Starting League?

[govinox]

Hello everyone,

My interest in baseball started last October when John Henry bought over my favourite football (soccer) club Liverpool FC. I also heard that he owned the Boston Red Sox and thus it intrigued me and I started following them and the MLB in general. Before I knew it I was tearing my hair off after the recent Red Sox September collapse.

Anyways, being a great fan of the Football Manager series I bought OOTP hoping that I would be able to leave out my baseball fantasies and learn about the MLB at the same time. Right now though, I am feeling just like what I felt when I got my first edition of Football Manager , utterly confused and lost.

I have browsed around the forums and some suggest that I start of with a small league. Would the ABA quickstart be a good starting point ? I have started a game and took charge of the Golden Gaters, but then got stumped when it came to the inaugural draft. So where do I go from now?

I hope some of you guys here could give me some suggestions on where to start. Thank you

[OutS|der]

since your following the mlb now i'd start with the mlb quickstart. I'd suggest using the great Cubbyfans rosters located on this site, just unzip them to your saved game folders and load the league like you would any other saved game. It may not include the latest draft class but it's an updated mlb quickstart with new rattings and player moves and such. Also read the OOTP 11 manual for alot of help setting up the game. It may be scary at first but you will get the hang of it soon enough.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/documentation/ootp11/
Link to manual

[govinox]

I think I will go with your suggestion outsider. Looking at the stats and ability ratings of known quality MLB players will give me a better feel of the standards.

Another question. What do you guys have the manager settings as? Currently I allow the rooster selection and promotion within minor leagues to my minor league managers. Is that a good idea?

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

It might be a good idea to leave the manager settings like that while you concentrate on understanding the interface, managing your roster and line-up at the MLB level, etc. I personally let my minor league managers set line-ups/depth charts/pitching, but I control everything else.

[OutS|der]

play around with that, try changing things to see how they work. always remember to back up as chnages are saved directly to the game, the game saves the its self when you close unlike FM so be aware of that to. Otherwise have fun and good luck

[govinox]

Alright! Cheers guys.

Another thing, do you guys play out the games or just auto simulate it? I played out the first game of the season and my word it takes ages. Dont know if I could do it for the entire season. Even the one-pitch setting takes a very long time. I mean I probably would play the games occasionally but not everyone of them. Is there any distinct advantage in controlling the team or is it alright to just let the team manager control the game?

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

It just boils down to personal preference.

Some people play out every game, some people only sim. Try a mix of both and see what you enjoy. If you sim, you'll probably find moments where the computer manager does something you didn't like, in which case you'll want to tinker with the team strategy settings and/or player strategy settings. Some people still find that a little frustrating so, for example, they'll sim their games through the sixth inning and then take over for the rest of the game so they can make the important pitching substitution/pinch hitting decisions. I started by playing every game but realized I didn't have the time to get through as many games as I wanted. So now I typically play out the first game of each series but sim the rest.

You can also choose a more abbreviated play-by-play style (found in the opening screen when you first select to play that day's game) to make the games go faster.