[Pelican]

I can’t find the thread, but several others guided me on the early setup of a minor league team, if you want to do that. I managed one “unaffiliated” minor league team, the year before actual expansion. Because the major league expansion franchise does not yet exist, there is no way to affiliate - yet. As soon as you start the expansion process, you can affiliate the minor league team, and create others. Mine was AA, and I stocked it with minor league free agents. The team wasn’t awful, and a few of the guys actually made it to the major league club. Others ended up at AAA.

To do this, you need to turn off the option that allows organizations to buy players from unaffiliated teams. Otherwise, MLB teams will snatch up the better players on the unaffiliated team you created. (This unfortunately prevents purchases from independent leagues, if you have them. But you can turn the purchase option back on, once you have started the expansion process.)

You should be able to let the new expansion teams participate in the Rule 5 Draft. This is pretty important, because they will need players, and the rule about having to keep the draftee on the MLB roster for a year should not pose a huge problem.

And OOTP gives you the option of letting expansion teams draft first in the amateur draft, which I support. They are starting with zero young players, so this is a way of allowing them to begin to catch up. Not only the first round, but on all the later rounds. Guys should want to sign with them. They are virtually guaranteed a chance to play and move up fast.

One of the cool choices in running an expansion franchise is deciding whether to sign some major league free agents, or to invest in development. It is also possible to “have your cake and eat it too”. I would draft for talent - not specific positions - in the expansion draft, and then look to fill gaps with trades or free agents. And I would plow money into minor league franchise staffing at all levels.

One of the hardest choices will be whether to draft a veteran on a big contract. Teams will expose these guys, the AI figuring that the expansion teams won’t want to inherit a huge contract, when they aren’t contending. In my 1969 draft for Seattle, I went for several experienced SP and RP, in order to allow my young guys time to develop. I had a couple of position holes, 3B and OF, that I filled with veteran free agents, no superstars, rather than play guys who were not ready and needed seasoning. YMMV.

Even with a low trading frequency setting, the expansion draft caused a fair number of AI trades, as the established teams dealt with the losses in the draft. This enables the expansion teams to correct for an oversupply of players, and even things out as far as depth.

Have fun. It is a great challenge. The cool part about being a perpetual underdog is that each win seems like an achievement. It’s hard for the game to duplicate it, but you have a bunch of guys who never played together before, and it should take time for them to mesh as a unit. So, patience is a virtue. Expansion teams should improve over the season, as they develop that cohesion.