Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

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Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by RonCo » Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:38 pm

I sit down with Matt Rectenwald to touch on everything he knows about managing a BBA minor league organization...or at least everything he'll tell me!


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Re: Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by Lane » Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:07 pm

looking forward to listening on my commute home today!
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Re: Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by Fat Nige » Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:21 pm

I do try to spend that much time on my minors but often I feel I’m too rushed. It seems to be too much ‘injury check’, ‘positions filled check’ and export, breath out. I do try though after that to then pour over maybe one or two levels and tweak right up to sim time. It’s not uncommon for me to export six or more times a sim.
I’m feeling that something might be going right (ish) as the success of my minor levels appears to be sweeping upwards, last year Double-A was looking good, this year with the promotions it’s Triple-A that’s looking good. I really feel I ought to sit down and do one of Ron’s 7-year plans, at least for the minors. I’m already drafting a lot for need, positions I need first and then spreading out other positions in later rounds to get an even mix entering the system and will probably expand my system as the years go by and I can finally say “ this is my franchise, all the dross here is all my success/failure”. Then I can start to prepare. . .
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Re: Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by Spiccoli » Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:53 pm

I’ve had issues with keeping Minor league rosters completely full and playing time.

When there’s 30 players on a team there’s lots of guy not playing at all.

I suppose it doesn’t matter if they’re filler anyway. But I like to see how everyone is doing and it’s impossible when there’s 30 guys.

So I’ve been limiting the teams to 28 or 27.

But I understand the downside, especially with injuries.

Also, that was one of the most informative podcasts so far.

Thanks
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Re: Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by RonCo » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:19 pm

Fat Nige wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:21 pm
I do try to spend that much time on my minors but often I feel I’m too rushed. It seems to be too much ‘injury check’, ‘positions filled check’ and export, breath out. I do try though after that to then pour over maybe one or two levels and tweak right up to sim time. It’s not uncommon for me to export six or more times a sim.
I liked Matt's comment to start the thing off that he spends a lot of time making tiny little changes. When I talked to San Antonio's Mike Calvaruso, he noted that he often spends an hour a night just looking over things. So Matt's not alone. I also export several times a sim...some of that is because I'll use more than one computer...so I'm exporting to be able to import on my other machine...but most of it is because I'm making little tweaks on players or promotions or other offers.
I’m feeling that something might be going right (ish) as the success of my minor levels appears to be sweeping upwards, last year Double-A was looking good, this year with the promotions it’s Triple-A that’s looking good. I really feel I ought to sit down and do one of Ron’s 7-year plans, at least for the minors. I’m already drafting a lot for need, positions I need first and then spreading out other positions in later rounds to get an even mix entering the system and will probably expand my system as the years go by and I can finally say “ this is my franchise, all the dross here is all my success/failure”. Then I can start to prepare. . .
One of the things I like about doing this is that it feels like I'm inching the team forward every day...and because when I do this, I'm more likely to see players moving rather than overlooking them. The fact that you're feeling good about the progress you're seeing is probably the most important thing, really. The game is supposed to be fun.
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Re: Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by RonCo » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:21 pm

Spiccoli wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:53 pm
I’ve had issues with keeping Minor league rosters completely full and playing time.

When there’s 30 players on a team there’s lots of guy not playing at all.

I suppose it doesn’t matter if they’re filler anyway. But I like to see how everyone is doing and it’s impossible when there’s 30 guys.

So I’ve been limiting the teams to 28 or 27.

But I understand the downside, especially with injuries.

Also, that was one of the most informative podcasts so far.

Thanks
Yes, it's hard to get players playing time with 30 man rosters. 27-28 is probably fine--though I can often platoon or put guys in who start 1 out of 3 or 4 days to fill the rosters. I don't find much value to dropping down into the 23-25 range.
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Re: Dorks Being Dorks: Managing Minor Leagues

Post by ae37jr » Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:46 pm

Great episode. I agree and do a lot of the stuff that Matt talked about. In fact I think we often battle for and pass back/forth a lot of the minor league depth that gets released each sim. I've had a ton of success with minor league free agents. My favorite thing to do is sweep up other teams international finds that they give up on too soon. Francisco Ruiz, Jorge Perez, Grellan Profit(traded to Val in Flores deal) and Hakim Ngowa(just traded to Huntsville) were all minor league free agents. Anyone that tells you that their system is so good that they can't be bothered with MiL free agents... they are full of it. There are more misses then hits, but the hits make it worth the effort.

The only part I don't do is pay attention to the arrows. Maybe I should. I dunno. Playing time is more important to me then what level they are at. For the most part I try to keep them age appropriate. When a player dominates a level I'll move them up quicker. But other then that it mostly depends on what players I have at that position at that level. Having a lot of position flexible players sometimes make this easier, but also makes it harder to coordinate cross training.

Matt also touched on something that I think is a huge advantage. That is trying to identify if a players ratings are on the higher or lower end of the spectrum. This is especially important for players with middling ratings. A 7 power rating could be the slightest of margins below an 8 rating or could be barely over a 6. This is a huge difference. Being able to recognize this helps with the buy low, sell high process.
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