In my opinion, the key to a successful team in the long term is patience. Right now, you need to worry more about your financial base than your player talent. Put most of your money into building up your stadium. Build VIP seats until you get all of them built, then do the same for Exec seats. This will take the rest of this season, and maybe next to get this finished, but will go a long way to keeping your team financially secure for the long term. Don't worry about any facilities until you at least have your VIP seats built. You're better off waiting until Exec seats are almost finished.
As for your team, sort through your current roster and find good positions for your players. High intelligence players at QB, MLB, and S, strong players on off and def line, etc. I'd focus more on getting higher talent players (3.5*+) in their best positions and fill in the rest, the best you can. I don't see a problem trying to get a few players off the transfer list early, but you don't need to spend a lot. I focused on young players with high Int and/or Con and did not pay more than $1000 for any of them for quite some time. You also want to limit yourself to less than 10 a week, 5 would be better. Remember, you're wanting to use most of your money to build up the stadium. Don't scout any of these players, there's no need to if you don't spend over $1000. As you get them, compare them with what you already have. Especially if they have high talent. Don't be afraid to cut them if they are low talent and aren't any better than any of your other low talent players. As you get better players, insert them into your lineup and keep them there. Cut non-starters with less than 3.5* talent. Once you get some decent players into all positions, just keep them there and finish setting up your financials. By the time you get higher talent players trained and ready to replace this group of starters, these should be fairly well developed and can then be sold to bring in a bit more money.
Always schedule a friendly game each week. This helps with financials and helps train players at their positions. You can maximize your friendly income by playing at stadiums that have about 13,000 seats (if they are maxed in VIP and Exec seats), but don't worry if you can't do this every week. A friendly at a small stadium is better than no friendly at all.

The "Announcement : PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING! " and "Sticky : Spilling the Beans" threads have a lot of useful information for new teams.