Expansion Draft Thoughts

[pgjocki]

Does anyone else think it is odd that when you expand the expansion draft is the next day leaving no time to hire a manager or a scout putting the player at a disadvantage on day 1.

Maybe you can and I just don't know how but why is the draft the next day? Why isn't it set a month later or presented as an option to set the date?

[WIUPIKE]

When are you adding teams?

I play with expansion teams and expand once the post season ends and have plenty of time to hire a staff before the expansion draft.

[pgjocki]

I waited until January 1st and manually hit the expand league in settings and it scheduled the expansion draft on January 2nd.

I remember a few years ago the recommendation was to do the expansion the 1st after the game does a recalc.

[WIUPIKE]

I believe that was best practice for one of the first iterations that had expansion. I have done it for multiple versions on day one once the season ends. Expansion lists are due right after the Free Agents file and expansion draft is two days later.

Gets enough time to build a staff and participate in the expansion draft and rule 5 draft.

[venflaalachi]

I think now you should expand the league as soon as the offseason starts

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

I remember a few years ago the recommendation was to do the expansion the 1st after the game does a recalc.

Recalc happens in the process of moving to the off-season, not January 1st.

[Pelican]

In an ongoing sim, you should be able to schedule the expansion draft for the off-season. As Commissioner you can make sure (by manipulating the dates on the calendar) there is an orderly process of teams announcing their protected lists, expansion teams scouting, and then the draft.

When I chose expansion draft after the 2024 Season, starting a new sim, I had the same experience of the draft taking place one day after the start of the sim. That would have been fine, if only I could remain on January 1 and look at the team protected lists and the players eligible for the draft. But there was no scouting. I could not access the draft pool. I was dumped right into the draft, my first look at the player pool. No clock was running, which meant the draft took a long time, as I scouted players. Its not optimal.

I gave my two expansion teams healthy budgets - right in the middle range of the (highly skewed) MLB teams. They signed a number of high-profile free agents, outbidding established teams in some cases. With no long-term contracts, they had money to spend. The Buffalo Wild Wings signed Juan Soto!!

What I wish is that you could anticipate expansion by at least a year. Let the future expansion teams participate in the amateur draft. They could sign players and start farm clubs at the lowest levels, to begin the development process. As it is, there will be a big "donut hole" between the guys they acquire through the expansion draft (MLB or at least AAA level talent) and any free agent signings, and young guys from the amateur draft. Hard to fill out AA, high A, and low A teams.

[negroleagueenthusiast]

what settings does everyone use in terms of players per team protected from being drafted?

[Pelican]

Most recently I used a radical (low) twelve players per team, plus the default setting that players on the forty-man roster with less than three years MLB time were automatically protected. What this means is that really good teams with veteran players will have to expose some guys, and the draft pool will have some solid players.

You'll find a bunch of unprotected guys with huge contracts. Teams are hoping to shed that financial obligation. Or maybe hoping the guys are too pricey, so they get them back without having to protect them? Tempting to an expansion team, starting out with zero salary commitments. But these are generally overpaid guys with multi-year contracts.

I believe there is a setting to allow a team to protect an additional player for each one drafted. Or not. You can turn it off. I left it off, and some rosters (Atlanta) got positively raided.

What should happen, but does not, is that the better teams would work some multi-player deals to use their dozen protected spots more effectively. Like trading three guys for one guy. But every team has the same problem.

As you have probably guessed, the fewer players protected, the better your expansion teams will be. Mine are good, with a chance to make the playoffs. I like that result. I also like it that the best teams lost the most, which further promotes parity.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

Does anyone else think it is odd that when you expand the expansion draft is the next day leaving no time to hire a manager or a scout putting the player at a disadvantage on day 1.

Maybe you can and I just don't know how but why is the draft the next day? Why isn't it set a month later or presented as an option to set the date?

i think it is odd that you can't start a historical prior to expansion draft.
ie 1969 i want to play as expos, and do draft based on historical data up to the draft.
this still isn't possible
you have to SIM 1968 first.

When that feature is added, then i want to turn on TCA

[pgjocki]

Originally Posted by negroleagueenthusiast

what settings does everyone use in terms of players per team protected from being drafted?

I set it protect 15 players per team, unlimited picks from each team, and protect all players under 4 years of service time.

It led to having a lot of good players left unprotected to include some big time stars who have big contracts remaining.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Most recently I used a radical (low) twelve players per team, plus the default setting that players on the forty-man roster with less than three years MLB time were automatically protected.

...

As you have probably guessed, the fewer players protected, the better your expansion teams will be. Mine are good, with a chance to make the playoffs. I like that result.

