Minor League Development

[Bohemian Rap City]

I just started playing a Historical league, taking the 1961 LA Dodgers. I am seeing a lot of recommendations on minor league players recommending that they are overmatched or probably ready to advance to a higher minor or even major league. Most of these recommendations seem a bit strange.

For instance, I see recommendations for a player that has poor fielding skills and decent hitting skills being touted as a possible major league ready player, despite the fact he isn't hitting his weight in the minors.

Also, I traded for a very young Phil Niekro and Mel Stottlemeyer and placed them at A ball. Now I am worried that the coaching staff at their team will fail to develop them.

1) How much impact do my minor league coaches have?
2) What personality and skills should I be looking for in Minor league managers and coaches?
3) How do I help guarantee that a high value prospect is getting proper development?
4) Should I start dropping older minor league players to gain them more playing time?
5) Will promoting a player too early destroy their development?

[Demolaye]

-Minor league coaches do affect your players, but not as much as the player potential,
-Try to hire coaches for your minor teams that follow the play philosophy or development philosophy you want your players teams to have,
i.e. If you want finesse pitchers at the top make sure the majority of your pitching coaches at the various minor teams are finesse coaches
-Minor league wise I often placed my highest potential players at one level higher than was recommended, they might get over matched sometimes but will still get plenty of playtime and better coaching -- the only time I don't do this is promotion from AAA to majors, unless I know they are good enough to not get get too beat up and that they'll get proper playing time (but I can control that as I make the line-ups).

[Bohemian Rap City]

This has been an ongoing issue for me as I traded for a young Pete Rose. He was already a stud as far as current ability and potential, and I traded my cleanup hitter stud (Willie Stargell). My reasoning was that Willie was playing a position (left field) that was easy to cover defensively. I am a firm believer that the team's defense is built up the middle (Ca, 2B, SS, CF). Since my biggest hole was 2B and because my ballpark was not built for power hitters I made the trade.

Rose played very well offensively and defensively, and my team's performance went up. What bothered me was that Rose's overall ratings dropped off from (4.5/5) to (3/3.5). My team's overall position ratings at 2nd base went from 1st to 5th in a year.

Since the team performed well, that didn't bother me as much as the Jerry Koosman situation. I drafted Koosman and he was my top prospect for 3 years in the minors, but didn't seem to be developing nearly as fast as I felt he should, since several other pitchers in his draft class were in the majors that year. One even won a Cy Young award in year 3. Koosman had fallen to my 5th rated prospect, by this time.

I traded Koosman, and in a single season he exploded and won a World Series. I get that rng has a big impact on that, and I really don't mind that part of it, but I can't stop wondering why my minor league system is NOT developing people.

I focus all minor Managers as Personable/Conventional as much as possible. Pitching coaches focus Finesse and Hitting coaches focus Contact throughout my organization. I try to have managers that favor player development over Veterans. I manipulate my minors so I have my best prospects at a team without a positional logjam. A stud SS is always on a team where there are no more than one other SS....or I reset the other SS to a new position.

I am hoping my farm failures are RNG and not my philosophy.

[Demolaye]

Sounds like you'er doing a lot of the development things right. Not that one "style" is right. But you have a bottom to top philosophy that's in step from level to level which is right.

For the star ratings, I wouldn't get too worried about that. The results you're seeing is what you want so you have the right 2BMan for your team. The star ratings are also not measured with a static yard stick. They are more often weighted values relative to the average --at that level--. So perhaps several teams improved their defence at 2B in the past year or two.

For the Koosman case, that happens in this game and in real ball too, a player is drafted on their potential but it seems like they're taking forever to develop, so a team doesn't protect them or trades them and they go onto be a superstar.
Take for example the "Rule 5 Draft" where MLB teams draft from players who have been in the minors 5+ seasons and have not yet made the 40-man roster let alone the MLB roster. One might think after 5 years in the minor teams know what they have and the "best" players are by now protected. Well here are a few players who were unprotected and moved via a rule 5 draft:

HOF'ers
Christy Mathewson,
Hack Wilson,
Roberto Clemente,

Multiple Time All-Stars
R.A. Dickey (Cy Young Winner)
Johan Santana (2x Cy Young Winner)
José Bautista (3x Silver Slugger)
George Bell (AL MVP, 3x Silver Slugger)
Bobby Bonilla (6X AS, 3x Silver Slugger)
Darrell Evans (2x AS, 21 MLB seasons played)
Willie Hernández (3x AS, AL MVP and Cy Young)
Mike Morgan (12 Teams, 25 Seasons)
... and dozens of others.

My point being, every MLB team in real life has had the same thing a few times, so you're probably not doing anything wrong.

[Bohemian Rap City]

My main concern was whether my coaches were actually developing minor league players in my system. It looked a lot like my players went to a DE league team and nobody there tried to develop them.