Out of the Park Baseball 24 - Baseball in Buffalo (Ep 7) - Final Preparations

As Buffalo's debut in the major leagues approaches, we try to add a few more free agents to help now, while also building for the future through international amateur free agency.

[@andrewgratton4750]

4am off to work....gonna spend all day thinking about the coming season let's hope for a little magic!

[@oldschoolsports]

Crossing my fingers! Hope you have a good day!

[@JasonCleghorn1975]

Really enjoying this series and the Wings' progress... You're killing the content. :)

[@oldschoolsports]

Thanks for watching... looking forward to seeing how it goes!

[@patrickdebonis6493]

You inspired me to start my own expansion using Zenmasta's method. I added two teams: The Hartford Chiefs who used to be the Boston Braves farm team and the politically incorrect Oklahoma City Bombers

[@patrickdebonis6493]

The Rule 5 Draft didn't amount to much. It consisted of the Chiefs picking up an interesting two way players and a lot of three pitch relievers who might make decent starters. The rest of the picks were popular players, used to boost fan interest from 51 to 74.

[@patrickdebonis6493]

Mark my words. These Wings are going to be competitive sooner than you thing. Next year you will be fighting for a playoff spot. You might even get in.

[@oldschoolsports]

I hope you're right... but if we're too competitive too fast it will give you even more opportunity to get on me for trading away Munoz! But in fairness, it's a first guess on your part. I didn't love getting rid of him, but I have high hopes for Made... we'll see how it goes.

[@patrickdebonis6493]

I took over the Chiefs and the two teams took very different paths towards 2026. The Bombers started off with a bang, trading for established major Leaguers and making waver claims. They had to pay the players major league money to play in the minors. Some refused assignment and got paid for playing golf. But why not? They had the money and so did I, but I never thought to do that. The Chiefs concentrated on building a real minor league system and added a few players by signing international free agents that would accept a minor league contracts or one with a major league options. I did think of that.

[@patrickdebonis6493]

The result was the Chiefs building the top .inor league system in baseball, with two or possibly three prospects that are already MLB ready and trained up at multiple positions.

[@JackhammerPossessor]

Big money is going to make this rebuild not even a challenge.

[@oldschoolsports]

You could be right... I'm telling myself I still have one of the smallest payrolls in baseball... but I know I should be able to do some damage with $180 million, even if it is a relatively small payroll... we'll see what happens.

[@aroundtheworldsports3063]

I love that you keep saying "Captain Personality." In the real world, that's an insult, lol. Anyway, looking forward to some actual baseball! (And halfmoon cookies)

[@oldschoolsports]

Ha, yes, that is an insult... I guess it's all about context! I just ordered a box of them online!

[@patrickdebonis6493]

I have my trading difficulty set one tick higher than you and favor prospects up three or four too. I am still debating on whether I want to add hard mode to that.

[@notmy4ply]

Figured Herrera would be a target with that awesome personality

[@oldschoolsports]

Yeah, I was torn between him and Marte, and do tend to go with the winning personality when all else is pretty equal... we'll see how it turns out!

[@jaybird2585]

Loving the series, looking forward to seeing you get the season underway! I saw that Guerrero Jr. signed with the Cubs - did he get his 40 million/year contract? I don't think I've ever seen a sim yet where he leaves Toronto. Also, if that money is burning a hole in your pocket, maybe you can look into taking on a 1-year player on a bad contract from a team and see if they will throw in a prospect for you to do so... I've seen/done this in previous OOTP versions, not sure how it would work with the new trading model.

[@oldschoolsports]

Good point, I didn't show it on the video, but I did try to take on what I thought were some bad contracts, but couldn't get any traction with the other teams... trading can definitely be a little more challenging in 24! VGJr. signed with the Cubs for 8 years at almost $41 million a season!

[@patrickdebonis6493]

The Bombers did a much better job in the expansion draft. They got guys like Munoz, Torkelson, and R. Contreras, while the Chiefs focused on players that could be demoted to make way for 18 players from the Rule 5 Draft.

[@patrickdebonis6493]

The Aftermath: This project took me several days to complete and was far from being frustration free. I screwed up a lot of things along the way but fortunately backed things up along the way. One year, the IAFA took off by itself, requiring a restart. Most of my trouble came when I had to move the Chiefs and Bombers out of MLB and back in again. I just moved them back and forth to the International League. That worked , but all their minor league affiliates had to be reassigned each time. Another time consuming effort was assigning affiliates in the first place. It didn't have to be, but I was so anally retentive that I had to make logos and design uniforms for each team, including the minor league teams. I also let both expansion teams participate in Spring Training and play exhibition games. The problem was that the minor league players started to draw salaries. So, I had to go into player editor and reassign their contracts. The worst mistake I made was when I had to create the two dummy teams. I actually took over the one that I was using for the expansion draft which caused me to relinquish control of my team, causing my scouting to hit very low at the worst possible time. All in all, I thought the process was extremely tedious and not worth the effort. Although, I have to admit that much of it was caused from me doing a half assed job. Maybe with a little more experience at this, things would have been more enjoyable, but anyway, we are here.

[@oldschoolsports]

Ha! Glad you got there eventually and good luck with the Chiefs! Great to see Hartford with a team from a major sports league again!

[@patrickdebonis6493]

One thing is that I'm definitely invested in it now. I would never go through this dog and pony show for a short term playthrough.

[@oldschoolsports]

@@patrickdebonis6493 Ha, I hear you!!!

[@patrickdebonis6493]

After all this happy horseshit over Munoz, I had multiple chances to draft him and drafted players who U could have longer control over. If Made and Munoz were both available, I would have drafted Made

[@oldschoolsports]

Ha, hopefully Made will work out well for the Wings, we'll see...