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Originally Posted by spark240
Well, the fans in the minor league town might care. Possibly even the players who had a chance to win a ring might care.
But beyond such quaint concerns, it is my belief that the *experience of winning* is as important as any other experience players can have in the minors, and that keeping a core of players as a successful team, rising together through the minors, is one of the great subtleties of organization management. It is not widely discussed, and is usually not practiced deliberately in most organizations, but when it happens (by accident or design), the players on those winning minor teams tend to become solid--often great--major league players.
Try this exercise some time (you'll need a current Super Register and several back Almanacs): Off the top of your head, make a list of fifteen or twenty really solid, promising young major league players. Then look up the minor league teams they played on. Check the records of those teams. Sure, you may say those teams were good because they had those great players, and there is often some truth in that; I contend that there is as much causality in the other direction--that great, winning minor league teams tend to solidify both skills and character to forge solid major leaguers. (Some of these players were not considered top prospects UNTIL they cohered into winning units in small-town ballparks.)
In sum, if your big club is REALLY in a pennant race, and one or two wins could make all the difference, then sure, bring up the kids who may be just enough extra to put you over the top. But if your callups are just cups-of-coffee in an also-ran season AND they have the chance to be a part of something special in the Midwest League or the Carolina League or whatever, then let them have THAT experience, because that might just be more valuable to the big club in the long run.
Of course, in OOTP, this would all be in your head. But, you know, some people like that in a game.
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