Handling Prospects?

[ELDoro]

How does everyone handle what level their top prospects are playing at?

Do you let the CPU decide?

Do you base your promotions off of their ratings or stats?

[BigRed75]

I tend to use a combination of stats, green and red arrows, and feel. If I'm playing an MLB quickstart I try to keep to real-life unless something glaringly tells me otherwise.

If I take a college player first in the draft I'll start him at Low-A. Otherwise college draftees start at Short Season A and high schoolers at Rookie Ball.

[mitchkenn]

stats, green arrow (less than stats tho), and need (maybe slightly more than stats) at the next level.

[SxSnts9]

For pitchers I go off of k/0. bb/9 hr/9 and war. Leaning heavily towards what their ratings tell me they should be. Meaning if a guy has great stuff and movement, but just average control and he's averaging 10 k/9, .6 hr/9 and 4.2 bb/9 then I'm ok moving him up a level even though his walks are a bit high because that's what he is.

For batters I utilize obp, slg, iso, bb %, k %, SB's, UZR and WAR. Once again I lean towards making sure the guy is doing what he's supposed to.

In my current White Sox dynasty my starting SS got hurt. In AAA I have a top 10 rated prospect by BNN that is 22 and plays 2b & SS both pretty well. He's hitting well in AAA, but not setting the world on fire (He's only 22 so I'm ok with that). I also have a 25 year old down there who can't hit a lick, but is the best defensive SS prospect I have ever seen.

Who did I promote? The slick fielder. Why? He was doing what he is supposed to. .270 BA .345 OBP and a +12.5 UZR in just 45 games. Even though the 22 year old has higher ratings and looks like the future of my middle infield, he's not quite doing what he's supposed to yet. He is doing great in AAA, but with his current ratings I'd expect him to be tearing it up unbelievably. So green arrow and stars be damned! I went with the defensive slap hitter. We'll see how it goes.

[NoOne]

IMO: the faster the better. so, i am all about promoting as soon as they can consistently add to their ratings at the next tier. call that being competent. stagnation is definitely bad. adjust what i write to your preference.

if you play with ratings, your scale has enough resolution, your scouting settings are not set low/very low, and you trust your scout:

use ratings first, then stats for when the scout is wrong. you'd have to know what 'average' is in the minor league to be able to understand how bad or good a stat is for the player. since it's a small sample size, an exagerration is probably safe... like 10.00+ ERA or a sub-.100 BA.

even if you cannot trust ratings enough to solely rely on them, it's still very useful to know at what ability level each tier requires* for competency.

minors ratings: if you don't have them relative, they are very low. i prefer this. i require no translation throughout promotion process to the majors. i know what ratings result in what mlb stats...roughly speaking. i do not worry about what they result in at each minor league level - that's all relative to our leagues anyway. this way also helps with knowing promotions better - e.g. i know contact at X is about a .200+ average and that's good for A-ball.

hasten the learning curve, use a throw-away league and learn through the profile editor what contact ratings equate to what BA's etc.... it won't be 100% perfect but it will be very useful information. pitching is more complicated, unfortunately.

I lost my notes, but I used something like this as a guide, if i recall:
.230 AAA
.215 AA
.200 A
.180 S A

Otherwise,

start by using the arrows to learn at what ratings players start to receive recommendations for promotions... some are 'bad ideas' coded in.. so try to ignore the ones that don't make sense - stats will help. the scout can be wrong in both directions, so it's definitely worth the look at least. pitchers and batters will take a slightly different method.

batters: you can almost solely rely on contact. power is never a concern. it may not develop until a few+ years in the majors. a really bad eye can make me hesitate on a promotion, more so if their potential eye is high.

pitchers: mostly control, but stuff and movement are quite important. e.g. extremely high stuff can allow you to promote a few ticks below the control value you fleshed out for that particular minor league. quite often you will have to consider stuff/movement along with control.

just jot down what you want at each level, minimum: (say, 100 point scale for example, and this is not good #'s to use, necessarily)

aaa - contact of 35 to 38, eye no lower than 20? (unless their potential is only 30-40 anyway)
aa --- contact of 30 to 32, eye no lower than 15?
a ----- contact of 24 to 26

