Some of you may remember (Johnny Hernandez)[https://www.reddit.com/r/OOTP/comments/1vrbrg2/when_you_traded_away_the_greatest_player_in_a/]. He is easily the greatest baseball player of all time in my OOTP save, who I traded away when he was young for a guy who helped us win three World Series. I took your guy's advice and kept an eye on him, hoping that he would become available. Well lo and behold Johnny never got a ring with Baltimore. He opted out of his contract around age 29 and I scooped him back up.
It has been five years since our last ring, four of which with Johnny. My usual World Series winning team has been doing an impression of the Tampa Bay Lightning pre 2020. Consistently the best regular season team (including a 123-win season) only to fall apart in the first round of every playoff, the whole time Johnny Baseball has been non existent. The consistent 9.5 WAR a season player goes silent every year. Some say he is a choker. Others say he is cursed.
Well this year we make the playoffs again, with the best team in baseball again. We brush aside the Nashville expansion team in the Divisional round before getting into an absolute dog fight of a series against the A's. Johnny is contributing but not nearly to his regular season standards. We were down three games to one before fighting back to force a Game 6. It's the bottom of the ninth, down by three, one out and bases loaded. Our slumping second baseman, with a post-season BA around .210 at this point, comes up to bat.
And hits a 549 FOOT GRAND SLAM OVER THE MONSTER TO WALK IT OFF.
Game 7. Down by one going into the bottom of the 9th. Fly-out, catcher who is hitting .168 hits a double (I went with vibes and put him in to pinch hit), same second baseman doubles to tie, my backup shortstop who is only in because my starter is hurt...
WALK OFF BASE HIT into the triangle.
We then swept the World Series including a walk off three run shot over the monster AGAIN (this time from our third baseman) in Game 3.
Johnny finally got his ring.
Except he wasn't the best player on the team.
He wasn't even the best Johnny on the team.
I started playing my backup center fielder because he was a nasty defensive outfielder and my usual one was fielding terribly and hitting for a 73 OPS+. I figured, "fuck it. If I'm not going to get any offensive support out of center I might as well have some form of defense." Well enter, Johnny Luna. He comes in off the bench in the middle of the ALCS and starts during the World Series. He finishes the post season batting lead off with a slash line of .523/.566/.647.
And a World Series MVP.
Edit: can't get the link to work. Sorry about that,
Has anyone else seen this before and if you have, has it worked out for you. Im very curious on why hes there with a $2,000,000 contract and decent stats
Hey all, so I am finding it frustrating that when playing out games or watching games, the game always starts on one pitch mode, even though the button is clearly set to pitch by pitch mode. Every time I start a game, I have to press the toggle several times to actually get the game to play in pitch by pitch mode.
Was looking through the settings trying to see if I can just set it to where games are always played out in pitch by pitch mode, but couldn’t find anything like that.
Anyone know of how to do this?
Anyone know why the toggle doesn’t actually work and never starts in pitch by pitch mode, even though that is what the toggle says the game mode is on? Is there a trick or something that I am missing that overrides the toggle?
We were up 12-0 in the third, definitely thanks to his grand slam. The team also bat around the order in the first. He's projected to hit 38 grand slams this season, I'd watch out if you were the other PCL teams. I'm very proud of him, he looks to have a good future ahead of him.
(The logo used for the Montreal Lynx here is taken from the Helsinki Lynx, which appears to be a fictional hockey team?)
Hello fellow managers and GMs! According to Steam I have about 1300 hours poured into OOTP 25-27 over the last few years. One save I try to do every year is playing as an expansion team and trying to get a World Series title before all the real world players have retired (and before the other, CPU-controlled expansion team wins a championship). This was my fourth (I think) such attempt, and having just completed one of the most successful seasons in any of my OOTP saves I wanted to share the team's story for posterity.
I play with mostly default settings. I turn off the coaching system and let the computer handle the lower minors. I simulate most of the regular season unless there is a pivotal game, and I hand-manage all playoff games. I try to avoid making any trades that seem too unrealistic (in particular, the computer-controlled GMs tend to over-value dumping salary, so I avoid doing things like trading for a 1st-place team's highly-paid closer).
Montreal Lynx History
In this world, MLB expanded to 32 teams after the 2026 season, introducing the Montreal Lynx to the NL and the Vancouver Ravens to the AL. The league reorganized into 8 4-team divisions, with the playoff format remaining the same (12 teams, division winners get top seeds over wildcards). The Rays and Rockies changed leagues to facilitate, but most teams kept more or less the same divisonal company.
