[Timofmars]

The basic management of the team is quite easy, since you can basically play as an AI team if you want, to begin with, and make your own adjustments where you have your own different idea. Like for setting up the lineups or pitching staff, you can just "ask manager to set up" and the AI will put everyone it thinks is best for the job into the lineups. You can then make any adjustment if you want.

A lot of people suggest turning off features that complicate the game, like morale, injuries, or even the financial system and minor leagues. But I think you could just assign the AI control to anything you don't want to handle, and you'll basically be on par with the other AI teams in those regards. Plus there's some ways to still exercise some control in those things, like forcing a promising prospect to start every game in a position, or perhaps locking them to a minor league team, by setting these things in the individual player strategy screen. So then you don't have to worry about making promotions and demotions to the minor league every time their is an injury somewhere (which is often, since there's so many team and players). I think it is actually the default that the AI controls the minor league, so you shouldn't need to change this particular setting.

I think most people just simulate games rather than playing them out, since it's baseball, and each game really has a lot of randomness compared to other sports, and there's a 162 games in season. So there's not really a need to learn how to manage on the field.

I remember when I started out, my biggest question was about what should I be doing to improve the team regarding contracts and trading. Like, who should I try to acquire, and how? Whose contract should I extend, and for how long, and how much money is too much? It was easy to set my lineup and click to go to the next day to see the game results. I just wasn't sure if I should be doing something else.

But now I understand how to improve the team with trades. You can learn by just attempting to trade for different players, offering players and prospects you don't think you really need, etc. until you find a deal that you like. It probably won't be the 1st player you try to acquire. But keep trying and you'll find a trade the feels like good bargain. And for contracts, you'll learn pretty quickly in the 1st free agency period, as you can then see what is available and for how much, and you can then have a good idea about how replaceable your players are.