A couple of questions about player development

[sdorman22]

So, i've searched through the forums a bit for the answers to these questions, but a lot of what i've found was "maybe this maybe that" and usually for an older version of the game. So I thought i'd try asking and see what the most recent experiences from you guys were.

So I started a "alternate universe" type game where before the start of the 2015 season MLB expanded to 32 teams. I did the expansion draft and took control of the newly formed Alabama Mustangs.

I shamelessly seeded my farm system a bit, by taking a couple of my 1/2 star prospects and increasing their potential ratings to be in line with all-star caliber players. I don't intend to ever raise their current ratings, i'm going to let OOTP do what it will with their actual development.

That's where my questions come in.

1) How important are minor league personnel to the development of my prospects? Pretty much no one with a rating better than "Unproven" seems to want to work in my minor league system, and i try to keep overhead down on my team by keeping minor league coach salaries down. Am I shooting myself in the foot?

2) I typically let the computer handle my minor leagues by choosing "Ask AI to set up all minor leagues" whenever I have to move someone between levels. Is this typically good enough for player development or should I be micro managing this more?

3) How should I handle spring training? I usually add all of my good prospects to my major league roster during the off season, before spring training, set them as backups with playing time every few days, and auto play through the spring. (I manually play all of my in-season games). This way they get a decent number of at bats, while still giving my projected started the most time to shake the rust off. I figure this way maybe a prospect will surprise me and make my roster. Does that work in the game the way i'm assuming?

4) Is it detrimental to bring a player up too early? My team is pretty lousy going into it's third year. I could see myself bringing up my top prospect. He has 5 star potential, but only 1 star currently, if I were to bring him up early, could it stunt his growth like it might in real life? Is the little green up arrow and red down arrow that the game shows for players a dependable indicator?

5) This may be an lack of understanding of real MLB contracts, or whether or not they're exactly the same in the game, but either way: If I promote a minor leaguer that's on my 40 man to MLB as, say, an injury replacement but then send him back down a few games later, does that stick with me with $500k against my cap for the rest of the season, or does he only get MLB pay while he's up?

I also have financial questions about managing salaries and what my ticket prices should be, those kind of newbie questions...but that doesn't apply here. I'm open to tips for success if anyone wants to PM me and get a dialogue open.

[monkeystyxx]

Originally Posted by sdorman22

1) How important are minor league personnel to the development of my prospects? Pretty much no one with a rating better than "Unproven" seems to want to work in my minor league system, and i try to keep overhead down on my team by keeping minor league coach salaries down. Am I shooting myself in the foot?

Firstly, their Reputation (the 'Unproven' rating you mention) has nothing at all to do with their actual ability. It stands to reason that coaches with a decent reputation have been proven to be good coaches, but all that affects is how much money they ask for. Just because a guy is unproven does not necessarily mean he's bad. It might just mean he hasn't had much of a chance yet.

Now, if you've got a 68 year old coach with 20 years coaching experience and his reputation is still 'unproven', it's a fair bet that he's not very good, otherwise he'd be better respected by now. Even that's not strictly true though, maybe he's just been stuck with god-awful players to work with (if he's spent his entire career in Rookie/A-ball, for instance, he might never have seen a top draft pick with enough talent to nurture!). Generally though, best to stick with less experienced guys in the lower levels because, as you mentioned, the high rep guys won't come to you, and GENERALLY the low rep guys with experience are bad.

The tricky thing is, the game doesn't tell you (without using the editor, which ruins the fun) whether they're any good or not as coaches. This is true to life really - nobody knows if you're going to be any good when you take your first coaching job.

If they have low experience, they're bound to have low reputation because they haven't been around a lot to get any reputation yet. They might be great for all you know. If they have high experience and low reputation, avoid them. They're probably crap.

Also take note of their personality & style (in their profile). Some coaches do better with youngsters (and thus would work better in the lower leagues) and some do better with veterans (and thus would work better in AAA and the majors). The text in their profile will also tell you snippets about whether or not their reputation is deserved, which can give you a clue as to how good they are.