* an extremely good eye can allow contact to be a tick or two below and still develop fine at any particular tier.

stats can tell you when the scout has undervalued or overvalued a particular rating, but be wary of any small sample. if stats are incredible, you can feel safe about promoting early - you probably won't do this much if you set the threshold for promotion at or near minimums, like given above. Most importantly, use stats after promotions to catch scouting mistakes - make sure its incredibly terrible before demoting... cannot stress that enough. let them sit there at least a couple months barring a total meltdown.

scouting reports / development history can help too. consider personality and randmness, though. if they are gaining skill, all is good in the world.

[Sam_15]

What I do is, I shortlist all of my top prospects and disable AI promotion/demotion. Once they start producing at their level, I set their ratings relative to the next level, and if I'm comfortable with those ratings, I promote them. Green arrows are also useful, but I try not to rely on them completely.

[ThePretender]

Ignore stats and focus on the ratings. You should be able to figure out with enough playing time in a league what the ratings are for hitters/pitchers at A/AA/AAA. When they're ready for the next league, raise them.

Far too often I've had prospects who have crappy stats and developing ratings, and when the ratings develop to what I consider ready for AA, I push them there. Same for AAA. I trust the ratings far more than I do stats.

Regardless of their stats, when their ratings are MLB ready I promote them.

I usually ignore the green arrow as well. I have a guy who has maxed out eye (blue) but red/yellow contact/avoid K. So I don't feel he's ready for AA, even if the arrow suggests he should be.

[BIG17EASY]

Use the relative ratings feature to figure out what level a prospect should be at. If your scout is good, you'll be able to progress your prospects incrementally without rushing them by checking their ratings at each level of the minors.

[The Yurpman]

Exactly what Sam15 said.

Although I may try to be more hands on with lesser prospects going forward.

[Sabres2000]

Originally Posted by Sam_15

What I do is, I shortlist all of my top prospects and disable AI promotion/demotion. Once they start producing at their level, I set their ratings relative to the next level, and if I'm comfortable with those ratings, I promote them. Green arrows are also useful, but I try not to rely on them completely.

how do u set their rating relative to the next level

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Sabres2000

how do u set their rating relative to the next level

I'll screenshot it

[Sam_15]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

I'll screenshot it

IIRC, this option only shows up if you enable it first. To do that, go to the global game settings and there's a box to check that says "Set ratings relative to", then you can choose the level you like.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Sam_15

IIRC, this option only shows up if you enable it first. To do that, go to the global game settings and there's a box to check that says "Set ratings relative to", then you can choose the level you like.

Fair enough. I always enable that tick box, so I didn't know that the drop-down was a sub-set of that. Makes sense.

Here, I'll screenshot that as well:

[marc5477]

Using ratings only works if your scout is accurate so it depends on your setting. For realism, i set scouting to very low. What i end up doing is checking players based on scout ratings and green arrows but I promote/demote based on stats.

The only exceptions I make are new draftees who have relatively high current ratings. Those guys I move according to the average rating I see in various leagues. For instance, all my AAA guys are 30/80 or above. All my AA guys are 21 to 25. The guys in A+ and A- tend to be 20/80 but have greater than 10/80 for all their skills. The guys in R have 20/80 and some skills still below 10/80.

I really dont make a fuss about when a player was drafted thought most of my 1st picks tend to jump instantly to the A to AAA level due to current ratings.

[NoOne]

the problem with making it relative is that it's a slightly different scale each year. so, a XX contact in 2017 is different in 2018 since there is different talent in the league, which adds uncertainty to the ratings - just like scouting accuracy settings.

i think it's relative to talent in the league - at a new year or whenever it's re-caclulated. if that's wrong, go ahead and ignore what i wrote. it will work in a similar and consistent fashion as the absolute scale.

defintiely don't do relative to positions, though... that's just a bad idea for prospects. talk about making things wonky.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by NoOne

the problem with making it relative is that it's a slightly different scale each year. so, a XX contact in 2017 is different in 2018 since there is different talent in the league, which adds uncertainty to the ratings - just like scouting accuracy settings.

i think it's relative to talent in the league - at a new year or whenever it's re-caclulated. if that's wrong, go ahead and ignore what i wrote. it will work in a similar and consistent fashion as the absolute scale.