My goal was to be competitive by 2030, and I focused on high upside expansion draft picks and minor league free agents, as well as major league talent I could sign to short-term contracts and flip for prospects. I almost exclusively targeted college players in the early draft rounds. Year-by-year records were:
2027: 53-109
2028: 76-86
2029: 86-76
2030: 92-70 (won NL East division! Swept by Dodgers in NLDS)
2031: 82-80 (missed playoffs)
2032: 111-51 (won World Series)
The 2032 Championship Team
Montreal's 2032 season was strong the whole way through. Despite declining to make any significant additions in free agency, the team enjoyed breakout seasons from many of its young stars and resurgent performances from its few veterans.
Dual aces Mason McConnaughey (18-5, 2.39 ERA, 202 Ks in 177 IP) and Tony Romero (18-2, 2.81 ERA, 165 Ks in 166.2 IP) led a rotation that employed a slew of talented young arms over the year. The bullpen featured a three-headed monster at the back, consisting of closer Trevor Megill (2.82 ERA, 46 SV in 67 IP), LH setup man and expansion draft pick Welinton Herrera (1.89 ERA, 102 K in 76 IP), and multi-inning stopper Dax Whitney (2.84 ERA, 103 Ks in 88.2 IP), who had been drafted 1st overall as a starter in 2027, but converted to a reliever after tearing his rotator cuff in 2030.
The lineup was lead by young star OF Eric Rego (.345/,.449/.544, 44 doubles, 5.7 WAR), eventual NL MVP 3B Cam Collier (.307/.386/.667, 55 HR, 153 RBI, 7.1 WAR). veteran SS Gunnar Henderson (.245/.352/.458, 26 HR, 20 SB, 4.8 WAR), eventually NL ROY OF Joe Alvarez (.294/.371/.570, 38 HR, 104 RBI, 4.8 WAR), and utility-man-turned-regular 2B Tai Peete (.253/.326/.467, 25 HR, 4.6 WAR).
The Playoffs
The team swept the Pirates without much adversity in the NLDS, but lost Welinton Herrera to a torn rotator cuff for the rest of the season after game 3. Supplemental bullpen lefties Hayley Bychyk, David Horton, and Roger Caron - all rookies - would go on to play a huge role filling in for Herrera. That trio would go on to allow just 5 runs in 19 IP (combined 2.37 postseason ERA).
The Lynx faced their toughest challenge of the postseason in the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals, who were easily the second best team in the league. The Cardinals bested young ace Mason McConnaughey in games 1 and 5, and also won game 4, giving them a 3-2 series lead, forcing the Lynx to have to win both games 6 and 7 at home in order to avoid elimination. Montreal's league-best offense had been stymied by the redbirds' pitchin staff. Only Rego, Collier, and defense-first catcher Jeferson Quero (.193/.263/.327, 1.0 WAR in the regular season) were managing postseason averages over .222.
Game 6 was more of the same, but Montreal's bullpen gave 5 innings of 0-run, 0-hit, 1-walk relief to keep the score at 2-2 going to the bottom of the ninth. Cardinals' reliever Jurrangelo Cijintje hit Gunnar Hunderson with a pitch and allowed a single to Wyatt Langford before rookie slugger Joe Alvarez launched an 0-1 pitch 402 feet to right field to deliver the walk-off win.
The bats stayed quiet for much of game 7, and Montreal found themselves down 2-1 in the middle of the 9th. Young starter Jacob Webb had allowed 1 run in 4.1 innings. Bychyk, Whitney, and Horton, and Megill followed for the next 4.2 innings, with horton allowing the other run. Tai Peete led off the bottom of the 9th with a double off Cijintje, who allowed runs int eh 9th for the second straight night when Eric Rego legged out an RBI infield single. But the Lynx would fail to score more and the inning ended at 2-2. Megill pitched a second inning of relief for a scoreless 10th, and he was relieved by Mason McConnaughey, who had thrown 102 pitches just 3 days prior in game 5, who pitched a scoreless 11th.
Montreal failed to score in the 10th, 11th, or 12th, but their bullpen kept the Cardinals from taking the lead either. In the bottom of the 13th, Jeferson Quero stepped to the plate against former closer Riley O'Brien with the bases loaded and 2 outs. The Lynx had pinch hitters available, but Quero's playoff hot streak had earned him his manager's trust in this moment. The first pitch was a called strike. Quero swung and missed at the second, bringing the count to 0-2. On the third pitch, Quero launched a grand slam to the opposite field, walking off the Cardinals with a 6-2 victory.
