Minor League Question

[dbarreca]

Anyone have any tips on how to bring prospects up through the system?

i need help with both Pitchers and position players. What should I be looking for in a prospect?
Where do i see these "bars" I keep reading about.

Thanks for the help folks

[Zakutak]

I've had success with a simple system. One year in rookie, one in AA, and 1 1/2 or 2 in AAA. With pitchers, it's best to go 2 in AAA. If you click on "rotation" from the roster screen, you'll see the green bars. Good luck

[MBuser]

dbarreca - could you please be more vague and general? Just kidding! If you've already read some of the previous postings of this type - there are tons of little things to look out for. I'll see if I can highlight a few for you.

1. Look for big numbers across the board - great potential numbers usually *not always* translate into solid careers.

2. Don't rush them to the majors. Wait till their actuals (when you double click and scroll to the right) match their potentials (the ratings you see in the team roster or lineup screen. The consensus I think is that it's usually around 26-27 years old. When the two sets of numbers match, he'll produce at or around his maximum. The farther from their potentials they are, the lower the class they should be at.

3. Try to give the minor leaguers expertise at more than 1 position. I believe it takes 100 games at a position to give the player a 1.0 rating (max) at a position. For every incriment of 10 games, the rating goes up (.1). Have shortstops also play 2B, 1B play 3B, LF play RF and CF, and vice versa. If you've got a great hitting and horrible fielding CF, make him a 1B, the least demanding postion to field. Also, if you've got great hands and range at 2B and not so great at SS, switch the two players - SS needs more range. In the outfield, the CF needs the most range.

4. Pitchers - same general principles about their numbers and when they're ready for the bigs. About the green bars - when you go to your team rotation screen and you select a pitcher, green bars appear under certain pitches. The larger the bar, the more familiarity or expertise the pitcher has with the pitch. The more the better, obviously. You can pretty much say if the bar isn't at least halfway, the pitch is no good. Unfortunatly, the rotation screen is the only place you can see these bars, so it's tough to plan draft strategies accordingly. I have devised somewhat of a strategy (not foolproof, but effective) but I'll save it for another discussion.

Hope that helps, and I hope others add to this discussion. I'm interested to see what you all have to say as well.

[chairman]

MBuser- I'm very interested in your strategy for drafting pitchers. I'm like you, I wish I could see what their green bars were like before I drafted them, but since I can't and since no one rating or combination of ratings seems to reflect what a pitcher's green bars will be, I feel like I'm just taking a stab in the dark when I draft them.

[MBuser]

The method to my draft madness...

1. If there are no ABSOLUTE CAN'T MISS offensive prospects when my spot comes up in the first round, then I don't even draft a position player until I've taken somewhere between 8-12 pitchers. I've found as many, probably more, good offensive players of all experience levels in the free agent pool at the beginning of the season as I've aquired through the draft. I actually autodraft positional players after I get all the pitchers I want.

2. First things first, look at their potentials. If they don't have at least 90 for control and stuff, I don't even bother, maybe a few exceptions besides.

3. Double click on the players with high potentials. If they have expertise in a lot of pitches, they are more likely to have more familiarity with them, from my experience.

*HUGE POINT* Let's say pitcher A and pitcher B have 5 pitches each. Pitcher A has 45% fb, 25% cb, 15% sl, 15% cu, 10% si. Pitcher B has 25% fb, 20% cb, 20% sl, 20% cu, 15% si (where it lists all their pitches w/ %'s when you double click). The more even the %'s, the more likely for the green bars to be high, I've found. Sometimes they're low, but as many times as not, they're 2/3 and more for some pitches. Pitcher A will most likely have a large green bar for his fb, smaller for his cb, and then miniscule for the rest of his pitches. Pitcher B will have even lengths for his green bars, and they are just as likely to be 3/4 as they are to be 1/4.

4. Look at their physical size. If you're tossing it up between two pitchers with real similar numbers, and one is 5 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier, take him. If he has good numbers and he's 6'5", 250, definitely take him. I found a pitcher with those exact numbers, and he rocks!

Hope that helps - start a league and just sim a few seasons straight through just to run the draft, and try these strategies. I think you'll find they make the draft at least slightly more productive than before.

[MBuser]

Chairman - I've also applied these strategies to when I hit the free agent list for pitchers. Using that and having good or poor stats to also factor in makes it that much more accurate of a predictor.

[chairman]

Thanks, MBuser, I'll have to try that out on my next draft. The only requirement I've previously had was to draft pitchers with 90+ mph fastballs, but I've probably found more great pitchers with under 90 mph fastballs, which bugs me because that's not very realistic. One more thought: I've simmed a million seasons and I've never seen a pitcher come out of the draft that is anywhere close to what Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson are in the game.

