General Strategy

[VARoadstter]

Hi veteran OOTP guys. I'm not exactly new to the franchise but it's been a long time (like 6 or 7) and I've forgotten just about everything about the game except for setting lineups and pitching rotations. Here's how I've got things set up:

I am running a fictional league based on MLB with full minors. I have added college and high school feeder leagues to supply the new talent for each year's draft. I've run the simulation forward 20 years so that there is league history and the veterans have stats comparable to their years experience in the league.

I have hired on to GM the Mets. I've looked through the roster of my team in all levels of the system (which took quite a while as I haven't got the years of actual managerial experience to come by this knowledge organically). The prior regime seems to have done a reasonable job in putting players in the right places within my system (I may quibble a bit about whether the fifth starter in MLB should be in AAA or whatever).

Here's where the paralysis by analysis sets in. Being a GM is a lot of work but at the same time it's the part of the game that I'm most interested in. I'm not averse to hard work but I want to do it competently. Here's just a short list of tasks that need to be addressed as the newly installed GM:

• Review personel, hire and fire as I feel needs to be done (complete)
• Review rosters, all levels, to gain understanding of the talent on the team (complete)
• Determine the deficiencies and surplusses of talent (and acutal players within the system) (in progress)
• Review all player contracts
• Decide which player contracts to try to extend
• Adjust the 40 man roster
• Examine all the players (major and minor leagues) looking for those that I'd like to acquire

Now, to my eyes, it will take hours and hours of work doing all of this competently. For those of you who are veterans, could you describe your general approach to serving as GM? How much of the work do you delegate to others (allow the minor league managers to set lineups, etc) and how much of it do you regularly do yourself? How often do you revisit your minor leagues and promote/demote players? How radically do you overhaul your rosters year to year?

I appreciate any and all guidance on this.

-VAR

[SteveP]

I'm big on delegation -- IRL and in OOTP. I want to focus on the things that are most important to the outcome. For example, only about 10% of the players in the organization are important. I prefer to have someone else (the AI) worry about the rest.

[chimanbj]

Generally speaking, I delegate the lineups for the minors to the ML managers. Assuming I have competent managers at the various levels, they should be fine. Twice a year or so I look at the minor league system report to see what my scout's recommendation is for moving players around. I don't always listen to him, but I do review it completely. I promote if I get a news story about the player, and overall the player is good. If he's player of the week, but is still batting in the toilet overall (he got hot) then I don't move him. But if he's really lighting it up at his level, I move him up. This generally happens for the rookie league, but it can happen elsewhere as well. I also tend to shortlist the players that come up more than once in the news. That way I can follow their development more closely.
At the end of August, I review all personnel contracts and renew where appropriate. I take my time re-signing players unless they're a must-have, and then I sign them early. I set the ML lineups and rotation myself. They're my bread-and-butter! And I go through the minors once a month to make sure that players are getting time.

There is a lot to do as GM, but whenever I take over a team, I spend the first three years with the "cannot be fired" box checked. This will give me a chance to clear the bats out of the belfrey, so to speak.