Create the best '14 franchise on '13

[mcbrad]

I am going to download and alter a new roster for the Indians tonight and try to start a '14 franchise on the '13 game. I am thinking of skipping buying the new title this year if I like there franchise I create. Any tips? The biggest problem that will bother me is all the players will be a year younger than they should. I will do 30 team control and was just wondering if someone out there has some ideas to make this as legit as possible.

[Jibbler]

yep the biggest problem is the rookies, you would have to import a player with service time over the top of the rookies that are not rookies anymore IE Puig and recreate him time consuimg I know but its the only way to get real rookies in. I wouldn't worry to much about players being a year younger if only someone could hex edit the roster like they could with madden

[MrOldboy]

Sim your first year. Use 30 team control and recreate the 2013 season as best you can, stats won't match, but its the best solution I have when I would rather start in 2014.

One tip is if there are prospects that are younger than the game allows, to edit them and drop their age down until they are the right age at that time. One is someone like Eloy Jimenez who is only 17 right now.

Another is to edit players that regress and try and get them to a point that you think would resemble them in 2014. If a player retired edit them to zero. Also make sure to have their correct teams sign them (i.e. Beltran with the Yankees for 3 years). Some players might retire on you though. If that happens I usually find a C/D player and edit them to resemble that player in name/skills only, I don't bother to recreate them visually.

You can even start the year with the 2013 roster as it was opening day and recreate transactions, injuries, etc that occur. I only do the major trades and injuries and just let the rest of the game sim itself. But I know some people want to get everything perfectly accurate so they go through transactions of each day and recreate them. Also make sure to check for injuries to major players that did not get injured in 2013, mainly just for stat purposes. I like to see that Votto got his at bats, even if his sim stats are nowhere near accurate (i.e. .267 BA). At least it doesn't say he had only 16 RBIs when I start my 2014 season.

It can take time, but if you take it sort of slow, sim a few weeks at a time do some transactions/injuries, sim some more, make multiple saves you can get a pretty good base for a 2014 season. Once you get a save you like you can load it up whenever and start a franchis as if its 2014, albeit an alternate reality where Gordan Beckam hit 26 home runs.

I don't do this to hold off buying the new version, but I do this if I want to start a new franchise after the MLB season has ended.

[MarkVI]

I'm doing this right now. I took a February 1st roster from the vault and started a 30 team control franchise. I put all trades and FA signings to manual for every team.

Players who retired after 2013 were placed in the FA pool with lowered stats (Helton, Halladay, Mo etc) so that they would be likely to retire. I also was sure to put Free Agents that would not retire in real life on a 1 yr contract with a team (so they wouldn't retire due to a 'poor FA market'). I then simmed the entire 2013 season.

Be sure to make a save file that goes until the day before the draft (after the draft the game seems to lock-in retirements). That way, you can go back and sim if too many guys retired at the end of 2013 that aren't supposed to (Jeter, Giambi, Colon, Ibanez are common). It's likely you won't save all of them, but I just do my best to get most of them to stay. I would also make note of any notable prospect retirements due to injury, that way I could fairly recreate them.

The only real nagging work was the 2013-2014 offseason. All I did was tender a contract to every player on every team, since the rosters were already set for 2014 offseason in 2013. Move ahead to spring training and then I could really play out the 2014 season! Put Free agent signings and trades back to auto, and it really felt like playing a decent 2014 franchise with real updated rosters. It was a lot easier work than trying to 'recreate' the 2013 season, and the end result was similar.