My F2P team is notable for starting late. It didn't hurt me though because I made PeL in my 10th season. Had I started on time and done nothing except collect twitch drops and login rewards I would have been even further ahead.
On the other hand, chasing PeL so early led me to overpay on intermediary cards. Over 2 million points wasted on my current team compared to L10 prices. 525K wasted on Gehrig alone which was compounded by me locking it for a few diamond packs!!
I was unfortunate to miss playoffs in 2041 because I was in the strongest gold division you'd ever want to see. How often are you 88-74 and finish FOURTH? Otherwise, I very rarely miss the playoffs. Oddly in 2056, I tied for the top relegation spot, but won on tiebreaks to hang in there.
Overall, I am extremely pleased with PT23 and I hope the dev team doesn't try to crush 24/7 F2P diehards in PT24.