2) I typically let the computer handle my minor leagues by choosing "Ask AI to set up all minor leagues" whenever I have to move someone between levels. Is this typically good enough for player development or should I be micro managing this more?

I usually let the AI handle the majority of the 'maybes' and 'somedays' in my farm system, just because it's a ballache to go through every single guy to see how he's doing. I'll normally have a shortlist called Prospects, with the guys who I think will actually become something someday. For those guys I tick Disable AI Roster Movement (or something to that effect) for them individually and do it myself, moving them up when their stats say they're having it too easy and down if they're struggling.

Sometimes, a guy will make it onto the Prospects shortlist who was a late round draft pick but showed a lot of promise, but normally it's just the early rounders and the signings I make myself.

If I'm browsing the minor leagues screen and see a lot of green/red arrows (or an arrow for the same guy on multiple visits to the screen) I might take a look at him and see if anything needs changing, but otherwise the AI does a fine job of the majority of the late-rounders.

One tip I would give you though, DISABLE the option to have your assistant sign/fire minor league players. Most of the time you'll be looking for guys to hire yourself, for me that's one of the most fun parts. And the worst thing in the world is your assistant getting too big for his boots and releasing that 26 year old late bloomer you were working on down in Double-A.

3) How should I handle spring training? I usually add all of my good prospects to my major league roster during the off season, before spring training, set them as backups with playing time every few days, and auto play through the spring. (I manually play all of my in-season games). This way they get a decent number of at bats, while still giving my projected started the most time to shake the rust off. I figure this way maybe a prospect will surprise me and make my roster. Does that work in the game the way i'm assuming?

That's basically what I do. No idea if it's right or not. My depth chart usually looks like this:

Starter: Backup guy challenging for spot in team.
Utility 1: Young prospect who might one day be valuable. Starts every 3rd game.
Utility 2: The Major League starter, starts every 4th game.

That way it goes Backup > Backup > Prospect > Starter.
That makes sure that the Backup gets chance to prove himself, and the Prospect gets looked at, while the starter gets enough time to get loose.

I check in on it every week or so, and maybe swap out the prospect for another backup if there's a lot of competition.

Then, towards the last week-and-a-half to week of ST when things start getting real, I drop the prospect entirely and go back to how the depth chart would normally look during the season, so that the Starter gets into his regular rhythm.

For pitchers, I go to a 6-man rotation and limit the pitch count to 60 for everyone (on average, 4 decent innings or 5 good ones per game. Only 3 if he's sucking), have the expected starters in 1-5, and the most promising extra starter with a legit chance to make the team in the 6th slot.

Everyone else goes into the bullpen as a middle reliever (EVERYONE else). Prospects and starter hopefuls get the Use More Often instruction (not sure if that actually works though), nailed-on major leaguers get the Use Less Often instruction because I already know they're making the team. That ensures (in theory) that the guys that need to prove themselves get chance to, while the guys that don't still get occasional work to shake the rust off.

Then, again, towards the end of ST the guys who definitely aren't making the club get cut, and we go back to a regular season bullpen (I keep the 6th starter in until the end though).

If there's a potential starter pitching really well in the bullpen, I'll swap him with the worst-performing starter and give him a few starts.

4) Is it detrimental to bring a player up too early? My team is pretty lousy going into it's third year. I could see myself bringing up my top prospect. He has 5 star potential, but only 1 star currently, if I were to bring him up early, could it stunt his growth like it might in real life? Is the little green up arrow and red down arrow that the game shows for players a dependable indicator?

It could stunt his growth, definitely. I'd never even consider bringing a guy who's never played AA-ball into the MLB team. It's rare for me to call up a guy who's missed AAA.