I believe you're right about it being relative to the talent in the league, but why do you say that's a problem? On the 20-80 scale, a 50 is always going to be league average. That makes it easier to tell how a player should perform (if the ratings are accurate) at a certain level.

This is why sometimes when a rating goes up or down, a player's skills didn't actually change, but the level of talent in the entire league did, making that player's skills a little better/worse compared to the entire league.

[NoOne]

but this is more about a prospect and his development, i thought. overall handling of prospects like the op's title. i can see what you mean relative to an MLB call-up, but at that point we should be familiar with what ratings equate to success... being familiar with your majors is inevitable.

before that point:
a player needs a certain level of ratings to develop well at a particular tier, otherwise we could just throw our young prospects in AAA or the mlb bench and they would develop faster than progressing through the tiers. so, there is some sort of system coded to prevent us from taking advantage of this... since they cannot predict a scale that depends on current talent, they are using an absolute ratings scale to set up the threshold or ranges where a player can develop effeciently at the next tier etc etc.

there's a happy zone for each tier of minor leauge relative to ratings, and you want your prospect in those tiers during those happy zones of development. a shifting scale doesn't discern this as well as an absolute one does.

one example of a problem... AA has a ton of high 'current' talent this particular year.. your prospect who is actually ready for AAA is showing a lower rating due to the relative scale. you choose not to promot because it looks as if he doesn't have the ratings to develop at the next level.

because it shifts, it is not as reliable as the absolute scale.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by NoOne

but this is more about a prospect and his development, i thought. overall handling of prospects like the op's title. i can see what you mean relative to an MLB call-up, but at that point we should be familiar with what ratings equate to success... being familiar with your majors is inevitable.

before that point:
a player needs a certain level of ratings to develop well at a particular tier, otherwise we could just throw our young prospects in AAA or the mlb bench and they would develop faster than progressing through the tiers. so, there is some sort of system coded to prevent us from taking advantage of this... since they cannot predict a scale that depends on current talent, they are using an absolute ratings scale to set up the threshold or ranges where a player can develop effeciently at the next tier etc etc.

there's a happy zone for each tier of minor leauge relative to ratings, and you want your prospect in those tiers during those happy zones of development. a shifting scale doesn't discern this as well as an absolute one does.

one example of a problem... AA has a ton of high 'current' talent this particular year.. your prospect who is actually ready for AAA is showing a lower rating due to the relative scale. you choose not to promot because it looks as if he doesn't have the ratings to develop at the next level.

because it shifts, it is not as reliable as the absolute scale.

What absolute scale are you talking about? The ratings at all levels (MLB included) shift the same way based on the talent in the league.

I'm having a hard time understanding a lot of what you've written, but I'm getting the sense that you don't understand how ratings work.

[NoOne]

no, they don't. turn on 100% accuracy and you will see a direct translation from the player profile editor 200-pt scale to whatever scale the display is set to. however, if ratings are relative to position, this won't be true. various other settings could cause it to be false, too.

all i mean by absolute is that it doesn't float. it isn't calculated relative to anything. relative ratings will tell you alot about whether they will compete at various levels, but development doesn't depend on results at all. as long as a player has the minimum ratings, whatever that is, they will develop well while they are there. i'd rather have a clearer picture of when to promote.

the step to the bigs is a different animal, but having the ratings the same as the majors is even more beneficial to this decision than stepping through the minors. i see a 56/80 contact in AAA and i know it is also 56/80 in the bigs. i know how 56-contact player tends to hit in my league.

[BigRed75]

That's all well and good for figuring out if a prospect is ready for the bigs, but what if you want to know if they're ready to go from High-A to AA, or Low-A to High-A? That's when ratings relevant to the league is absolutely essential.

If you just go by absolutes, or ratings relative to MLB, all it will tell you is that the player isn't ready for MLB. But you already knew that, because he's in frickin' Single-A.