How should I go about building my first team? I like the Braves so could I choose a lot of Braves players and still win? Thanks for any advice.

THE DEVIL LIES!!!

HE IS EITHER A BREWERS OR YANK DEES FAN!!!

I'M BETTING ON BREWERS!

Who are these guys? Does anyone have any real advice? Thanks

i don't suggest using all brave players, but you can try it. Just do your best. Sorry for not telling you more, but its only fair that you learn on your own like the rest of us

Picking your favorite players may be fun, but it probably won't make you very successful. The key is to learn about the strategies used by the experienced managers (some of which went out the window with the sim update). For example, OAV is a better stat than WHIP to use when drafting pitchers. And ignore ERA altogether.

ANDRE THOMAS

GLENN HUBBARD

KEN OBERKFELL

RICK MAHLER

CRAIG MCMURTRY

Thanks for your advice everyone, cresten I haven't heard of those players but I'll give some of them try. I guess they are hidden gems, hehe! Thanks a lot.

Best advice you can get.

Read the forums for areas that might interest you in learning more about this game. It will take some time, but enjoyable when you win and did it on your own. Most advice given here will most likely lead you down the wrong path grasshopper.

Take your time, understand the game, read the forums and you will do well.

I actually had Glenn Hubbard for the first week of the season and he did pretty well. but I dumped him cause I had a pretty good AAA 2B.

Building your team... you can pick some of your favorite team's players, the Braves have some good ones you can pluck (i.e. Eddie Mathews has always done well for me in my limited experience). Warren Spahn is an inning eater and can keep you in games. Be sure you are solid defensively, it seems to count a lot more in SIM 3.0 You can sacrifice some offense up the middle by gathering "A" rated defensive players at SS/2B. Don't worry too much about catcher. In my experience, none of them perform as you think they should.

raffy ramirez is a great shortstop too

dion james -cleanup hitter, ofer

no Rafael Belliard should be the cleanup hitter lol

Number one rule - ignore idiots like Cresten and Zimbabwe and a few others...while they may illicit some funny comments every once in a while, they are often just making themselves laugh or feel important (I'm not sure which).

Now that I've written that - they will make at least 2 replies each. So ignore those too...

In building your team - by all means put your favorite players on it (after all this is fun and its more fun to see your favorite guys playing for you). You can make them centerpieces on your team or you can always use them as role players or to hit lower in the lineup.

For your cornerstones...go by best available by stats. DON'T just use salary as a guage of performance either. Be sure to look at stats (especially OBP for hitters and Whip/OAV for pitchers). Some guidelines that may help you out as a newbie are - draft at least 525 AB's for a hitter if you do not want fatigue issues (dependant on where you hit them in the line-up - lead off guys take more AB's). Draft at least 1200 QUALITY innings for your staff and at least 1400 total (depending on what home stadium you use - if you are in a hitters park you may need more and vice versa with a pitchers park).

Another helpful hint is that all pitchers are rounded to IP/162 game season (meaning thats about how many IP that can go in a Sim Season), BUT hitters stats ARE NOT rounded to 162 games. So some hitters get many more AB's than others (say the 1994 season for example where the full 162 games were not played). Just watch for this and you may find a player who you can use more often than you think.

I could write you more hints an tips, but half the fun of the site is figuring it out. Any more question just post them here - there are some really really helpful owners who are happy to post real quality advice.

And if you REALLY REALLY want to be the Braves, jump in a theme league where you can be the Braves...