[Hooray Saturday]

sure. (or at least I think so! i'm definitely encountering some trial and error)

start a new historical game.

pick a year you want to start. I'll go with 1921 for this example.

deselect "import complete history up to 1921" that way you have no history.

select "career mode"

step 2 "import real Negro Leagues and Minor Leagues" if you want that amount of realism. you could also use fictional minor leagues or no minor leagues depending on your preference. but i'll go with "import real" assuming you want full historical realism just with fictional players.

leave everything else on Step 2 as it is.

step 3, whatever your preferences are, i'm just going with default here.

step 4, name your game, select your role, your trading preferences, your name, select "play in commssioner mode" and "cannot be fired" so you'll have full control over your baseball world.

now click on "Advanced Mode" and select "yes"

you can adjust any settings to your taste here.


league/teams/rules/financials/options are all unimportant and can be left as they are. if you want to hold a draft you can do that later.

players tab, you may want to generate some international amateur free agents since you'll be going full fictional. same for international discoveries. as well as generate established international free agents and free agents from independent leagues if you like. none of this is necessary.

select "automatically import historical player-creation modifiers" so that your fictional players will play like the era they are in. or not, if you don't want that.

on the Historical tab uncheck "automatically import historical rookies"

the Stats & AI tab can be left alone if you want the league to play out similar to history just with fake players.

ok, now you are ready to "Start Game"

pick a team or remain unemployed.

once the league has been created, go to Game->Game Settings

click to the League Settings tab.

hit "Clear Rosters"

do this for all leagues.

go to the Transactions-Free Agents tab. Under Actions select Delete Free Agents.

go back to Game Settings -> League Settings

press "Fill Teams With Fictional Players"

do this for all leagues.

go to the "Rules" tab. Uncheck "Disable automatic creation of free agents and fictional draft class"

select how many rounds of the draft you want to have. this is according to taste, and how deep your minor league system is. i'm gonna go with 15 rounds for now, I'm really not sure what the best setting for this is, I guess it depends on what year you are starting out with. Someone smarter than me should weigh in on this. 15 might be too many for 1921. Or not enough. Anyhow if you ever get a bunch of new teams and are short of players you can always fill those teams with fictional players. You'll need to adjust the rounds and number of players created every year. I do it at the start of the preseason. (double check this setting the day before the draft pool is created. if it somehow reverts to the historical default, the game will generate tens of thousands of players for the draft. this is probably not a good thing).


Now all of the teams in all of your leagues are populated with fictional players, and you will have a fictional draft class every year as well as fictional international discoveries and free agents.

You can now proceed through history with the teams, rules, expansions, and so on updating each year according to history, with fictional players.

now, if you wish to have a draft you can press "schedule fantasy draft" or you can release all players and press "schedule free agent draft".

I've simmed a few years, and everything seems to be working as it should.

upon further review, it seems like a couple of real life players managed to sneak in somehow. I'm not sure where they might have come from. further tweaking appears to be necessary, but this seems like it should work! I like the idea so i'm going to keep messing with it.