Anyone else here an absolute OOTP baseball junkie? Perhaps I'm going to be posting to myself but I'm going to chronicle my season as the new GM of the Astros.

I cleaned house and got rid of most of my organizational managers, replacing them the overall managers with High Development/High Mechanics/Medium Aging candidates with good relationships with the players.

For my positional coaches in the minor leagues I chose candidates with "EXCELLENT" ratings in their specific profression, with at least average relationship with the players.

Not a junkie but I keep one save going that gets played slow. I just finished a save setup like MLB but with all fictional players. I did a full draft of 30 players then let the AI autopick the rest. It was too easy by year 3 because I had drafted with a win later strategy and my guys turned into juggernauts in years 2-5 before I had to cut a few loose due to money.

I just started one as real MLB Astros but reset all the injuries and IL times across the league. Makes the start a little more interesting. You have to decide what to do with your 6 starters including anchor McCullers, Dirden starts in majors and usually gets angry when you demote him, and Dixon Machado has to be cut (or traded for someone dumping a salary). I replace most of the minor league staffs on the Astros start.

I play in GM mode. Dusty is less infuriating in the game than IRL. I also setup the minors roster limits and years of service to be pretty close to real life.

Yeah Dirden is an absolute pain. I traded him one time and checked in on him a few years later and he had a 7.6 WAR for the season so I kind of don't want to let him go again.

I also have pretty much made up my mind that I have to get rid of Yordan early on. He's fantastic but in almost all of my seasons he ends up missing anywhere from 1/3 a 3/4 of the season from injury.

McCullers I normally try to flip right after he gets off the DL, and Abreu in the off-season even though he gives you a little ding to your clubhouse chemistry.

fighting through it right now in 2027. I won the world series the season before last but Crane is doing nothing but hamstringing me with his budgets. We have the 12th largest payroll in the MLB, but he demands I do amazing things with the farm clubs and extensions for players.

One of the best things I've done is trade Yordan Alvarez for Triston Casas and getting the Red Sox to retain 40% of his gigantic long term contract. Yordan is great, but after 3 season of 200 at bats per year due to injury; I couldn't pay him $21,000,000 a year.

Casas has played in 160 games each of the last two seasons for me with a combined 8.7 WAR. He's busted out this year 284/380/536 with 3.3 WAR in only 90 games. I've still got him on the hook for 6 seasons after this one, and although he will be paid $228,000,000 during that time frame; he's only going to cost me $136,800,000 with the Red Sox eating the rest.

I signed Kyle Tucker to an 8 year/175 million dollar contract prior to 2024 with a few cheap years to buy out arbitration and then an average of $28,000,000/year for 5 years. He has been very good if not great with a WAR of 11.7 in the three seasons since signing his extension. This season he seems to be busting out with a .912 OPS and a projected WAR of 6.1 for the end of the season, hitting 45 bombs with 112 RBI.

Pitching I haven't been as lucky; Javier flamed out and had to be dealt, Framber is a solid 3.0 WAR guy a season but nothing to write home about. Hunter Brown has turned into a workhorse but again will post about a 4.2 ERA every season. Arrighetti is in the rotation but he's not doing much; the only real star was our 2nd round draft pick Andrew Taylor back in 2022. He's turned into a 200+ IP, 200+K/year stud even if his ERA is around 3.8. He's got absolutely wipe out pitches and I've gambled and offered him a 10/year $153,200,000 contract which will take him to age 35.

I turn off owner's goals so I can play owner and GM while my manager drives me bonkers with decision making.

I haven't done much with the save I just started. Thinking about doing another team which I rarely do. Maybe the Red Sox or Cubs. Perhaps St. Louis. I'm fairly busy the next few weeks so avoiding the distraction at the moment.