Posted by brianp87 on 2/18/2016 9:35:00 AM (view original):
If a players better then whom I have now they play now. Period. If a player in your minors is better then who you have on your ml team then imo your not trying to win.
That's shortsighted. While I tend to agree users hold players back too long and "tear it down" too often, there are legit reasons to hold a better player back. I can see you've only played in a world more than 7 seasons once so maybe you can't see it. But I'll explain.
I signed a big money IFA. I thought he'd make it as a CF/2B but his range is going to fall short. He might be the best player on my team right now(3rd year) at 20 y/o. Problem is, he can only play LF/1B at the moment. D ratings are something like 76/58/52/56. My 1B is probably the 2nd best, only because he can only play 1B, on my team and my RF(who could play 2B/3B) is my 3rd best. My LF(could play RF) has 100 power and is putting up good numbers for the 2nd consecutive year. My current 2B/3B are OK but nothing special at the plate. So my option would be move RF to 2B/3B, LF to RF, send one of my three 2B/3B to the minors and promote my 20 y/o to play LF. And that was certainly an option in my mind before the season started. In fact, I used my R5 pick to take one of my 2B/3B to fill my 25 man roster. Sadly, the team I thought could contend is 9-15. All this moving around might net me another 2-5 wins over the course of the season. Right now, I'm going to finish with 60-65 wins. What would be the point of promoting a 20 y/o to reach 62-70? That said, if this team picks up the pace, I still have this move in my pocket. If not, he starts the season in the bigs next year when 3 of the LF/RF/2B/3B have expired contracts and I'll have my IFA until he's 31.
To me, this was the perfect blend of "playing to win now" and "planning for the future". The promotion all hinged on how we, and my division, started.
IOW, I don’t think there should ever be a “Period” in this game. At least not if you plan on staying in a world for more than one FA signing cycle(5 seasons).