Expansion Draft

[evanbarth]

I'm looking to start a 2015 league taking over an expansion team. Is there a way to do this prior to spring training or does a 2015 league automatically start after spring training.

Also, was interested in the best way to set up a challenging expansion draft -- how many players do you let teams protect? what level of experience (3 versus more years) do you allow teams to automatically protect players, etc?

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by evanbarth

I'm looking to start a 2015 league taking over an expansion team. Is there a way to do this prior to spring training or does a 2015 league automatically start after spring training.

Also, was interested in the best way to set up a challenging expansion draft -- how many players do you let teams protect? what level of experience (3 versus more years) do you allow teams to automatically protect players, etc?

You would need to start a historical league starting in 2014 and setup the expansion draft in Nov-Dec of 2014.

[evanbarth]

Really? You can't do it with 2015 rosters?

Anyone have good recommendations on the specifics of the draft itself?

[evanbarth]

So when you start a 2015 league, it literally starts opening day, there's no option at all to start like March 1 for spring training, wouldn't that make more sense?

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by evanbarth

So when you start a 2015 league, it literally starts opening day, there's no option at all to start like March 1 for spring training, wouldn't that make more sense?

Most games work that way as they try to update rosters through Opening Day. There is no way (or it would be very difficult) to have the game have multiple different rosters (Opening Day, Spring Training Day 1, Mid offseason...) Most games pick Opening Day because that is what most players want.

I would just wait and expand after 2015. But starting with a historical 2014 league would be the only way to expand for 2015 as far as I know.

['94 EXPOS]

You can have an expansion draft 'out of the box' with 2015

There just won't be any spring training for your team. Opening day is April 4th? The game starts April 1st.

It is a busy four day period! Perhaps not terribly realistic but it works fine.

The main issue with starting this way is you have to fill you minor league AAA, AA and A rosters before their leagues start playing. Signing out of the free agent pool doesn't work because you don't get a response quick enough. I either fill my minor leagues with fictional players or manually edit existing free agents (commish mode) on to my teams.

I just go with OOTP expansion draft rules. I know others have posted on what they like to do. The OOTP rules are a little less restricting then the real rules. If you are worried about having too good of a roster with the OOTP rules don't worry.....your team will suck! The AI does a really good job now of protecting the best assets on the 40 man. The best I have done (and I have done this many times) was a 78 win season in OOTP 13. And that is when the AI served up Anthony Rizzo as being unprotected.

My first OOTP 16 expansion team just won 61 games in their first season. I managed to find two good younger MLB pitchers from the draft and signed the two 2b (Cerce and Fernandez) from the FA pool but the rest of my roster is what you would expect from expansion.

[evanbarth]

Very helpful. Thanks.

Is there a way to delay a start of a season to allow for free agent signings?

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by evanbarth

I'm looking to start a 2015 league taking over an expansion team. Is there a way to do this prior to spring training or does a 2015 league automatically start after spring training.

Also, was interested in the best way to set up a challenging expansion draft -- how many players do you let teams protect? what level of experience (3 versus more years) do you allow teams to automatically protect players, etc?

You can set up a game using the MLB quickstart and then save that as a template. Then create a new game, delete all the teams, leagues, coaches, and players in it, and then import that saved template into it. The game should start on January 1.