I rarely do steal fans at all except to reach any goal(s) there are and you can wait to do that.
I spend the early game taking every hex on the map I can by auto attacking and keep building up reinforcements.
The more hexes you own, the more reinforcements you get each turn.
Take every blank hex you can and every hex with 1 or 2, SKIP steal fans, get reinforcements, rinse and repeat.
Yeah the cpu will take back the odd hex but no big deal to get them back.
it won't take to long before you are getting so many reinforcements that when you do battle you can blow threw everything playing on rookie.
You can get next to a stronghold and just sit there building up reinforcements until you have enough to go in rookie.
When it does come to attacking the cpu always start your 5th OVR SP because the cpu team will do the same. The cpu always starts #1 vs #1, etc. It's not based on the spot you have them in the rotation, it's based on the OVRs. No point in going against deGrom if you don't have to!
You've always be going against nothing better then a silver SP.
Have 1 or 2 stud RP and get your starter out asap if need be.
If you've waited to battle on rookie it won't matter much how good your #5 starter is, I'm sure he'll be gold and you can almost always easily get him through the 1st inning on rookie.
My team is strong enough that I virtually never lose on all-star and can win more often then not on HOF but I still usually just use the above method to get the maps done.