Rebuilding Bad Teams
 

I'm getting frustrated because I am trying to rebuild the Astros, and just with no success. I played for seasons and never even got near .500, I finally got fed up after going 10-40.

I've traded for young players, staying undernearth the cap, got some good rookies, but nothing seems to really get better. How do you get better!!!! It's maddening

Build your Starting Rotation. Find the best 2 or 3 young SP in the game and give everything you've got to get them. In the draft, look for a SP first. The SP must have at least 3 pitches with high potential (green) and good enough stamina (yellow).

When building your field players, start with a catcher who can actually play catcher (green for ability, yellow for throwing).

Then look for either a SS or a CF. These guys have to be able to play defense, so sacrificing their hitting is ok. The best SS and CF to look for have high (green) potential for contact, gap, eye, and avoid K. They can have little to no power. Their fielding ratings need to be in excellent (blue). The exception is your CF can have a weak (yellow) arm, but needs to have exceptional range and error. SS can skimp on the arm a bit (needs to be at least green) but the other 3 need to be exceptional (blue).

One trick you can do is look for an average fielding CF who has the potential to move to LF once you find a dominant CF and an average fielding SS who can move to 3B (strong arm) or 2B (weak arm, strong double play & range) once you find a dominant SS.

Also, one of your guys needs to be a lead off hitter, which is easiest to find with the SS and CF positions. A lead off hitter is exceptionally fast & an exceptional base runner (blue) with good (green) contact, gap, & avoid K.

From there you need to work your way outwards depending on what's available.

Sometimes you can build your entire outfield first or your entire infield first, it just depends on what's available.

However, if you can build a dominant rotation and have a 2-3 potential SP in the hopper, you can trade your SP once they reach the end of arbitration for another SP prospect (always 4 1/2 to 5 star potential) and a few good fielding prospects.

EVERYTHING depends on your rotation.

I am not goint to say I found the secret, but this time around I have been doing a lot better.

I hadn't been using the sort looking at contact, power, speed, and then with pitchers movement, control etc.

I had been basically going on star ratings and you can't really do that at all! You have to do your research, and well I guess I was being lazy.

Without really knowing it I followed your directions, looking for two pitchers with high stanima and great control, and basically got them for cheap. Then I went into the trade pool, and basically looked at what I needed. For example I needed a true number one starter who I could acquire, and so I went down looking for who I could trade for, and found Matt Garza.

Did the same thing with the hitters that I needed, not really grabbing the best players, but what fit in my lineup, example Power, Contact or steal. I looked at what I had, and what i needed, and I traded for some power etc.

In the first year I signed Roy Oswalt and then picked up Erik Bedard later in the ring, and I think I signed one more guy, but they all earned my 1st Round picks at the end of the season, giving me 4 first round picks the next year, which was only three, because I signed a Type A in the offseason.

Right now, and this is for the first time since I purchased this game in April I am over .500 in my second year, I just can't beat the Texas Rangers to save my life. I don't know if this is the true answer yet, but I am seeing results, and I need to figure something out with the minor league system, because I have some talent in there that needs to be used.

NOW I need to figure out though how to develop rookies, and use them to their potential

One thing I really like about this game, and this isn't like the other games, is that the best players do not make it to free agency.


I had a young pitcher that wanted 11 million in Arbitration, so I traded him to have more money in the free agent market, with the Astros it's slash slash slash budget. I figured I could get someone in free agency, well anyone worth their weight in salt decided to stay on their team. I really like that in past games everyone would hit the Free Agent market

Glad I could help dude!

I do pay attention to the star ratings, but only as a starting point. From there I just go down the list of players and look at each individual attribute and then determine who to go after.

I rebuilt the A's using the above formula going after pitching. If you start with the team's default roster, remember to take a look at the farm system. I had a couple of excellent SPs that went on to win Cy Young awards back to back. And don't be afraid to off load some large contracts in exchange for some excellent prospects.

I remember in one game I started as the 2012 Cardinals. At the trade deadline, I was sitting 15 games out and decided to trade Lance Berkman who was having another monster year to the Rangers for a prospect named Jordan Atkins who was at a half star overall but had a 5 star potential with excellent potentials in all the right stats. Needless to say the Rangers used Berkman to finally win the series and then Berkman hit FA and landed with the Jays for 2 months before he retired due to running out of steam and injury.

However Atkins became my starting RF in 2013 and became our most valuable player leading our team to 4 consecutive World Series appearances winning it all in 2014 and 2015.

Take chances man. That's the fun of it!!

Nice Job!

Yeah, I want to know how to develop rookies too, if you should leave them in the minors, or promote them to the majors and send an overpaid-no-good veteran down.