Starting From Scratch

[goodelgin]

Hi guys

Pretty new to baseball sims (although have followed MLB here in the UK for a few years and absolutely love it).

Playing with OOTP 9 demo until OOTP 10 is ready. Not sure exactly what to do when I become manager of an unfamiliar team. Any kind soul can give me a 5 or 10 step plan of things I should immediately do when I start (or perhaps 10 things I should do in the first month of being a manger).

Really want to get the most from OOTP.

Thanks

[KGrob]

I'm fairly new. But I'll tell you what I do.

First. I get my staff in place. I try to get the best staff I can. You need to consider the cost of course. But try to get the best guys you can afford. For example, if you have a poor pitching coach, you might want to try to upgrade right away. Also, try to get the best scout you can afford.

Next, I try to evaluate my team. I try to improve the weak areas. There are a number of screens that compare your players to the other teams in the league.

Next, I look at who I might be losing to free agency. That might not be as important in the Demo. Not sure there. You might want to try to keep the ones you can afford.

Next, I try to fill in the areas that I'm weak at...free agents and trades do this. You can't get too crazy because you have to make a profit still...although this is less important in the Demo.

Then just go through and manage your games to the extent you want. I normally Sim the games one at a time, keeping an eye on my pitching staff. I don't let the computer/AI control my pitchers, but I do let the AI set up my batters for the most part. I might tweak it a little.

A big part of the game is simply knowing how to access information. It takes a little time there. Funny thing, the first time I got a message that I had a player who was DFA...it took me an hour to figure out even how to find which player it was. And then another hour to figure out how to resolve the situation. Now, it takes me about 5 seconds if I let the computer do it...or a couple minutes if I do it manually. So it takes some getting used to.

Good luck.

[Kelric]

KGrob did a good job with a quick overview, but I'm being an idiot tonight and want to pull an all nighter so this gives me an excuse to keep my brain active for a bit. I'll start a game from scratch on January 1st and give you my opening moves up to Spring Training. I'll take over the Seattle Mariners for no particular reason.

Here comes two hours of typing and setting up my team...

The first thing I'm going to want to do is shuffling around my organization so everybody is on their proper levels. I play with ghost players on, so making sure my second Rookie League team has a backup catcher isn't necessary. To do that I go to my teams Transaction Page where I can see the roster of any level of my franchise. I then hit the Minor League Report button and start moving guys. If the game says a player is Ready For Triple-A, up he goes. If he is only possibly ready, he stays where he is. I do this until every player with 'Ready For...' next to their name is on that level (except for the guys who say Ready For Major League level, they just go to Triple-A for now). How I do this is open the report in an external browser (Firefox or IE, for example) and then just alt-tab back and forth to OOTP to find out who needs to go where.

In this roster set Seattle has a very top heavy minor league system. After this shuffling I have 6 players between two R-level teams, 4 in Short Season A, 5 between two Single-A clubs, 55 in Double-A and 43 in Triple-A. Now I start winnowing that down even more. Going to the lineup page for my lowest level club, I cut three of the five hitters there for being too old or too bad. Using the Affiliated Teams button in the bottom right, I go to the next highest team on the list. This doesn't have any hitters, so I go to the next team. Between the next three teams, I cut two more guys. Double-A is where it gets tough.

Using the Position: All Batters button, I sort to only look at catchers. I've got three on the team, but one is 37 years old with mediocre ratings, so he gets promoted to Triple-A since I don't know if I need an emergency catcher on that level yet. The other two are decent prospects, so they stay. If a guy is older than their mid-20s at this point, I send him to Triple-A if his ratings are ok or I cut him if he isn't good enough for me. Rinse, wash and repeat for every position in the lineup. I move eight guys off that roster, cutting or promoting them.

I do the same process with the pitching staffs. The first move is to look at relievers and sort them by Endurance. Anybody who has a 7 or more (on a 1 to 10 scale) gets their positioned change to starting pitcher (Player Profile, Set Position To button on the bottom). Then I go and cut guys. After cutting the ones I don't want, I start weeding out the remainders if I have more than 5. The best five stay starters, the others get converted back to reliever. Now I go back to relievers and cut guys.

Next is my active roster, skipping Triple-A for now. I demote everybody to Triple-A who doesn't look to be guaranteed a job. My #5 pitcher (Jarrod Washburn), my #4 pitcher, miscellaneous relievers, utility players. I'm down to 16 guys on my active roster with 53 in Triple-A.

Looking at just the catcher in Triple-A, I have five of them ranging from 37 year old to an undeveloped 24 year old prospect. They are all not terrible, but I cut the 37 year old for being 37. The other four stay for now. I have eight guys who can play first base, so I cut the 35 year old and move on to second base and so on and so forth.

I get to the pitchers and sort guys by that endurance method again, but this is where it gets tricky. Washburn and Carlos Silva do not deserve to be in any rotation, but Washburn is owed $10M and Silva $34M. I'm $33M under budget, but don't know if there are any free agents I want to sign yet. They sit in Triple-A for now as my 6th and 7th SPs. All of this gets me down to 42 players in Triple-A.

