I think forced trades is the easiest way to go, as long as you don't go crazy with it and load up your roster. But, as you stated, you're just trying to keep it real. Good luck.

If you want true to life rosters, here's the steps:

Load up live rosters. Go to roster control. Here's where it gets fun. You need to go team-by-team and fix all the 40 man rosters. Everyone currently on the IL will be in AAA and NOT on the 40 man. You need to move them to MLB and add them to the 40 man.

Next, you need to check the 40 man rosters for players that are out of options and older players that will not be on the MLB rosters. At the end of spring training, all these players will have to either pass through waivers or be DFA'ed before the regular season begins. It is best to remove all these players from the 40 man before you begin.

Lastly, move any players that have been traded or acquired since the roster was released. Such as players that were DFA'ed or traded. Move them to their current team. Then, save the custom rosters.

Once you have done all that, start a franchise with the saved roster you just made. Select all 30 teams. Make sure you turn off things like CPU trades, roster moves, contract renewals or anything that will allow the CPU to change the teams.

You will probably have to set all the lineups and rotations yourself because the CPU is a complete idiot.

Another thing to do is turn off injuries. If you really want to make things real, when a player gets injured IRL, just send them to A ball or something like that for the duration. It will be hard with older guys, but you can just not play them.

At this point, you can make trades to keep the rosters current. You can make teams sign only the players you want (you can't control the value, that is still up to chance). You can edit players that are too low/high as the seasons go on.

After you take 3 or 4 days to do all this stuff, you're ready to play.

Good luck!!

Ok I see, yeah it would suck if you start franchise with the Phillies and they end up getting Mike trout in real life. You wanna have Mike trout on your franchise team 100%.

Before you start:

• You can adjust the rosters
• You can control all teams and move players yourself
• You can turn on 'force trades'

After you start:

• You can offer them a huge deal and hope they accept

That's about it.