Please enjoy these shots on the box score from my wild NLCS game 7:
The World Series against the Tigers was pretty unexciting by comparison. One fun note is that, due to fatigue and injury in the other options, 25yo RHP Graham Schlicht made his major league debut as the starter for game 2. He allowed 2 runs in 7 innings of work in a game where the Montreal offense scored 11(!) runs in the bottom of the 1st. Cam Collier was named MVP of both the NLCS and World Series. He put up a line of .352/.453/.648 with 4 HRs in the postseason.
The Future?
This was one of the most exciting teams I've had the pleasure of managing in one of these games. I got a lot of good injury & development luck for sure, but I felt like my managing in the postseason actually made a real difference. And the fun thing about playing as an expansion team is that I handpicked every one of the players who made a difference ultimately. I'm going to try and hit the Dynasty achievement with this team after a little break, but this championship marks the completion of a long-term goal of mine, so I wanted to share.
Whenever the real world Cam Collier makes the majors, I'll be cheering for him.
Solid 16 sim years deep and after saving and closing the game, the next time opening it led to whats shown in the screenshot. I've tried doing the autosave method and nothing changed. Just wondering if anyone's ever had success doing anything else. (this is 26 btw)
Playing as the White Sox and somehow got to the World Series but take a tumble and lose in 6. I was looking forward to the offseason to see how I can make the next step for 2027. Once I get my development lab setup and finish the qualifying offer section, I start to overthink and get overwhelmed with the FA and trading section. How do you seasoned vets handle this part?
It is a broad question that probably has a lot of different answers, but I really struggle with wrapping my head around the acquisition part of the offseason. I don't want to hamstring my team with potentially bad contracts to make minor improvements. I am seeing the AI sling a bunch of headscratcher trades, and the FA portion looks like every single player's ask is sky high.
So how do you vets work through this part? I would like to avoid taking advantage of the AI, I already feel wrong for trading Andrew Benintendi for George Kirby straight up but at this point it saved and I can't go back. Sorry Mariners fans.
I struggle at getting trade packages together too. How do you all work through this?
Edit: Thanks everyone for responding! Going to give it a shot tonight
Had an insane WS Game 7, blew a 5-run lead in the 7th and then a 3-run lead in the 9th. Then went down 2 in the thirteenth and was down to my last strike twice before Oscar Santos delivered with a walkoff world series winning bomb.
We're looking to add 3 managers for our 30-man OOTP league. If you've never played in a 30 person league or are looking to get back into a league, this league is an incredible one to be a part of.
Pros:
- Custom League website managed by our commissioner with pretty much everything you could think of: Stats, Rankings, Minigames, Prizes, etc. If you want to check it out, I can DM you the link (I don't know if you can just post random links here).
-Various prizes that you can win as the seasons go on. We have a prize wheel you can spin weekly as well as a commissioner wheel he spins once a month, picks for winning bracket challenge and manager of the year, recruitment bonuses, etc.
-Custom players get constantly entered into the draft class. From pop culture to GMs (even their dogs!). Sometimes we can even create a custom prospect, although we haven't done that since the first year.
- Great group of GMs, some have been with the league for over 15 years. I've been in it personally for over 10, but this current iteration has been the most fun we've had.
-We primarily use discord for communications, so you are always notified when the next sim will be as well as important deadlines. Also great banter in the general boards between all the managers.
Cons:
-You have to own the game to manage a team (but you wouldn't be here if you didn't already own it). Every GM runs their team through their own OOTP client and uploads it to the cloud for the commissioner.
-The three open teams are currently rebuilding, (Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros and Kansas City Royals), so you'll have to sort of build up from the bottom. Its honestly probably better to start off at the bottom, cause then you can get a feel for the league and all the players as well as other GMs. They all have fairly good farms, but the Royals are probably closest to being able to compete.
Other then that, I can't think of many negatives about the league. If you've never been in an OOTP league, it may feel like a lot, but as long as you keep your lineups up to date, everything else sort of falls into place. The hardest part is getting used to the OOTP UI, but if you're here I'm sure you know how that goes.
We're currently moving into the 2030 season and are in Free Agency, moving into the International Free Agents period. The next season will more then likely start next Saturday, as we start on the weekends so the drafts. If you have any questions, or have any interest, feel free to shoot me a DM or comment down below. I'll give you whatever information you need about the league.
Edit: The 3 teams have been claimed, but if you if you're interested if teams open up in the future, let me know and I'll keep this thread saved if it ever happens.
So here’s the thing I’m in 2032 and I don’t really know who most of these players are. I’m trying to get more into looking at the best players but I miss name recognition. Specially since the league keeps expanding and generating players for those teams. Like I like having an idea about a player just by kind of knowing who they are. I feel like every season I’ll be less and less immersed. Will historical leagues alleviate this? How close to real history do they go? Never played historical leagues so a bit curious.
