Farm System/ Player Progression

[GMoney]

Any opinions from seasoned vets on Farm System Spending, and player's progressing in the minors. Answers or Opinions relationg to the following questions would be appreciates, and I would love to get some discussion on this:

1) Is Farm System Rating or Actual Amount Spent determining Factor in Spending?

2)Does Scouting affect your new recruits or only the opinions and ratings of what you see for players?

3) Is Development of AAA hindered if you have more players in AAA? So, Is it better to use a shotgun approach and fill up your minors, or relegate your minors to 5 or 6 of the best you can find?

4) How far will a player develop in the minors? Can A High Ceiling Guy get their if he is left in the minors till 25 or 26, or does he need to be brrought up at 23 or 24?

5) What is the age for the majority of players peak potental? In real life most people argue 27 28? Does this hold true or do you see it early or later?

I know I can not get exacts, but looking for opinions from people that have logged some seasons just viewpoints, I won't hold you to anything.

Regards,
Grant

[Cipster]

Don't take this as gospel truth but I believe it's pretty acurate. In total I have about 15 seasons played online.

-Your rank is spending is what matters not the actual amount
-Your scouting does affect your new recruits because you pick up players based on this. I had a low scouting budget and evry other guy in my minors was a hall of famer but their stats turned out nowhere close.
-I don't think having more players affects development. Actually once a player is at AAA his development is not affected by your spending, it only affects who you get next year.
-A guy in the minors will rarely improve dramatically. If the scouting report is good he will likely produce right away (if it's bad he might become average but that is about it). I have seen many guys get better but nobody I followed become great in AAA.
If you have enough in scouting you can use the Auto Sort button and the computer will generally tell you when a guy is ready by putting him in the majors. This is not foolproof. I had a rookie 2B I felt was ready but the computer kept inserting a 33 yo veteran I had. I brought the rookie up anyway and he did very well.-The only advantage to keep a guy in the minors past 25-26 is that if he never went to the majors when his one point contract is up he will ask for a smaller contract no matter what his talent level is. A veteran with similar ratingswill ask about twice as much.
-I don't know what the peak potential age is but players generally start declining around 34-35. Some guys do well until 40 or so but that is rare. Generally if they were very good they seem to decline faster. An average to slightly above average player will get bad in a hurry.
-Veteran hitters will put up big numbers in AAA no matter what. Don't trust this but go on scouting reports.


Hope this helps. If anybody noticed something different lfeel free to correct me.

[GMoney]

Thanks for the reply very interesting. So you beleive AAA developement is not affected by Farm or Scout Spending. I wonder if others agree with this or any other input. Thanks for the reply very informative.

Regards,
Grant

[Cipster]

I'm pretty sure that's true because I asked Clay about it. :) I had signed a lot of free agents and I also had a lot of good prospects. In order to cut even I had to cut the farm spending to 0 (Scouting is way too crucial fot trades and I had stars playing with very few backups so medical was again a must). Before that I asked Cllay if that would hurt my prospects. He said it wouldn't and from the results he was right (if anybody should know it's him). Two years later my starting SS, 1B and RF are from that rookie crop and have spent 2 years in the minors with no money spent on AAA.

There is one thing I mistated in my previous post. Great players will decline SLOWER. They will do well up until they are 40 or so. Average to slightly above average players tend to just "crash". By 36-37 the just wash out. In the 2 leagues I played until most players from the beginning of the game are old the stars remained good. Bonds washes out by 40, A-Rod, Andruw Jones, Vlad Guerrero, Nomar, Jeter still play well in their very late 30's. Clemens, Mussina, Schilling, Randy Johnson were still doing well at 41-42. Even Chuck Finley posted a 2.45 ERA at 42 in long relief and spot starting.

[GMoney]

Cool, Thanks for the info again. One last question if I may. IF you cut Farm Spending and Scout Spending to 0 because you are in a crunch as long as you pay to bring your rating up to a high level will you see the results in the very next sim? or does it take some respending time to adjust. Does this make sense? I guess if you were in a money crunch and cut farm to 0 for 3 or 4 months, but then paid through the nose to bring it up to a high ranking would you see immediate results?

Thanks Again,
Grant

[GMoney]

Cool, Thanks for the info again. One last question if I may. IF you cut Farm Spending and Scout Spending to 0 because you are in a crunch as long as you pay to bring your rating up to a high level will you see the results in the very next sim? or does it take some respending time to adjust. Does this make sense? I guess if you were in a money crunch and cut farm to 0 for 3 or 4 months, but then paid through the nose to bring it up to a high ranking would you see immediate results?

Thanks Again,
Grant

[Cipster]

No you would not. The spending is cumulative. If you spent 0 for half a season and 100 the rest of the way it would amount to you spending 50 over the entire season. On every sim you spend a chunk of cash from what you want to spend for the year. It will take a few sims at least to get back on track (it depends how much time you spent nothing and how much you spend now).
This prevents people from just cranking up their scouting for one sim, get accurate results and then not bother spending anything the rest of the way. Also it makes sense from a real world perspective. It takes time to hire more scouts or better ones, it takes time to get the reports put together etc. It also takes time to build up the farm system because you need to hire instructors build facilities etc.
The computer averages what you spend on the farm and scouting over the year and then determines your rank and that determines what prospects you get.