visible. You draft on the numbers.
• Blind Draft — ratings are hidden. You draft from the player’s name, era, and archetype only, and find out how you did when the season simulates. It’s the purer test.

You can also start a Daily Challenge (the same draft for everyone that day) or paste a seed to replay a specific draft. More on both below.

2. Spin and draft, nine rounds

The draft runs nine rounds, one per position, in this order: catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, left field, center field, right field, and pitcher. Each round you spin to reveal a decade of baseball history and a small pool of original, fictional candidates drawn from that era. You draft one, then move to the next position.

Position players are rated on contact, power, discipline, speed, and fielding; the pitcher is rated on stuff, control, and stamina. The game keeps hitting and pitching as separate skills rather than flattening everyone into one number.

3. Reroll when a pool is weak

Don’t love the candidates a round spun up? Reroll for a fresh pool. You get a limited number of rerolls per run, so save them for the rounds where a weak set of options would really cost you — a thin pitcher pool hurts more than a thin backup-outfield pool.

4. Watch the season play out

Once all nine picks are in, the game computes your team’s chemistry (an era-fit bonus for rosters whose players belong to compatible baseball) and overall ratings, then simulates a full season — 154 games for a 1950s roster, 162 for every later decade. Each game is its own result, shaped by home-field, fatigue over the long grind, injury risk, and opponent matchups.

5. Read your grade

At the end you get a record and a letter grade:

• S — a flawless season, zero losses. The 162-0 (or 154-0) dream.
• A through F — scaled by winning percentage, from an elite season down to a rough one.

If you played the Daily Challenge, you can submit your result to a public leaderboard. Every run also produces a shareable seed, so a friend can play your exact draft.

Tips to go deeper

• Balance the roster — a lineup with no pitching wins shootouts and loses pitcher’s duels.
• Match your era — chemistry rewards players from compatible decades. See the best era to draft in.
• Understand the ceiling — even the best real team ever lost 46 games. See why 162-0 is effectively impossible.