I'm curious how everyone manages their farm clubs in franchise mode

[escape.artist02]

I'm curious how everyone manages their farm clubs.


When do you decide to call up your top prospects? Do you use the real MLB.com ETA's?


When a veteran player on your big league club with a decent rating (say mid to low 70s) is struggling how much time do you give him to see if he can turn it around before you demote or DFA?


How do you decide who to put in AAA vs AA at the start of the season? I personally start with their ages. If the player is 22 or younger, they go to AA if they're older then 23 I start them in AAA.


If a 19 year old A prospect who has an ETA of say 2021 or 2022 is dominating the minors, would you call him up or keep him in the minors? How do you decide when a player is "ready"?


When making a call up to replace an injured player, do you just take the top rated player or go by the minor league stats and select the best player?


How much attention do you pay to the hot and cold streaks when deciding who to call up/send down?


Any input would be great. Thanks

[garry1221]

My post at the end of this thread gives a basic blueprint of what's worked for me.

Top prospect call ups: I base more or less on team need/depth chart, and a lesser factor, age. Unless he's on top of the depth chart (top 10 for P), I'll generally let him clean up in the minors and progress more. Only caveat is if his potential starts dropping from not being challenged enough. Then its a no brainer.

I don't move much in season, but if I notice a starter hovering around .200 for too long, I'll send him down, call up a benchwarmer, and start the former bench guy. My bench guys are typically C/D potential. I want my A+B potentials playing as much as possible.

Let the kid tear it up. If he's killing it in double, put him in triple. If he's killing it in triple and his potential isn't falling, IMO leave him. If a kid is 75 OVR, then yeah, I'll bring him up, no question. I typically look at draft picks as 3 years out, minimum.

Injury call ups are a mixed bag for me. Did the call-up just get squeezed off the bigs? If position player, how versatile is he? If pitcher, whats his era/fip look like. Typucally, yes its highest OVR, but if someone's red hot, they get the call.

Hot/cold I could care less about.

[MightyMaxxx13]

Top prospect call-ups depend on whether its a rebuild or a contending team. A contender is calling up the best player regardless of future potential because they are trying to win. A rebuilding team is only calling up top prospects when they are ready.

Top prospects I treat gently, I try to give them a full year at whatever level they are at unless they are straight-up dominating or REALLY struggling then I’ll move them up or down appropriately.

C and D potential prospects are depth guys and will get moved up and down based on injuries and roster needs. Don’t pay attention to overall rating strictly. A guy may have a low overall rating but have a tool that plays really well in the majors (IE a guy with no bat but 80+ speed is a solid bench piece even though his overall is probably 50 something).

[JoseJoseph9119]

I usually start the season with:
All A/high B prospects under 21 years old with 65-70 OVR in A
21-23 year olds, 20+ year old A/high B prospects below 65(boom or bust guys) and high C players close to fulfilling their potential in AA
23+ and/or MLB ready in AAA

My one rule is "no rules". I've tried to slow walk guys all the way up and got nothing out of them. I've bounced guys all over the place and seen them make a jump. I've also seen that most of my guys who have increases in potential were bumped up a level too soon and sent back down. If I think a AA guy is in a progression "groove", I'll bump him up to AAA to see what happens. If a AAA guy is highly rated but is struggling, I'll send him down. If a guy is being "just a guy" then I might move him up or down just to shake him up. Every prospect is different.

It seems like minor leaguers(and players in general)play better the closer they are to maxing out, which helps them develop as well as the rest of the team they're supporting. Keeping those C guys down will make your A guys develop that much faster and one of them might become a useful depth piece.

Around the start of August I start putting any main prospect who's "hot" in A ball and leave them there the rest of the season. I don't know if it's a fact or just a placebo effect, but their OVR seem to continue to increase from "staying" on that hot streak for about 3 weeks or so. This also gives some playing time to the young guys that I've had in A ball all season.

Every offseason I force myself to clear any logjams, even if I'm taking a loss, for the sake of my overall league. I will end up with half of the top prospect list without even trying, so moving these guys around some helps to keep some level of GM parity.

Rinse and repeat.