I've found hard works decently well, although some moderately unrealistic trades still get through.

sign a bunch of FA and trade them, immediately or as early as you can... :p

speed up the process a bit each year and avoid actually paying the FA you sign, LoL.

they can't wreck that strategy no matter what they do without breaking the game.

based on other threads, they've made trading for high-end prospects more difficult than past years, so i'd test out 'normal' and adjust based on results that you want to see.

Have had 3 seasons of 100+ victories but have not yet advanced to the World Series, twice being eliminated in the NLDS once in the NLCS. My bullpen, best in every category in all three years, decided to melt down in the final two innings of winner take all games (Two Game 5's and one Game 7) each time. Once we had a 4 run lead in the bottom of the ninth of game 7 in the NLCS and my relievers blow the game. Those relievers were then banished from the team for the next season, only to have it happen again the next year with different relievers! I was so pissed.

This season, the team is weaker but still good, will have over 90 wins and should have the division again but there has been a lot of turnover with some big players moving on to free agency and the replacements haven't always been as good or better unfortunately. Feel like my window may be closing a bit and I'll look back on those bullpen miscues with even more regret if we don't get a championship soon.

can't control small sample outcomes... be happy you made a strong team. the rest is just luck. should be more forgiving of your RL hometown team too, becuase of this experience :p

the best team doesn't always win. in fact, the way the real mlb is set up, i bet the best team wins it all way less than 50% of the time. yet, that's what people weigh more heavily than rational logical though :p

I mainly play historical but was thinking of starting a modern day sim. Undecided on a team until I stumbled on this thread so decided to give the Marlins a go.

I am acting as GM only and decided to watch the opening day game. Don Mattingly and the boys built an 8-1 lead in the fifth inning over Colorado thanks to 4 homers and I thought "this is easy. We will breeze through the season."

Our bullpen sucks, especially since I traded Kickham and Steckenrider in a pair of deals, and we blew the game losing 9-8. It's going to be a long year.:crying:

i get it, it's part of the game. i kind of like that im not winning the world series each year. it will make the thrill of finally getting it more exciting, when i won the world series with the pirates in ootp 19 i felt so good. just to have the series won only to have the same exact thing happen three years in a row is crazy

Still finding this save so, so tough. Have to make moves almost every offseason to stay within budget as players make more through arbitration. Very tough to sustain any success I see, which is part of the challenge I love!

I'm doing a play by play of the Marlins at the moment.

Not off to a bad start (16-24), Starters ERA ranked 3rd, Urena has been unbelievable at 5-2 1.63 ERA.

Lineup has been decent but it feels like everything is starting to come back down to earth now 2nd month in. Traded for 2 pitchers who I believe can compete in the rotation with Sanchez in 2 years or so. Gotta smash that draft otherwise this will be a long way back..

Might start simming soon but so far I'm enjoying myself and I can properly micromanage the whole game. :)

Update from thread creator. 2026, about to hit the draft. We’ve made playoffs in 2 of the last 3 seasons, but still haven’t made it past the division series. Budget slowly improving, 28th in the league with two expansion teams (Montreal, Las Vegas). The roster is vastly improved from 2019, but always running into trouble retaining our top talent. Still chasing the dream of WS glory!

Hell yes! After getting swept in the 2028 NLDS by the Giants, I was pissed. But we had a good chunk of money to spend so I swung for the fences and snagged 35-year-old Francisco Lindor, who is still 80/80 (!!!) and I'm hoping for a huge turnaround in Miami. Keep making the playoffs but yet to make some noise!

So we've clinched a winning season...in July! This might be the best pitching team of all time, not to mention our lights out fielding. Marlins fans, have hope!

Question for you OP...in your team stats panel of your home screen (bottom row 2nd from left) you have a bunch more stats to look at than mine lists. How does one change the stats there?

I think that's new to OOTP 20....er I mean OOTP XX.

Yep, OOTP XX has a bunch of new ones!

I play OOTP XX and my team stats panel doesn't show WOBA, Batting WAR, etc. Though my panels for individual team leaders above it show a lot more categories lol. There must be a setting somewhere we don't know about.

How much has expansion played into this? looking at Montreal.

Don't think expansion factors that much in, this is the seventh year of Montreal's existence, and just seems to be the worst the team has ever been now, coincidentally.

Just finished the 2029 regular season two wins short of tying the record for the most wins of all time, going 114-48. It came at the cost of an injury setback for Lindor, who won't be back for 4-5 weeks and will likely miss the entirety of the playoffs...

Went up 2-0 in the NLDS and then choked away our lead to the Cubs. Wow.

Did the game expand automatically or did you manually do it?