I decided to take a moribund franchise and turn it around. I'd post this in griv's trash heap challenge but I don't want to tell anyone what I'm doing until it's done(I assume people from the league read these forums).

My qualifications:

1. Private world that's determined to stay private. And not a private "Our password is...... Join now!" type of private. I wanted a league that cares about who's admitted.

2. Less than 50 wins.

3. Declining win rate.

4. At least one "one and done" owner.

5. Obvious change in ownership.

Well, I found my baby in Happy Jack. The newly renamed Las Vegas Pit Boss. Wins of 72, 58 and 42. Same owner in season 1 and 2. One and done owner in season 3(his only HBD team ever). I figured I'd announce my presence with authority by making a couple of big trades(my superstars for a very good player and a prospect or two), make a couple of promotions, sign a FA or three and be .500 at the end of the season. Then I'd make a run for glory in season 2.

One problem. I have no talent. And, although I haven't seen projections(we're not full), it doesn't look like much is on the way. I'm basing this on current ratings and age. The good news is that payroll is only 52m. 37.8m of it is tied up in 5 players. 18m for season 6 and 9m for season 7.

Budget was not changed and either coaches weren't hired or he did a very poor job at it(I'm only bringing two back).

The minors are depleted as 32 minor leaguers retired(wrong levels) and 13 via FA(6 years of service).

Of the arb-el players($0 pay), I figure Bush is the only one I'll bring back.

The other 4 could be role players for a "real" team but that's 15.5m(6.9 to Suarez) that I think can be put to better use.

yeah, you've got a lot of nothing, that's for sure!!!

It appears that the previous owner tried to rid the team of overpriced players and get younger/cheaper. Which is a good strategy but there is virtually no talent . I assume he traded old, expensive players + prospect for mediocre, cheap young guys.

Free agency

I'll post some updates as we progress.

But the future looks bleak.

I'm hoping to improve by a dozen games this year.

Make a run at .500 in my second season.

And shoot for the playoffs in season 3.

Just not sure how I'm going to get there.

Unless some talent is dropped during arbitration, there isn't much on the FA board.

I just picked up a team in Happy Jack as well, and while it's much better off than Mike's team, the pitching is poor too. Lotta guys on the ML roster with sub-50 control, and the FA board is indeed pretty sparse. I imagine there'll be a couple pricey bidding wars on the handful of guys who could post sub-4 era's, and I'm not sure I want to invest that much $$ in one average guy, so I may just have to roll with a pro-rated 5+ era guy in the back of the rotation and hope for better luck next season.