Well here's what I've found out so far in "tinkering" with the settings for solo play.
Test 1 - Ratings Weight - 60, Current - 25, Previous - 10, 2 years ago - 5
Trade Freq - Low, Difficulty - Hard, Preference - Favors Prospects, No Ratings, No Stars, No Coaches/Scouts
Team: Pirates
Trade Freq - Low, Difficulty - Hard, Preference - Favors Prospects
I'm not interested right now in trading, just want to see how the AI does.
Season 1 - 41 Trades on or before deadline, 3 within same division.
Things were going along pretty well, no lopsided trades, nothing monumental into July. I also offered Ryan Doumit up for giggles and only got an offer from the Dodgers for James McDonald.
Then on July 26th the Phillies and Ruben Amaro went wacky. They traded Roy Halladay and Leandro Castro to the Nationals, for Adam Dunn and Michael Burgess.
And then on the 28th, they traded Ryan Howard and Domingo Santana to Oakland for AAA SP Chad Gaudin.
OK, back to the drawing board
Test 2 - Ratings Weight - 50, Current - 35, Prev - 10, 2 years ago - 5
Trade Freq - Low, Difficulty - Hard, Preference - Favors Prospects
42 total trades on or before deadline, and several lopsided ones
Orioles get Brandon Webb in exchange for Mychael Glynn(Rookie League) Webb was struggling, but was still rated high by the OSA scouts. There were several others, but it's time to move on.
Test 3- So far so good here
Ratings Weight - 45, Current - 40, Prev - 10, 2 years ago - 5
Trade Freq - Low, Difficulty - Hard,
Preference - Neutral
Season 1 - 40 trades on or before deadline, only 2 inter-division (Marlins/Mets, Marlins/Nats)
No lopsided trades, but no blockbusters either, which is fine with me.
I did have two offers that were started by the AI, not me.
Giants wanted Ryan Church and Gorkys Hernandez and were willing to give up SP Matt Graham in A ball. I of course passed.
Marlins wanted Church too and wanted to give me that stud Hector Luna lol He was in AAA. No thanks, but this is great! No fleecing!!!
About the only notable trade was Seattle getting Dan Uggla from the Marlins for
Franklin Gutierrez and Bryan Peterson. Uggla happened to be struggling this season.
Season 2 - Decided to stick with this setup.
35 Trades, only 2 inter-division(Marlins/Braves), (Phillies/Nats) Both minor deals.
Once again, no lopsided or really blockbuster trades.
Tampa Bay did trade Derrick Lee to the Mets for MR Sean Green, but not a big deal.
I decided to jump into the trade arena, so just for kicks "shopped" my #1 pick from 2010, CF Bill Lowry. The Cubs were intersted, and offered their former 2008 #1 pick, Ryan Flaherty. Had a decent season in AA, but in AAA only hit .192 in 198 at bats. They also offered Marlon Byrd, no thanks.
Giants had the best offer of players - Brent Clevlen, 1B Thomas Neal, who swung the bat well at AA, and 1B Travis Ishikawa, who hit .278, with 26 HR's and 101 RBI. Didn't get into the trading piece with the Giants, as I wanted to hold onto my prospect, but was just curious as to what offers would be there.
I feel at this time, I will make a go of playing solo with my settings from "Test 3".
I will start a new game, and may take the Bucos again, or another team. But, at least for now, I feel that I've found some "decent" setttings, and may only have to slightly tweak them moving forward. I'm not taking the time to "analyze" each and every trade the AI makes, but just quickly looking over the trades, once again, nothing that I couldn't live with.
Just for the record, in real life(MLB), there were a total of "50 trades" on or before the deadline in 2009. Here's the site -
MLB Trades | MLB Trade Tracker | 2008 MLB Trade Deadline