[Blargh]

A strategy I have is to trade for AA or AAA pitchers from other teams. I usually watch the waiver wire and I'll pick up the aging superstars and then trade then and usually some stiff off my rookie team for them. Sometimes all you need to do is to trade a rookie ball player for them. I look for pitchers with large green bars and good pitching stats. I don't usually look at thier ratings. I've found this to be hit and miss. I've done this about 8 times. So far I've picked up a pair of 2 time Cy Young winners. 1 write-off, 2 good spot starters and a future Cy young winner if he can ever finish a season without getting injuried.
When I draft I only draft the first 5 selections and I usually pick 5 position players before going to autodraft. I also check out the FA every now and then to fill out my farm teams. About 3/4 of my AAA team have over 75 in both power and hitting, and the rest have over 75 in one of the two.
I have great success. I've won over 100 games for each of the past 12 years, including a 132-31 mark one season. And now that my team doesn't choke anymore in the divisional series I've won 4 of the past 6 world series.
So in a nutshell my advice is...
1) draft top postion players until the talent gets thin, usually 4th or 5th round
2) pick up aging superstars that teams have waived for trade bait. (and make up for those backstabbing sim teams who dump thier stars who have played all thier career for thier teams and who are only 8hr from 500 career hrs. sorry, just a little rant)
3) trade fringe farm players and aging stars for young arms with high green bars and good era and oba. Oakland always seems to have a few good young pitchers

The best pitcher I've ever seen in the game is Justin Fuller. I was actually told about in this discussion board. He won about 4 NL Cys before I traded for him and he won another pair in 5 years for me. He was 30-3 with a 2.07 era for my team. Then the bastard retired on me at age 36 after having another 20+ wins, a sure finalist for the Cy again. I still can't understand why he retired.

[MBuser]

Blargh - good stuff. The first thing I do in every league I've started (since discovering him) is trade for Fuller. I get the same type of results. 20+ wins, 2.00ish ERA, 220 innings. Too bad his endurance is only mid-5-s, who knows what he'd do!

[Storm]

Hmmm... I've found it's more fun to play with the Fantasy Draft... as a braves fan it isn't much of a challenge with my favorite team. My stratgey for minor league developemant takes a lot of work, but pays off with insane results.

1) At the begining of the year, go through your A team with the editor or HH2K1 Edit and find the worth while bats. Do the same for teh Free agent market, usually I look for .400 slg for 1b, rf, and lf, .340 obp for cf, 2b, and ss. I sort of flow for c and 3b. I usually convert to those positions.

2) I use the find player utility to search for young players with ratings in power and htting over 70 (usually over 80), an eye over 70, and running over 90 (which is only a 5-6 speed). After double checking them for good fielding (at least 7.5 range for outfield and middle infield) and good hitting (using the Editor), I trade the players on my team that I'm going to replace (usually I replace 3-4 Major league spots a year, always 1 starter) for the best of the guys I found.

3) I look though my rookie pitchers for worth while bars

4) I search though all the teams rotations (this is what takes so long.. around an hour) for good bars.. at least 3/4 full for all the pitches. I go out and get as many as I can using the poor pitchers and useless positions players as trade bait.

5) I search though the free agent pitchers using HH2K1 Edit (you can use Scouting ratings to sort them, if you feel the editor is cheap).

6) I cut the pitchers with low bars and the useless bats. I use the good free agents I found to fill out the rosters to 11 pitchers and 13 position players.(yes, I know it's one short, but it gives me more freedom to move players, and that last spot doesn't get much playing time, and I really don't think bench players progress much at all)

7) Pitchers move up a level if they've had a full good year.. two at AAA. Batters move up if they had a full year over .280-.300, or if they were just killling the ball. An era over 5 is grounds for being sent down.

8) All players should be learning a new spot. It makes them worth more to you. A third baseman with an 8 arm but only 5-6 range should be taught C,1b, and maybe even RF. Every ss should know 2b, and vice versa... same applies for the out field. Fielding doesn't matter in the minors, so you can put that Catcher with 1.2 range in CF with no problems.

9) Don't hold players back. If they do well, bring them up. I had one player bat .360 over 70 AB's, so I brought him up... he did the same at AAA... so I brought him to the majors... three years later he has belted over 40 homers, hit .340, and driven in over 110 every year... and he's only 24 now. So, it is a reall tricky business on when to bring them up.

Does this work? Well, after the first two years (when the minors started to show up in the majors) I had a winning % of over .800. 140 wins is a bunch. I actually had to trade away my AAA team because they were going to waste. I made an entire team out of them... Altough, I will say that the retarded drafting AI maybe be as much to blame for my teams success as me.



[This message was edited by Storm (8:37 am on 5.21.2000).]