Who will you start with?
 

What team are you pumped to begin a franchise With on the 23rd? Going to be student teaching that entire week. It’s going to be tough to not be on my Mets franchise 24/7. Who are your teams? Can’t wait to see Steve Cohen’s Mets in the palm of my hand!

I'm doing my homework still. Research vs just my perception to find the right mix of bad team, crappy farm, payroll, and division difficulty to narrow it down and then find a little spark of inspiration. I've narrowed it down to about 6 and am kind of leaning Rockies, but that's quite a job!

I'll usually start - then abort - 5 or 6 games with different teams during the first couple months after release.

It allows the developers to work out any kinks in the game and release patch updates, and it allows me to get familiar with the players around the league - and across the baseball spectrum - and how they're rated this year.

I also enjoy looking at each team's roster, payroll, finances, owner, etc. and putting a plan in action - even though I seldom see it through.

Ultimately, I'll do a Blue Jays "keeper" save and perhaps 2 or 3 others if I'm ambitious. Certainly a rebuilding team(s) will be in the mix.

I've been looking over the rosters at Roster Resource and I'm leaning toward starting with what I perceive as a potential middle of the road team, the Kansas City Royals.

I’ve never had a long running MLB save and am looking to do one in 22! Every time I try, I get sad that it’s not my Cardinals from MVP 2004 which made it to year 2024 before corrupting. I’ll definitely be importing my small fictional league, but for 22, I’ll either expand, automatically pick the team with the worst record, or create a player and let him run his career, taking over the team he retires with and playing as him. That’s a way to have my team randomly picked but with more immersion than a 1-30 random number generator.

Whenever I let myself pick, I can’t get very immersed and I always second guess/start over picking a new team (I think because deep down I wanna be my MVP04 Cards and can’t!). Hopefully taking that decision out of my hands will help me stick with it! I’m open to suggestions from y’all as well!

I'm an O's fan but I find my O's saves usually don't last long. My longest running save in 21 was a Phillies save.

I think for 22, depending on prospect ratings, maybe a D'Backs save. Their outfielders should be something fun to build around.

I will inevitably start an O's save though. Maybe this is the year I go deep with them.

Cubs.

Well 21 is my first version and I love it. With the pandemic and health issues keeping me at bay, this game was spot on what I needed.
I tend to move from team to team. Sometimes I revert to the default 2020 season. In my current save I started with the Angels and had modest success. Well...the owner died and the new owner ,his son, is a penny pincher. He slashed my scouting budget and I wasn't happy so I hit the road. I am now in year 3 as the Brewer's GM and manager. I have them 30 games over .500 late in July. I may want to send this league to 22. Somehow all of my pitching and hitting rankings are all top 5 in the NL. One thing I don't like is when I left the Angels I was getting offers from teams in the playoffs. Dodgers offered me the job. They went on to win the World Series and their manager was named manager of the year. I never would take Yanks,Dodgers,Cubs, Astos. I like starting with a poor minor league system and upgrading it. However... with my recent success with the Brew Crew I have made trades that include some good prospects. I'd like to get near the W.S. before 22 comes out,
Be well.....Bob

I thought I was set on running with Cleveland. I love their farm system and the challenge of dealing with a tight budget, but it seems to me to be less of a rebuild, especially with such a top-of-the-line farm system. I may still play as them at some point, but I believe I have changed my mind.

I now think I will start with the Colorado Rockies. Probably the worst run team in baseball, and in the running for worst-run team in all of American sports. They have to deal with both the wild card of playing in Colorado and with two powerhouses in the division and a former powerhouse building itself back up in San Francsico and the D-Backs aren't slouches either. They have a poor farm system. There's a lot of room to make your imprint with a team like Coloardo this year, and it should be fairly difficult, so that's why I'll probably run with them.

Yes, the Rockies - for all the reasons you've stated - will be a challenge.

And there is still work to be done in Baltimore and Miami, given what I'm sure will be very tight financial restrictions and the overall quality of their divisions. Although, Miami appears to be turning the corner. They have some solid vets in the line up now and some good young pitching either in the bigs or on the doorstep.

