Expansion team
 

How does one go about selecting the 1961 Washington Senators players from the player pool? I would like to select my own players and see if I can better them than in RL? Thanks for any advice

Must have posted this in the wrong forum, my Bad, will try to figure it out, if not I have other projects to do

You will actually need to start your game in 1960, simulate the 1960 season, and then take over as the manager of the 1961 Senators during the off-season and before the expansion draft takes place.

Otherwise, if you start in 1961, OOTP will use the 1961 rosters, which are based on the expansion draft already taking place.

Also, I'm assuming that you won't be using free agency. If you are, though, be very careful not to draft any players who are unprotected but are on expiring contracts. Otherwise they will become free agents and can leave your team even though you drafted them.

Thanks for the info, I tried that but must have missed the day, as when I took over, the Senators were already drafted, now I suppose I could sim 61 abd take over the Mets before the expansion draft and see if I can win more than 40 games. The endless possibilities. Thanks again for your insight, it is appreciated.

I was tempted to start a new thread but I think this one may have answered my question, which was: are expansion teams introduced automatically at the correct point in time?

So, for example, I want to start a league beginning with an early-80's season. Will alignment and expansion (Rockies, Marlins) occur automatically at the proper time? I see there's a check box that suggest that's the case, but honestly, it's been so many years since I've last played that I forget how some of this stuff works. I'd rather not get a few seasons in and realize it isn't what I expected.

Yes, re-alignment and expansion occur at the proper times historically, though I've had a continuing problem with the number of protected players for each team, which no one has been able to resolve. I set it at 25 and the AI only protects 15 on each team. It may have something to do with the auto-protect based on years of service, but I don't understand it so far.

I was a bit worried about that. I suppose the same problem exists if you turn auto expansion/realignment off and just do it manually?

Canaveral only gave you a partial answer.

Re-alignment, expansion, etc will occur provided you enable the option in your league setup.

Right. Is that an option that I could turn off later? Say, once my league caught up to present day, I could then manually expand and realign as I wanted to? In my limited time so far, I've noticed that some league settings can be randomly changed (i.e. the 40-man roster can become a 42-man roster) by the CPU.

Also, do stadium changes occur as they did in real life?

Yes although you will have to manually load the stadium picture. Not entirely sure how it works when teams played in 2 stadiums in one season ala 1999? Seattle Mariners who didn't move into SAFECO until June time frame (Not and M's fan) I had thought it listed both stadiums. with dimensions and factors of Kingdome.