Minor league tweeks

[jumpngeorge]

The way I understand the current rules about minor leaguers is if you have a player who has made his debut but has not hit the playing targets you have a choice. You can activate him and increase his salary by $1 or you can leave him on the farm and activate him during the season in which case the dollar is not added, but the next season his salary goes up $4 like everyone else’s. If you activate players, you can replace them in the draft. I think the added $1 has some unintended consequences. If you add a player in season, the dollar isn’t added. This makes the player cheaper the following year if you delay the activation until after the draft. It also creates an opportunity for teams to draft a $1 slot that will be filled with this activated player while giving the team more than than they would had in the draft by stashing players who will be active on the farm instead of the active rosters. I hope I’ve explained clearly enough why I hate the current rule

I suggest we simply remove the added incentive of making your prospects cheaper the following year by not adding the dollar to such players activated before the draft.

[jumpngeorge]

I think instead of adding a dollar, we should make it against the rules to activate farm players before May 1. The rationale behind this is to discourage team from stashing player who qualify to remain on the farm only to activate them immediately after the draft, giving teams extra money in the draft. For example, say Wander Franco gets 149 at bats this season, next year, I would be a fool to start him on my active roster. I leave on the farm and draft a player for a $1 at the end of the draft. The evening before opening day, I wave and activate Franco. I had an extra $4 to draft my team. In this situation, Franco’s doesn’t go up a dollar, I believe so the next year he would $9.
If I had frozen him on active roster, his salary would have 6 and the following it would be 10. So if I do this low down dirty trick, I get rewarded by paying $1 less for Wander every year. So of course, I’m going do it.

I know there were a couple of farm players in my leagues who played a lot last season, but could still be on the farm. These were players who are expected to be active opening day. Seems to me, if farm player are going to be active on opening day, the rule should encourage them to frozen on the active roster rather than stashed on the farm.

I don’t like the added dollar either, but I really hate it when some teams are given more dollars to construct their opening day rosters than others

[joeizzo]

The other side of the coin is that they don't get to choose another future star in their minor league draft. I like it as is (but am always willing to listen to others' viewpoints).

$1 raise I am more flexible about. What do others think about that?

[geoflin]

I also like the rule in general as is but would do away with the $1 salary increase because I agree with George's take on that part, it does to some extent incentivize keeping your player in the minors until after the draft. I know that George is at least in part talking about me as we are in Bob together and I chose to keep both Madrigal and Garcia on my minor league roster there. But for this year I had a further reason for doing so - I realized that I was losing out on the opportunity to draft one or two minor leaguers who could help me in the future, but given that there were no minor league games last year and few college games, I thought about the lack of information available on this year's pool of minor leaguers and chose to minimize my participation in the minor league draft. In other years, with more information available about the minor leaguers, I might have made a different choice. So there was some strategy involved in my decision beyond what George is talking about.
As for this year, it appears that Garcia will begin the season in the minors anyway so I think it is totally reasonable that I have the opportunity to freeze him on my minor league roster rather than be forced to put him on my major league roster and immediately replace him with whoever is left after the draft. As for Madrigal, I haven't yet decided when to promote him. I almost definitely will at some point during the year but don't yet know that it will be before May 1. And what if you own a different minor leaguer, such as Kelenic, who hasn't yet played in the majors but could either make the team out of spring training or be promoted in April - if that happens, should his owner be prohibited from promoting him until May 1? So I disagree with any rule that would prohibit promotion before May 1.

[toml]

Did the $1 raise to activate MiLBers before freeze go along with the now discarded $1/year increase to keep a player in the minors? If so, it should be discarded as well.

I am not for a May 1 moratorium on promoting minor leaguers.

[jumpngeorge]

The dollar raise to minor leaguers is gone already except the year they’re activated.

Your play in Bob was the smart play. As in my example, it’s totally within the rule, but the fact that such players could be activated immediately after the draft gives teams that do this an unintended competitive advantage to build their team...a dollar less than the player’s salary is in effect added to the $260 budget. All this could be avoided by not allowing farm players to be activated until May.

[jumpngeorge]

PS: after thinking what you did, I kept 2 players on the farm in Clemente

[jumpngeorge]

I wrote about this in the general discussion, but I think it should be here.

I’m going to speak from the me perspective here. I have two players in the farm who played a lot last year and are expected to have prominent roles with this year. They played but both can remain on the farm. Okay, they are Spencer Howard ($5) and Luis Garcia($2) (WAS). Now for this exercise, pretend that they were really good. So when making freeze list, I can activate them and their salaries go up a dollar or I can keep them on the farm. Under the current rules, I could leave on the farm, draft two one dollar players and the end of the draft, then activate both farm players before opening day. In effect I drafted a team with a $265 budget instead of the $260 everyone else.

While it’s true that I’m giving up drafting replacements this season, that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been given more resources to put my team together than my competitors. Eventually championships will be won using this trick.

In addition, these guys’s salaries will be a dollar less for every year I freeze them.

I propose we make illegal to activate farm players until May1st. Thinking that making them play with $1 players for a month will provide enough of an incentive for me to just put them on my active freeze.

[joeizzo]

I moved Georges original post and all of the response to this thread to keep the conversation together.

[geoflin]

Deivi Garcia was sent to the minors today. He didn't make the team. This reinforces in my mind the idea that, should he be recalled before May 1, I shouldn't have to wait until then to activate him but should be able to treat him just like any other player on my minor league roster. And it also reinforces the fact that when we draft a couple of weeks before the season begins we really don't know who will be on the major league roster and who won't, so we shouldn't force owners to make decisions (e.g. he must be frozen on the major league roster) based upon information we don't yet have. I think the rule should stay as is.

[jumpngeorge]

I’m open to other solutions, but this is a problem. Granted, I have no idea when the stars will align to create the perfect opportunity to pull this move, but if it can happen, it will.

[Crosley]

My take - if $1 is the deal breaker for an owner on a player, you must not like that player very much anyway. I'm in favor of keeping the rules as they are: no salary increases for minor league players, a $1 increase when they are promoted (by their Mocksports owner) to the MLB roster. Why not reward owners for their prescience in drafting a player one or two years before they matter? Until he started running into walls, I really liked the fact that I had drafted Eloy Jimenez cheap; ditto for Hunter Greene pre-Tommy John. I think we need to think in terms of REWARDING better prepared owners, not trying to minimize the effects of  their preparation.

[Crosley]

After all, it's not "unfair" for the owners who do well at auctions and drafts to do well. Some of us take this game VERY seriously, some take it seriously, some take it as a pleasant diversion. We've all made our choice of which group we fall into.

[jumpngeorge]

It could well this is really going the matter very rarely. It will become more likely if I’m the next collective bargaining agreement they fix the service time manipulation problem. If my first two picks have major league time, but still qualify for the farm and if they start the year in the majors, I can pick two $1 players and activate them after the draft. I’ve put my team together with $267 rather than $260 and all I have to do is push back replacing them on the farm for a year. $7 extra in the draft is big advantage.

[rocky1914]

I tried to find the rule for players with MLB experience but could not find it. Regarding Josh Gray Wash P, he has 14 games played and 70.2 innings of service. He is likely to make Washington. Is he under the playing time REQUIRED to promote to MLB roster from Minor roster? If so I will promote him to my Major roster. Thank you for this ruling.
Rocky