With 16 guys in the bigs, I've got some holes to fill. Nobody stands out as my new 4th and 5th SPs. Since I don't plan on competing this year, I call up Carlos Silva's contract, which is sadly followed by Carlos Silva himself. I value utility men who play multiple positions, so I carry seven relievers and only have two guaranteed spots on the active roster. I scrounge together five arms for the bigs and I cut a few of the weaker guys to get down to eight relievers in Triple-A.

Ah, screw it. I'm cutting Jarrod Washburn.

Now for the position players.

My first decision is to make Griffey Jr. my DH as there really isn't anyone else who fits the job well. One of the five outfielders in Triple-A has slightly better ratings then the others, so he is my 4th big league outfielder.

Yuniesky Betancourt is the real Mariners' shortstop, but his defense isn't good enough for me to tolerate his .305 career OBP. Luckily I have Ronny Cedeno in Triple-A and he should be better. I right-click on Betancourt and do Trade Options > Shop Player Around (this is the only way I initiate trades in the game). Nobody is dumb enough to take him off my hands, so I now have a $9M backup shortstop who can't play any other positions and only have one roster spot left. Down to Triple-A he goes! Morse and Woodward are called up to be my utility infielders and that is my new active roster. That gives me 32 players in Triple-A, but that is ok with me.

The 40 in Double-A is a little more worrying and I manage to get that down to 33 with some more work.

My initial rosters are finished. Time to go to the Front Office screen and then the Salary Report page, one of my favorite reports in the game. With Washburn gone, my payroll is down to $80M. Six veterans come off the books after this season, dropping my payroll to an estimated $46.7M next year. Do any of those veterans get paid a lot more than the production they will provide? Miguel Batista is getting $9M at age 37. I Shop Player Around for him, but get no bites. I decide to cut him, leaving me with almost $74M in payroll. That brings my total expenses this season to $100M if my payroll stays the same thanks to eating Washburn and Batista's contracts. He was on the DL, so no roster shuffling needs to happen.

Do any of those veterans require me to give them an extension right away? I see what Adrian Beltre wants to stay, but he is asking for $20M a year for four years. I'll let him walk after the season. Erik Bedard is requesting a more reasonable $12M per for three years, but he tends to get hurt so I will wait and see what he does this season. I don't have any pitching prospects I like, so he may be needed again. My backup catcher can be let walk after this season, I don't even need to look at his demands. Endy Chavez, my CFer, wants $3M a year for three years. I was planning on making him my fourth outfielder next year but not at that price. The last free agent is going to be Russell Branyan, my first baseman, who will strike out once a game and hit lots of homers. He is asking for almost $20M over two years. No thanks.

Since I'm already spending $100M this year barring any mid-season trades, I head out to the Free Agents screen and start trolling for guys I can offer minor league contracts to. Versatile utility guys are my focus, though you can sometimes find marginal prospects. I put out seven contract offers for minor league deals (since they don't cost me any money). Finally I finish the day.

I go to the sim/league schedule screen auto-play until Spring Training, which really stops me on 1/5 when I get responses to my contract offers. Everybody else signs those minor leagues with me on 1/6. Triple-A now has 39 guys in it, but I leave it alone and continue simming until Spring Training. Trades and FA signings are made by the other teams.

3/1, the beginning of Spring Training, gets here. I go back to the Minor League Report and shuffle all of the 'Ready For...' guys again. With ST beginning, this is when I start setting all of my minor league lineups and pitching staffs. For the levels below Double-A I just have the AI auto-set all of the lineups and staffs, with me tweaking it afterward if I want guys to learn new positions or something. When I get to Double-A I first winnow out players again, dropping from 18 position players and 8 pitchers to 16 and 6, respectively.

Since this is Spring Training, I've set the game to allow me to expand my active roster to 30 players. I call up three pitchers, a first baseman and a utility player. In Triple-A I start with 25 position players. Most of the guys are merely utility players that I keep in case of big league emergencies. I let them all stay, making sure that the two or three actual prospects are starting when the AI sets the depth and lineups. I have 16 pitchers, but just do the same thing.

The only thing left to do here is to set my big league roster. Starting with the pitching staff, I ask the AI to set it up just to see what it would do. Then I clear the whole staff and put it together myself. I don't add in the three MRs I called up for Spring Training, I just let them sit without official roles as the AI will use them anyways during ST.

Being an AL team, most of my games will be played vs RHP with the DH, so I set that depth chart first by hand. Then LHP w/ DH and then the non-DH charts. After that I ask the AI to set up all the lineups. I don't clear the lineups, but I do shuffle them around to what I prefer.

I'd go into more detail on how I set my lineups and depth charts, but I just don't feel like it right now.

[goodelgin]

Thank you both so much for your posts - they are really helpful. Off to put them into practice!

Thanks again