The Secret To Great Sucess In The Future

[taubster]

If anyone wants to know the best way for success in the future, keep reading. I use to think adding money to the farm system was everything, it is a part of the success but not all of it. In my New York Yankee team and my Boston Red Sox team, I put lots of money into my minor leagues AND more into scouting. In both of my teams, I ended up with a minor leaguer that has A+ Contact and A+ Power, plus a couple of great pitchers along the way. I can't garrantee you'll get as great of players as I did, but try this, it might work.

[Galatine]

IIRC in the rules or an FAQ Clay did for a former Mogul, it was implied that low (<1/2 league XB) scouting levels will hurt the quality of your new rookies.

While it goes to reason high levels would have an inverse effect, I can't say I personally saw any evidence that it would warrant the extreme cost.

My keys to farm management:

1) Don't keep too many players in the minors! Farming funds get spread around. The less players in AAA, the more development and the more slots the computer will draft to fill next year. Dump the duds.

2) Don't promote players too early! They develop faster in the AAA than in the bigs and not at all on the bench. It's a _farm_. Don't harvest before they're ripe. (26-27)

3) Promote based on statistical performance in the minors not because they have an 'A' contact!

4) Look for 5 tool players. A player with a D/F range or fielding is suitable only for 1B/DH. They're a dime a dozen. Hard hitting, good glove SS or C is the real gold.

[marc]

The problem with not promoting before they are riped,
is that the players, start to ask for too much money for being minor league players.

A small market team cannot afford to keep high price players on the farm,and are often forcerd to promote the player before his time.

I do agree with your suggestion if you can afford to keep the player on the farm you should, but not all teams have the funds avaiable to allow these rookies to develop, and it is often better to promote a player and get a little less out of him, when he is cheaper, then get more out of him when he is expensive.

[Galatine]

..about minor leaguers asking for big league money.

IIRC the problem started with 'gamey' players locking up future super-stars to 7 year deals for AAA contracts.

An alternate 'gamey' strategy was to drop a veteran player to AAA in his contract year. Then the computer would then negotiate a new contract extention based on the fact he didn't produce in the majors that year, and you could sign him for a song.

Still, I find that as long as a prospect doesn't have _any_ ML experience the salary demands are tolerable for a small market club to keep him in the minors on a strictly year-by-year basis. The long term deals are another story!

I think the key is that _first_ call up to the bigs. The minute you promote a player to the show, he joins the union :) and isn't a prospect anymore. Then it's show me da' money.

The hardest part is to watch your team suck while you have a guy in the minors you know could help you now, but if left alone will help you even more later.