The rule of thumb I often use is: If you block out his potential ratings and try to pretend they don't exist, would you sign a guy with those current ratings for your team? If not, don't promote. You don't need to wait until they're maxed out or anything, but if their current ratings won't even get him onto the 25 man, don't promote him. Once he's good enough for the 25 man, it's usually safe to call him up. He'll fill out the rest of his potential in the majors (or not, but at least you can be sure it's not your fault if he doesn't).

This obviously depends a lot on your scout, and even then it's not an exact science, but I find it works as a general rule. If they're currently good enough to be a fringe player for the team, they can often come in and flourish at the MLB level as long as you don't force them to produce right away (World Series game 7 is probably a bad time to debut your your young phenom starting pitcher...*). But if their current ratings mean they'd be awful if that was their full potential, they'll usually get killed and it'll hurt their growth going forward.

Even if the rest of your team is awful, I'd still play a fully-developed 1.5* guy over a young 1* guy with 5* potential. Once he gets to 26/27... maybe then I'd cut my losses and start him to see how good he can get.

(* yeah, yeah, I know that's not possible).

5) This may be an lack of understanding of real MLB contracts, or whether or not they're exactly the same in the game, but either way: If I promote a minor leaguer that's on my 40 man to MLB as, say, an injury replacement but then send him back down a few games later, does that stick with me with $500k against my cap for the rest of the season, or does he only get MLB pay while he's up?

As I understand it (it was actually covered briefly in an excellent book I've just read, but that doesn't make me an expert as it's complicated as all hell): In real life he gets paid pro-rata for the time he's in the majors as a bonus, and continues to be paid the minor league salary when he goes back down. The callup doesn't affect his actual contract until he's out of options and can no longer be sent down, at which point he gets the minimum MLB salary (or released!).

In the game though, as soon as he gets called up, he gets a major league contract and is paid MLB minimum, and keeps it when he's sent down again. From what I've read, I don't think this is accurate, but as I said I'm by no means an expert.


While on this topic, I have a question of my own:
If a pitching coach is listed as having a Finesse focus, does that mean that he's better at improving a pitcher's control, or that he is better at working with pitchers who have good control? For example, if I've got a lot of guys on my roster with dodgy control but who are otherwise good, would I be better off hiring a finesse coach to try and make their control better, or a power coach to work with the strengths they already have?

[sdorman22]

Thank you for the details and informative responses Monkey. Have you gotten to see many of your top draft picks develop into perennial all-stars or the like?

I'm interested in the response to your question about the pitching coach personality too. Hopefully someone will chime in there.

That reminds me, on the Editor, i'm tweaking something, should I always assume that the higher number the more positive the effect, or is this sometimes the opposite? For instance, if I raise the number associated with back injuries for a player, does that make him more or less prone to back injuries? Or even better, if I raise "Desire for a Winning team" does that make him more likely to get angry about a losing team, or more mentally tough about being on a losing team?

Also, when playing out a game, how dramatic are the offensive and defensive options like "Pitch Around" or "Take Pitch"? I find myself usually simming the entire at bat and probably leaning too much on spamming #1. Have people found more success micro managing the action to a heavier degree?

[TGH-Adfabre]

the higher number the more positive the effect,

I would say "the more pronounced the effect". If you raise greed he is more greedy. Raise and injury proneness and he is more prone.
There is one I always wonder about. I think it is handles controversy, I am guessing that a higher number means he is better.

[sdorman22]

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

I would say "the more pronounced the effect". If you raise greed he is more greedy. Raise and injury proneness and he is more prone.
There is one I always wonder about. I think it is handles controversy, I am guessing that a higher number means he is better.

Hmm, would be nice to have maybe tooltips or something in the edit screen that kind of spells out what going each direction will do. Maybe something I can remember to suggest for '18.

I'm pretty sure I meant to make an Ironman player by putting him at like 200 for each injury proness and probably made a glass man instead.

[McGuiser]

I have had more than one amateur draftee go straight to the majors with success, players who have a "ready for the majors" starting on day one. I hope that happens again!