[Donners]

I started playing OOtP 14 recently, with little previous experience with the series (or indeed the sport). After ~18 hours of play time I've managed to get across the basics of the game, but there's a few things which seem to be eluding me.


I'd appreciate some assistance with these issues from people more familiar with the game/sport than I.


Thanks in advance!


1) Contract demands confuse me greatly. For instance, I traded for a 36-year-old 2B who was on $1.7M per season (mostly to get rid of my useless SP who was on $10M). The 2B performed well (batting .333), despite a single-star ability rating, so I looked to re-sign him for another year. His demand was $18M a year for 6 years. I didn't dare test out how low he'd go, but it was certainly way above what I was expecting.


Is this a situation where I should just assume the ability rating is way off and he is a great player, or is this just a ridiculous ambit claim?


In general, should I avoid long, expensive contracts for players aged 30+ (particularly noting the point below)? I tend to trade off people as soon as their performances drop - I just got rid of Jose Reyas, on $22M a season and batting .270, for a decent pitcher. The fans are upset, but it strikes me as being the best thing for the team. (at least I thought he was a decent pitcher - his rating just dropped from 2.5 to 0.5 stars. Huh???)



2) I've had player abilities drop drastically, such as from four stars to one in a season, often leaving me saddled with an overpriced player for years. Is this likely to be a sudden decline in skills rather than a scouting error for an established player?



3) I use the AI to set lineups and pitching staff, and lately they've been picking MRs as starters, and leaving SPs as mid-relievers, even when the MRs have stamina of ~9 and the overlooked starters are 13+.


Is this because the MRs are simply better than the SPs?


Should I just change the MRs to the SP role?



4) Is there any way to see which of your team's players were on All-Star teams? I went through the League Awards and Team History screens and couldn't find it. I know I can go through individual player histories, but I wanted to be able to quickly see which of my team's players had been All-Stars.



5) I get the AI to set lineups, depth charts and pitching staff. Does it make common errors which I should look out for and manually correct?



6) After the first couple of rounds of the draft, almost all players seem to have single-star potential. Is it worth manually choosing players from there, or is it better to just let the AI finish it? If the former, what should I be looking for?




7) Can the AI be trusted to re-sign staff at minor league teams? They seem to let a lot go but they replace them, so I'm not sure if they're trying to improve things or are just bad at re-signing.