[moore4807]

Originally Posted by ALB123

I don't know if this is different because I'm in a historical sim (currently in 1987) but every injury in my minor leagues is only able to go on the 10-Day disabled list (which was abolished in 1984) UNLESS they are on the MLB club's 40-Man Roster. Then a 60-Day DL is possible AND free's up that player's spot on the 40-Man Roster.

I first read the OPs unofficial guide several seasons back in my saved game. I liked a lot of what is proposed and I've tried to follow jpeters1734's system as best as I could. Unfortunately, I have not been very successful in following the guide as closely as I wanted. I'm going to try and layout a scenario similar to mine.

MLB Team has 3 SP's and 1 CL you wouldn't replace. C is solid. 1B is solid. SS is solid. 3B is solid. LF is solid. CF is solid but aging. So, those 6 position players ain't goin' nowhere! While RF and 2B aren't rock-solid, I do have 2 awesome Utility players who are fast and can each play 5 positions. But, as much as I value them, they could be replaced. Overall, I'm left with 3 Pitchers, 2 Infielders and 3-4 Relief P's that could be replaced by better players.

AAA Team has some great players too! An LF, CF & 1B are awesome prospects, but not so awesome that I would replace tried & true MLB'ers. So they have to play AAA until I feel like replacing an MLBer or two. I have a 2B who should be in the majors on any team, but not good enough to warrant losing one of my MLB util players, not yet. 2 of my AAA SP's could be brought up and probably will at the half-way point. My AAA rotation is going to be awful, but MLB is what matters, right?

AA Team has 1 really good SP, 1 Good SP, and 2 really good pos. players. SS & RF.

Class A Advanced Team has a HoF CF. Everything else is anybody's guess. As you can see, I've got many roadblocks to making my MLB squad. That's a good thing! Unfortunately, that means my AAA talent is going to live in AAA-land for years, barring injury. Some AA talent will make it to AAA, but I don't want to promote 'em just to bench them. I'd rather they keep playing ball all season in AA, most likely.

If you have a really good MLB team you just can't promote according to a schedule. Most of those really good MLB'ers are going to be playing for years to come. Again, that's the goal, right? If any of my young players turn into anything worthwhile by the time they're in A+ ball their progress is going to slow because of the players ahead of them (unless they play different spots, of course). Pitchers, not so much...you can never have too much pitching, right?

Is it recommended to just cut good AAA players who have aged and appear to be blocked due to MLB talent? I've got 26 and even a couple of 27-year-olds still in AA because of the cascading effect of having better players ahead of 'em...Even though that 26-year-old is really good, his AAA and MLB. If my MLB SS blows up his arm and knee I'll have that AAA SS replace him and feel ok that I'm not losing much if anything at all. Then, finally, my AA SS will move up to AAA. In time, he'll be playing SS at 32 years old in AAA if a better, younger player doesn't come along. Is it sometimes better to cut someone like that recently promoted AAA SS so I could put a much younger AA SS in his place, even though that AA SS is 1.5 stars and the old SS is 3 stars? Who knows, maybe with every day playing the 1.5 SS might progress to 2.5 or maybe even 3, if lucky.

I hope I haven't written an unreadable pile of dog-doo. Hopefully, anyone who hasn't fallen asleep yet will get the gist of what I'm asking. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this.

Not "Dog Doo" at all... Not to hijack the thread - but you describe what keeps us GM's here and in real life up at night

The theory that I go by is most players (80%) don't mature until age 23-25 and half of them flame out in 5-7 years - the remaining 10% are the names you remember for decades and HOF its the 80% to 90% players that make or break your teams dreams!

Now those players are what you want to lock up to 3 year deals - not longer - because you cant predict the age and ability curve so most players once they are past the entry level contracts - ask for BIG $$$.

1) You will break your budget trying to keep all those players, so you have to evaluate the age into the factors of who you keep on the farm. You don't want a lot of $2.5M or higher contracts playing primarily at AAA!! (unless you are playing as Yankees Dodgers or Red Sox with virtually unlimited $$$)

2) You can figure you get two shots at most players from 25-28 and then 29-32 to those 3 year contracts, you can ask for a slightly lower salary for the protection of the three year, and it makes it easier to trade them and not get the overpaid veteran's comment from the other AI GM's.

3) when you find that type backlog at AAA that you describe - that's where my strategy of continually churning the minors and feeding it from trades starts to make sense. You can usually get prospects by selecting that in the shop player function of trades. The three headed monster of Trades, Waivers and Free Agents means you should NEVER have to keep a player who is costing you $$ at AAA, just because your MLB starter "may" get hurt!

4) Everyone has their own beliefs and I'm not winning enough to think of myself as any kind of "expert". This is just what seems to work for me and I've been doing it for 5 years - I usually lose interest 15-20 years into the simulation and that's my own fault - but I saturate baseball until football and hockey start up