AAA talent

[Particleman]

What determines AAA talent? Is it the number value of the money you spend on the farm system that determines how good the players are? Or is it the ranking that determines this. Personally, I don't think that the farm system should be linked with spending at all. It just gives the big market teams yet another advantage. The big market teams just spend all whole lot of money on their scouting and farm system because their budget is capped. And since their spending on contracts is capped, they have nothing better to do with it other than spend it on other expenses like farm, scouting, and medical. In real life, the big market teams don't necessarilly get the best young talent in their farm systems. Big market teams are able to pick up the young players after they've established themselves on a small market team, and the small market team can't afford them anymore. However, one could even argue that small market teams generate more young talent than large market ones, the Montreal Expos had a great farm system and great young talent for years, of course they all left after they made their name (Alou, Pedro, Galaraga, Grissom, Deshields, Pavano, Fulmer, Segui, Vlad Guerrero etc... all came from Montreal) , Oakland also has plenty of great young players. The Blue Jays and the Mariners developed Shawn Green and Arod respectively, they just couldn't afford to re-sign them. The way Baseball Mogul has their system setup now, it's nearly impossible for small market teams to get good young talent.

I think that each team should have a different spending limit on certain expenses, such as farm system, based on how good their team's farm system is in real life. Or have the expense rankings based on who spends the greatest percentage of their overall revenue on each area. This way big market teams don't necessarily get all the best young talent, but they will get them when they establish themselves and the small market clubs can't afford them anymore. This would give small market clubs a better chance since at least they could have young inexperienced talent for at least a small period of time.

I also think major league experience should have a much greater effect than minor league experience. At least this way small market teams could go with youth develop their young players in the majors, and get the best young talent that way.

[canes2773]

I agree with your idea about AAA. I am a Red Sox fan and the only thing that system has churned out is Nomar. The best thing the Yankees have churned out is Jeter (jury is out on Soriano). I also agree that there should be some benfit for major league playing time. The only thing I noticed with the players you named, not all started in Montreal. Pedro was traded by the Dodgers because they thought he couldn't be a starter. Pavano was traded from the Red Sox for Pedro. Just thought I would point that out.

[Bad_Ash]

I agree that any team should be able to develop superstars. Some teams are well known for developing certain kinds of players. The Dodgers organization is very famous for bringing foreign players to MLB. The Pirates for a long time were very good at developing catchers. The Expos develop great young players also.

Badash

[daedalus]

I don't think the quality of players you get is directly related to the spending since I was 1st or 2nd in 2 FastSim league [pretty much wiping my budget out] for multiple years and continually get D's and F's players [rather discouraging].

While I agree that the quality of player you get should NOT be direct result of your Farm System spending [I'm Milwaukee in a FastSim league], I do feel that it should have some effect. Perhaps it can be represented as having teams that spend more be able to get more high quality rookies but not all super rookies [i.e., more frequently getting A-/B+ class rookies with occasional duds and studs versus the B-/C+ class rookies for those not spending - I consider the studs to be the A+ Vlad-type and the duds to be the D-class type]. After all, there's a reason Mark Texeira and Mark Prior ended up where they did. [Of course, you gotta remember the buzz about Chipper Jones and Phil Nevin being a "signability" draft pick over the "more talented" players. HA!]

By the way, for the record, Moises came from the Pirates system [result of a waiver wire fubar], Pedro came from the Dodgers [Tommy is a doofus], Pavano came from Boston and Segui came from Baltimore [Angelos is a dolt]. And Pavano and Vlad still resides in Montreal [hee hee]. Vlad and Walker were awesome finds/development jobs by an impressively run farm system, however. :)

[Particleman]

If expense spending is directly connected to spending, all the big market teams will get all the best young players. Regardless of how montreal originally got them in their farm/major league system, they did end up there one way or another. Many have said that there is a direct relation in the game between spending and young talent. If this is the case then big market teams will get all the best talent, and there is no way they will trade them away (like in the cases of Pedro, Pavano, you listed above) since they also have insanely high scouting spending. There is no way LA would have traded away Pedro if they knew what he would become. So either LA's farm/scouting isn't pinpoint accurate like it is in the game. Perhaps, there should be a ratio system between scouting and farm spending (If you spend a load on one area, you can't spend a load on the other). This way big market clubs have the chance of trading away young stars by mistake since they don't have an accurate read on their skills.

Anyways my point is that small market teams need to be able to get you talent. Because regardless of how they got there, young talent did get in the Expos system. Also, big league experience needs to have a much greater effect than minor league experience.

[daedalus]

Hrm. I thought I was pretty clear in the first sentence of the second paragraph that I didn't think spending more should net you all the good players and spending less should net you none but I guess I didn't make it clear enough. I'll try it again:

I agree that the quality of player you get should NOT be direct result of your Farm System spending. I definitely agree that all teams should be able to come up with a star player, regardless of spending [or ability to spend] - Milwaukee came up with a Jenkins, Montreal came up with a Guerrero and a Walker, etc.

There ya go.

Now . . .

All that said, I STILL think that it should have some effect. It's pretty darn disconcerting to make an attempt to be 1st and 2nd in Farm System - in the process, putting my team near or in the red - and end up with superduds [all D's and F's] whereas some team spending 30 points on their Farm System ends up with some A+/A+ rookie who's ready to rock and roll.

This argument aside, I think two big things are going a long way toward helping this problem. 1) The recent market/money adjustment is helping out quite a bit. I went into the red as NY [NL] since I was spending quite a bit on Farm System/Medical and was near the red with LA. Also, 2) the fact that, according to Clay, teams with worse records is considered to have higher draft choice [see: the
scouting (http://forum.sportsmogul.com/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=1721) thread] and therefore a solid chance at a better rookie.

Think on this: if Farm System is completely unrelated to quality of rookies, then a big market team might as well just completely blow off Farm System spending, save up the cash and completely blow apart Free Agency. I don't think that'll make for very much fun [at least for me, since I enjoy building from within].