Best team to rebuild in modern years 2005+

[pschneid546]

im a rebuilding guy, i like building through minors and watch my prospects grow into stars. I want to stay in this era and it seems to be getting boring rebuilding the same couple teams in the year 2010. Anyone have a team from 2005-2009 to start with that has a bad team, with SOME prospects?

And if i start before 2010, are all the managers fake, and minor league teams not real?

And how do you make the stars that comeout in the draft, not MLB ready when they are 19, i want to have a guy like Prince Fielder work his way to the majors instead of a 5 star player right away.

[Chicagofan76]

You could always try to win a World Series with the Cubs, Don Zimmer, Dusty Baker, Don Baylor & Senile Lou cant do it, can you?


but my 1st choice of a team to start with 2005+ would be Pittsburgh 18 consecutive losing seasons including 2010.

[fintach]

You could try adding an expansion team and managing it. That could give you a challenge in building a winner.

I was musing yesterday that the AL West alone has only four teams, and that it might be interesting to add a fifth and see what I can do with it.

Not anytime soon, though, because I just started a fictional league.

[Chicagofan76]

Originally Posted by fintach

You could try adding an expansion team and managing it. That could give you a challenge in building a winner.

I was musing yesterday that the AL West alone has only four teams, and that it might be interesting to add a fifth and see what I can do with it.

Not anytime soon, though, because I just started a fictional league.

how would that affect schedule? i know mlb cant do 15 teams in each league or in your case 15 just in AL because then a team would have to be off atleast once a week or something like that?

in my new MAL league i was thinking about moving the Pirates to the AL central and Kansas City to the AL west to have 15 per league, dont know how it will work though

[conception]

Back in the day, the popular challenge was to take the Rays, a recent expansion team who hadn't tasted any success, and try to make them competitive. That challenge was spoiled when the Rays miraculously turned into one of the best teams in the AL and made in to the WS in 2008. But if you're gonna go back a couple years, I would think the fact that they turned things around so dramatically would provide a fun challenge if you take over one of their squads a couple years before that. Can you pull off the trade that seems to let everything fall into place, like the Delmon Young & parts for Bartlett & Garza? I can't think of a more fun rebuilding challenge.

[MattT516]

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

You could always try to win a World Series with the Cubs, Don Zimmer, Dusty Baker, Don Baylor & Senile Lou cant do it, can you?


but my 1st choice of a team to start with 2005+ would be Pittsburgh 18 consecutive losing seasons including 2010.

I was surprised at how easy it was to turn around Pittsburgh. I'm in 2012 with a pretty competitive team. I won 89 games and blew the Wild Card in the last game of the season in 2011. My lineup is led by Andrew McCutchen, Gordon Beckham and Chris Davis. Pitching staff is led by Yovani Gallardo, Gavin Floyd, and Josh Beckett.

They have a decent amount of young talent on that team - you just can't depend on Zach Duke and Paul Maholm. Those guys are making way too much money for what they're capable of.

For a challenge, how about going a few more years back and trying to build up the Bonderman-Mike Maroth Tigers?

[conception]

Originally Posted by MattT516

I was surprised at how easy it was to turn around Pittsburgh. I'm in 2012 with a pretty competitive team. I won 89 games and blew the Wild Card in the last game of the season in 2011. My lineup is led by Andrew McCutchen, Gordon Beckham and Chris Davis. Pitching staff is led by Yovani Gallardo, Gavin Floyd, and Josh Beckett.

They have a decent amount of young talent on that team - you just can't depend on Zach Duke and Paul Maholm. Those guys are making way too much money for what they're capable of.

For a challenge, how about going a few more years back and trying to build up the Bonderman-Mike Maroth Tigers?

I'd say the fun thing with the Rays is that they have talented guys to build around like Upton, Young, & Kazmir.

