I do have to say that generally speaking I find it's a good idea, when running fictional leagues, to start 20 years earlier than you intended, sim, and then delete the history. I've done this for past versions of the game going back years and years. I do have to say that I've eschewed that for this version and so far things are going okay, I guess - I'm into the 3rd year (1903, in fact!) in God Mode and a couple of draft picks have scurried onto teams thus far, with a few more in AAA waiting to be called up. By and large these are 1st and 2nd round picks (I can see this off-hand because I tend to give those people names
).