[NoOne]

2 Posts, this one will be about ages in minors, second about how to handle them:

*** no age or service time restrictions for you top level minor league -- very important stuff here. you'll have some oldies in AAA, but it's worth it.****

Service time is "pro service time" in game that starts when they are drafted/signed.

becareful with age limits.... backup your league before testing some variations out. there's a thread in the 17 forums that gives some suggestions. just remember some college kids are 24-25 their first year out.... so a R/A- with an age restriction of 22 would be really detrimental to any college kid that can't start in A immediately. the service time option is new and definitely the way to go here. don't use age limits.

I recently started messing around with the *new* pro service experience settings (same page as age restritcions: League Settings-> Rules tab, then select each minor league in dropdown box at top-right portion of screen.)

i found it works well. and as far as "realism" ... some talented people don't make it. so 100% realization or 100% of them playing for 7-10 years in the minors isn't realstic anyway... so don't focus too much on that portion of it. with these settings i don't see a high potential guy being lost... i'm sure it's possible though.

AAA - no pro service time limit - leave open for rehab unless proven not necessary... there are 32+ year olds in AAA quite often even when you don't count rehab assignments. even if they aren't rehabbing, they are important ML depth when injuries strike.... AA is where the real talent is in RL anyway... AAA'ers are borderline or depth or a little polishing as they bounce back and forth. in the game i would not mimic Real Life in this instance... AAA is important to development in the game. so you do need to see if they are being sqeezed out to some extent, but should be fine.

AA --- 9 years service time limit
A ----- 6 years "
S A -- 5 years "
R ----- 4 years "

*** A+ is aesthetic only... there is no league level in the game that is "High-A" - it is just a label for the real MLB setups. they are no different than any other single A ball. set A+ the same as your A. (an aside: i plan on simplifying the MLB minors when i play with RL players and league... r/a-/A/AA/AAA more like a fictional setup without all the redundancies... maybe 2 R leagues is okay / beneficial i will look into that more at a later time.... you'll need less draft rounds and all sorts of things i consider "Good" that others may or may not agree with)

be liberal in how many years you allow. if you also include age limits for some odd reason, remember college kids are older, but likely to go into SA / A their first year or by the end of their first year. they still may need a couple years down there.

my thoughts: a rookie sometimes takes 2-3 years to start developing, especially if they are 17/18.. regardless, you don't want a high potential kid being booted or worse moved up too early and ruining their career -> don't be too restrictive here. now what if that same guy delays a bit in A/AA.... you need ~8-9 years for AA just in case. think of worst-case scenario that is 'reasonable' and add up from there to each level.

Also, make sure in the Rules that mil teams do depth charts based on potential, not current ability. i think this is default now... in the past you had to set it for each league. your higher rated guys should not be released... i've read posts about that occurring but i have a suspiscion that they don't have this set to "potential." or bad scouting. if bad scouting they will be signed by someone else, no problem there.

drawbacks of service time limits: this could increase number of new players needed per year to keep league filled.... defintiely sim out 50 years or so to make sure there are no problems of any sort. if you've reduced # of amateur rounds or reduced internation FA and int'l amateurs, you may need to bump them back to default or higher. only do that IF you see a problem.

either way, the drawbacks are far less than using age limits and cause less problems with other functions of the game like rehab and such (if it affects those players - not sure). if it weren't so new, mitchkenn would have told you the same thing on age vs serv. time.