[Tram2Whitaker]

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

how would that affect schedule? i know mlb cant do 15 teams in each league or in your case 15 just in AL because then a team would have to be off atleast once a week or something like that?

in my new MAL league i was thinking about moving the Pirates to the AL central and Kansas City to the AL west to have 15 per league, dont know how it will work though

OOTP will not allow an odd number of teams per league. You get an error message. However, in real life it'd actually be better for MLB if they did it this way. Having 15 teams that each play 15 interleague games in 5- 3 game series, would give you an interleague game every day during the season (rather than everyone playing all their interleague games at once 3 games in may, and then 2 weeks in june). Small market teams sell a larger amount of tickets during interleague (I mean this doesn't matter when you're the Yankees or Red Sox). Neither the Rays, nor the Marlins sell out all that often, but when the two meet (Citrus series), sell out city.

As for a team that can be taken over in 05: Tampa Bay, Detroit, and Florida are prime candidates. The A's can be taken in any era. If you're looking for a challenge, you could take the Nationals, Brewers, or Pirates.

Teams to stay away from would include the Jays and Orioles, unless you really want to prove you've got cajones!

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by Tram2Whitaker

OOTP will not allow an odd number of teams per league. You get an error message.

Actually it will but you have to edit league structure after the league is created. It will not however build a schedule for a sub league with odd numbered teams you have to have a custom schedule for that. For instance you can recreate last year's AZL or this year's GCL using edit league structure but you have to load their schedules because the game will not create a schedule for them.

[GMLoophole]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

Actually it will but you have to edit league structure after the league is created. It will not however build a schedule for a sub league with odd numbered teams you have to have a custom schedule for that. For instance you can recreate last year's AZL or this year's GCL using edit league structure but you have to load their schedules because the game will not create a schedule for them.

Because I had a hard time scheduling around an expansion draft I just went ahead in 2010 with 15 teams per league, one 8-team division and one 7-team division. Not a problem, at least for ML.

[GMLoophole]

The SF Giants from the ML 2007 quickstart in OOTP 8 were pretty bad. If you like trying to unload bad contracts, that's the team for you. Plus the prospects now are better... Lincecum, Sandoval, Posey, Bumgarner were either not very good or not in that roster set, so you will have more to look forward to in this game.

[canadiancreed]

Montreal maybe? Pissed off populace, horrid budget and a white elephant of a stadium would make things a challange.

[bwburke94]

2005+ means no Expos. Though the Natinals (typo intended) are a good rebuild.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by GMLoophole

The SF Giants from the ML 2007 quickstart in OOTP 8 were pretty bad. If you like trying to unload bad contracts, that's the team for you. Plus the prospects now are better... Lincecum, Sandoval, Posey, Bumgarner were either not very good or not in that roster set, so you will have more to look forward to in this game.

2010 Astros might be a similar proposition or even 2009. Some old guys who are declining and taking up a huge chunk of payroll. They have some promising guys in the lower minors with a prospect or 2 almost ready.

[fintach]

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

how would that affect schedule? i know mlb cant do 15 teams in each league or in your case 15 just in AL because then a team would have to be off atleast once a week or something like that?

in my new MAL league i was thinking about moving the Pirates to the AL central and Kansas City to the AL west to have 15 per league, dont know how it will work though

Hmmm . . . hadn't thought about it far enough to worry about that . . . I'd probably make it two expansion teams then, put one of them in the NL and move one team from the NL to the AL. That way both leagues would still have an even number, I'd control the only expansion team in my league, and I'd have to run an AL team for a change (I've always preferred the NL).

[Chicagofan76]

Originally Posted by fintach

Hmmm . . . hadn't thought about it far enough to worry about that . . . I'd probably make it two expansion teams then, put one of them in the NL and move one team from the NL to the AL. That way both leagues would still have an even number, I'd control the only expansion team in my league, and I'd have to run an AL team for a change (I've always preferred the NL).

I prefer AL with no DH des[ite the fact my all time fav player was mostly a career DH (see player pictured left)