I just love baseball in general and this is why I start (and often abort) so many saves. I enjoy trying to put a plan in place for any rebuilding team and like that challenge, but I also admire teams that go for it, like the Mets and Padres this past off-season, and others to a lesser extent.

I love the idea of using the Rockies. I see some talk about long running saves. I remember firing up Ootp 16? Maybe the year after the Mets played KC in the World Series? I forgot the version. Maybe 17. Anyway, I had that fireball five rotation and spent three years with the Mets. Got to be up 3-2 over TB in the World Series and lost the final two. Wound up moving on to Houston, where I spent three more years there. I took it so serious. I had my laptop corrupted. Played last year but it wasn’t the same for me because I just couldn’t stop thinking of the Astros one I had. All the historical stats too. Ugh. I’ll probably start a rebuild one and a Mets one. I don’t know how I’m going to wait another nine days.

I will be starting with the 1980 Royals as I watch all my players of the 80s progress

It'll be the Battlin' Bucs! I wish I had more budget from my owner to work with!!

Good choice and good luck, gibby290.
I forgot about the Bucs. They are at the lowest point of any team right now.
That starting rotation is going to cause you some pain in the short term but, on the bright side, they do have some very talented prospects near the big leagues.

I am quite tempted to try Bucs but oh it’s gonna be painful.

Since the KBO is going to only have 2021 I'm going to start as the KT Wiz. Hopefully not knowing anyone will make it more fun

I'll probably start with the worst team in terms of a combination of terrible MLB talent and farm system. Building dynasties out of garbage teams is my favorite.

I will import my OOTP21 Rockies save. I GM/managed three seasons in this version. I narrowly missed the playoffs in 2020, made the playoffs in 2021, and lost a game 163 to miss out on the wildcard in 2022, but not before having an extremely poor start to the 2022 season. Our August and September runs really allowed us to force game 163 against the Phillies.

Throughout the save I made a plethora of changes to the team (have hard trade difficulty with favor prospects). I traded away Blackmon in 2020 to STL (they went on to win the WS that year) for Alex Reyes and Ryan Helsley. I acquired Betts in the 2020 off-season.

I parted ways with Arenado, Josh Naylor, Sam Hilliard, Garrett Hampson and Alex Reyes in May 2022 for Josiah Gray, Luis Rodrigues, RoY Gavin Lux, and Brusdar Graterol. LAD won the 2022 WS.

Also in 2022 I traded for Anthony Rendon and Yasmani Grandal in separate trades

My farm includes #9 3B Bob Velazquez (IFA), #17 2B Alvare De Freitas (IFA), #42 Pete Crow-Armstong (2020 FYPD), #45 Josiah Gray (Trade with LAD), #57 Graeme Stinson (Trade with TB), #61 Luis Rodriguez (Trade with LAD), #69 Drew Waters (ATL traded to TB, got from TB), #95 C Miguel Amaya (Trade from CHC, also got Brailyn Marquez in this trade), and #100 1B Triston Casas (Trade from BOS). It was the 2nd best farm but is now the 6th best farm going into the off-season.

In the majors I have Grandal (I’m paying 45%), Ryan McMahon, Lux, Rendon, Story, Andrew Benintendi (who’s going to FA), Brennen Davis, Betts.
My rotation is Cionel Perez, Touki Toussaint, Josiah Gray, German Marquez, and Brusdar Graterol. In the bullpen I have Ken Giles, Edwin Dias, Andres Muñoz and a very good Seth Lugo.


I also recreated my own version of the Arizona Fall League so now each WL team only encompasses 3 MLB teams (so it’s a 10 team league). And I also have my own version of the WBC. it’s 16 teams (since I have every league available loaded) to play every two years starting January 2021. 4 groups of 4. Play each team in your group 10 times for 30 games in a 40 day span. Top two in each group move on. USA went 30-0 in the group stages only to lose to eventual champs the DR in the semifinals.



Anyways sorry for the long-ish post but I really love this save and wanted to give everyone a small taste of it

Ill either start with Milwaukee like always, or sim the first season, take a job for a team with a GM vacancy, and start a "Future MLB" universe.

I am thinking of the Royals or Bucs. Since I am used to playing different teams from different years against each other it should be quite the challenge. :)

I'll pick a random historical season and run one team from each league. Other than that. Import my six saves.