Quote:
Originally Posted by renojedi
I only play as an expansion team so here is how I have done if for several years:
Number of protected players: 18
In the last real expansion draft (1997), it was 15 for the first round, 18 for the second round, and 21 for the third round. I just took the average. Like you said, MLB probably learned from the NHL and may drop that number but I think 18 gives you a fair challenge.
Auto Protect Players with less than X years of pro service: 2
I dropped it from 3 to 2 since the real world expansion teams did (and will) get to be part of the amateur draft before the expansion draft. Since OOTP doesn't let you do that I think this is a fair compromise.
Limit number of picks from a single team: 3
This matches the last real world expansion draft.
I never fill the team with fictional players or coaches. I go get them from the available staff and FA list. Even if some of them are fictional, I still want some control over who I have on my teams.
Also, I always edit the minor league team locations to make them more plausible and I add a DSL team.
One final thing I do...I all up add the team budgets of the division I am in and then make the expansion team the average of those budgets. A lot of times, the expansion team's budget are at or near the bottom of their division by default. If this were real life and MLB expands they will want stable ownership that will build a winning team, not be a door mat. This keeps it fair...a new team in Nashville, Charlotte, or Portland won't be LA or NY but no way will they be the Marlins or Royals either.
This has always given me a decent challenge and the players I get aren't too outlandish...last year my top picks were Andreton Simmons, Maurico Dubon, Joey Lucchesi, Dominic Smith, Wilmer Flores, and Kenta Maeda. I think the youngest guys I got were Gabriel Arias and Andres Munoz but only about 5 were 21-24. This way my farm teams weren't a bunch of 1-2 star potential guys which is nice to build on for the future. Again, didn't feel like a stacked team by any means.
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Always like to see how others play. You must have a pretty decent team out of the box with that set up. Obviously, more realistic than the way I play, but can't help to think you'll get to .500 and beyond a lot faster this way. Hopefully, it's still a good challenge for you though.