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Not sure if this helps or not but I do also feel that the AI does a pretty decent job of handling the minors all things considered. I completely sympathize in that you can handle so much and have only so much time on your hands. I'll explain my strategy here and hopefully that helps.
1. I try to balance myself between being the GM of the team and the manager, simming out the large majority of games but playing a few along the way as well. For my majors I set up all the line-ups, rotations, and depth along with keeping an eye on strategy which I will delegate a large part to the manager. When I play out the games I only usually will control the substitutions, the strategy is for my manager to decide. I control all major league signings, trades, free agency, call-ups, the draft etc.
2. I build my minors mainly through my draft, I don't waste much time trying to cut a ton of players each season or sign guys that will be in AA. I may sign some guys that I need for depth for the majors and they'll end up in AAA but thats about it. I let the AI handle all the call-ups and demotions from rookie ball to triple AAA while I control the releasing of players throughout the entire organization. I find this works well for two reasons. First, as players progress through the years your natural draft selections grow and disperse to the levels where they usually belong with their ability and potential. The AI does a pretty good job of determining who is fit for AAA AA and so on. This also allows guys that may be highly regarded prospects or even hidden gems to progress well and fluidly in your minors. For instance as long as your minors are balanced enough that you have enough players that fit the level they're playing at AAA AA A etc then you should be fine.
3. I always try to balance the cycle of releasing players each year. This is where I think a lot of people get into trouble. They'll see some 27,28, 29 yearolds maybe even 30, 31 year olds in their minors "blocking" other players, flip out and release a ton of them a year. This is a huge mistake and really not what happens in real life where many players in the minors are in their late 20s or a bit older even. There's a reason why these guys are "blocking" your prospects and it's because they're not yet good enough with their current ratings to be playing over them yet. I find the AI does a good job with this as well. Even if this isnt the case on a rare occassion you have the ability to force the issue and control the level he's at yourself. What will happen however by releasing all these older players each year is that you get a ton of other guys in your organization being called up and then forced to play at levels they probably are not capable of...even your prospects.
What I do is I find a balance each year in that I will not release a ton of guys but instead about 10 a year depending on the situation. I base my decisions on overall age and potential, and sometimes organizational depth. I like to carry a lot of extra guys on my rookie team for two reasons 1. you get to see who the better players are by allowing the AI to decide who plays (which they usually get right) and 2 it allows me to get rid of the crap young players after 2-3 years who cant even manage to play down in rookie and short season ball. So in essence most of the guys I release are usually in their late minor league years or early ones. The guys in the middle will usually be the base of your minor league organization, much the way they are in real life.
I hope this helps a little bit solve your problem. Unfortunately OOTP does a good job of simulating a real life experience of a GM and there is a lot that it entails. Because of this if you take on a lot of responsibility in the game be prepared to put considerable time into it in order to be successful.
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