Durham Express - OOTP26 Expansion

[Fudal]

I was always planning on writing up an expansion save when the newest version of OOTP came out. The city of choice is an ode to Art Deco's Tampa Bay Rays series, who is my main inspiration for writing up my own saves. Hopefully those logjams at Durham will be solved here. The Express name was chosen mainly for the color scheme that OOTP provides. I usually go 30-50 years with these expansion saves of mine, although this is the first one I'm committing to playing every game.

The Durham Express will be joining the AL East, while our expansion rivals the Vancouver (Canada, not US) Villains will be joining the NL West.

The Settings I've changed are below

20-80 increments of 5
No Coach cohesion impact (little gimmicky, but I appreciate the option to try it)
.900 aging speed, 1.050 development speed for both pitchers and hitters
High short and long injury frequency, moderate pos. player fatigue, and low suspension frequency
10 player dev lab
Trading difficulty and favor prospects both 2 ticks below max
40/40/15/5 trade weights
No ties/modified extra innings ever
1-2% inflation
No generated established free agents, or generated indie players.
Pitcher stamina changed from low>normal, stealing bases normal>often, infield shifts are allowed and frequency is changed from normal>often, framing impact 5>6.

[Fudal]

Before the 2025 expansion draft, where each team will be allowed to protect 35 players with at least 3 years of Pro Service, we offered a slew of offers to free agents. We don't expect to have a bunch of options in the expansion draft in terms of bats and starting pitching, so to the free market we go.

In terms of pitching, we offered 7 starting pitchers contracts, 1 of which will become a long reliever, and 1 will start in AAA. The 5 who stay in the rotation will entirely depend on who my scout likes the most. These pitchers can be seen below.

Name - Age - Stuff/Movement/Control/Stamina - Pitches - Salary

Spencer Turnbull - 32 - 45/50/45/50 - 5 - $1.3m
Noel Vela - 26 - 45/55/40/45 - 3 - League Minimum
Michael Giacone - 28 - 50/50/45/45 - 3 - League Minimum
Dovydas Neverauskas - 32 - 45/50/45/50 - 4 - $1.7m
Spencer Howard - 28 - 50/50/50/45 - 4 - $1.4m
Kyle Muller - 27 - 40/50/45/50 - 4 - $1.4m
Cam Alldred - 28 - 45/55/45/50 - 4 - $1.5m

In terms of batters, there's another 8 players who received offers from us. Again, all of these deals are for 1 year only.

Name - Age - Position - Contact/Gap/Power/Eye/Defense - Salary

Robbie Grossman - 35 - LF - 50/50/45/75/55 - $2.2m
J.D. Martinez - 37 - DH - 45/55/55/50/NA - $15m
Adeiny Hechavarria - 35 - SS - 55/55/40/40/60 - $3m
Brandon Belt - 36 - 1B - 45/55/50/65/60 - $6m
Yasmani Grandal - 36 - C - 50/45/50/60/50 - $6m
John Hicks - 35 - C - 45/55/45/40/55 - $1.6m
Austin Meadows - 29 - RF - 55/55/45/50/60 - $1.6m
Brian Miller - 29 - CF - 55/45/25/45/70 - $1.4m

[Fudal]

Austin Meadows is the only one of the free agent offers who decided not to sign with us. He's looking for a multi-year deal worth at least 7.9m each year, so goodbye Austin.

Looking at our pitching to start with.



Howard (FA), Young (Expansion Draft), Turnbull (FA), Neverauskas (FA), Giacone (FA) is our starting rotation, with a slew of free agents and young-ish expansion draft selections filling out our bullpen.



And then our hitting. Valdez and Foscue will be our main infielders that came from the Expansion Draft, while Gentry and Rave will be key outfielders.