You're right, 12 is pretty good! When I first read your post I thought, "12? No, that's not enough... 18, maybe 15", but I tried it and I liked it! Both teams ended up around .500 (although that could have easily been influenced by the divisions and imbalanced schedule I went with).

There were some pretty surprising players who got protected and left unprotected, but overall it allowed for 2 surprisingly decent teams and it didn't take too many good players from any team. Taylor Trammel went #1. Royce Lewis, Torkelson, and Durran all went early as well.

FWIW, I checked the last 2 times MLB expanded (1992, 1997) and they had teams protect 15 players (+ whatever minors). For some reason I thought it must have been more. Going from 15 to 12 really seems to make a significant and important difference. I could run another test, but my guess is expansion teams now with a 15 player draft might be better than the 2025 Rockies, but probably not by much more. And I wouldn't want that. I like the idea of setting them up to be middle of the pack and it's really up to them to see which way they end up going the next few years.

Originally Posted by Pelican

I believe there is a setting to allow a team to protect an additional player for each one drafted. Or not. You can turn it off. I left it off, and some rosters (Atlanta) got positively raided.

I looked for this option, but I didn't see it. I seem to remember thinking a long time ago it would be nice if this was an option so when I saw your post I thought, "oh, maybe it's been added since". MLB did have this in their last expansion (they got to protect an additional 3 players after losing one). OOTP does a pretty good job in my mind with expansion, but I'm surprised this feature isn't in there or at least isn't easily noticeable.

[NHSOXFAN]

How do you all handle the minor leagues for expansion teams? I remember reading on the forums that it is best to create the minor league teams one or two seasons prior to expansion or their minor leagues will be relatively sparse. Thoughts?

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by NHSOXFAN

How do you all handle the minor leagues for expansion teams? I remember reading on the forums that it is best to create the minor league teams one or two seasons prior to expansion or their minor leagues will be relatively sparse. Thoughts?

Part of this depends on how many rounds you set for the expansion draft, but I have enough trouble getting the balance right for stocking a major league team much less a AAA team too.

For simmers with multiple years' planning to work from, you can add unaffiliated minor teams a few years beforehand and they'll be ready to be swapped to the new overlords after expansion (and you can delete the auto-created teams).

For people like me that play games and therefore don't have as much advance planning to work with, you can cannibalize the independent leagues if you have them in your game. The United Shore/Empire State leagues are good for that, and the expansion teams can then operate as normal and will fill in with their own prospects over time. There are still quite a few teams with multiple DSL teams so you can re-assign a couple of those too if you like.

I'm a few versions behind but I think the real structural problems (i.e. continual "team X doesn't have enough players on the roster", weird unbalancing of divisions in minor leagues with auto-created teams) have been improved in recent versions.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by NHSOXFAN

How do you all handle the minor leagues for expansion teams? I remember reading on the forums that it is best to create the minor league teams one or two seasons prior to expansion or their minor leagues will be relatively sparse. Thoughts?

Personally I would not do this. The only reason the real expansion teams established minor leagues a couple of seasons before their MLB debut was because they started participating in the amateur draft in advance. Without that early draft access, there wouldn’t have been much point in fielding affiliates. They just needed somewhere to develop the players they drafted.

In OOTP, unless you’re also giving your expansion teams early access to drafts or international amateur signings through very creative manipulation, there’s no real advantage to creating minor league teams before their major league club debuts. All you’ll end up with is a bunch of minor league filler. It’s cleaner and much more easier to launch the full organization at the same time as the expansion draft.

[Pelican]

The problem with minor league affiliates for expansion teams will be the "donut hole" between the AAA-level players obtained through the expansion draft, and the young players just drafted. If you start out the expansion year with a full system [AAA, AA, A+, A, and short season developmental leagues], you will have to fill the AA, A, and A+ teams with minor league free agents and signings from independent leagues (or overseas). In other words, you will have no depth, and your new draftees will be years from MLB at best.

If you are willing to sim full seasons before the expansion year, you can create "unaffiliated" minor league teams that you can pull into your new organization. This of course works best if the expansion teams participate in the amateur draft a couple of years early. That way those organizations acquire young guys to develop and promote through the system. Ideally you would start with rookie and developmental teams the first year, and maybe short season A level. The next year, you can add Advanced A, for your best draftees and some minor league free agent signings. Then add an AA team, the year before expansion. Your AAA team can debut when the MLB franchise does.

[millhousebc]

I haven't done one in a while...but I kept all expansion teams as "win now", until about half way through the draft, then turned them into "rebuilding", and it seemed that teams took more MLB ready/older players early, and then more minor league talent after the flip.