How long will a minor leaguer play before he demands a big league deal?  I think I read it is once he is a 60 overall.  Or does he have to play a certain amount of years before he'll start demanding.

actually, most of them will still ask for a minor league deal

The 60+ overall rating comes into play for the guys that qualify as minor league free agents, per mhulshult above, as these players will demand major league deals. If you want to be able to retain them for your minor leagues, you must put them on the 40-man roster. Anyone below 60 can be re-signed to a minor league deal when they reach FA.

I got burned on this one recently.  I had about 4 minor league guys that were going to be FA's, but I didn't want to put them onto the 40 man, because they were really just 4A guys at the best.  Each had an overall rating of about 63.  Anyway, my plan was to sign them during the "sign your FA" phase, but since they were over the 60 rating point, they all asked for ML deals.  The cheapest asking point of the four was about $3.2M for 4 years.  Needless to say, they will be looking for work for a long time because there's no way I'm committing that much $ to them.  

Posted by overeasy on 8/19/2010 5:09:00 PM (view original):
The 60+ overall rating comes into play for the guys that qualify as minor league free agents, per mhulshult above, as these players will demand major league deals. If you want to be able to retain them for your minor leagues, you must put them on the 40-man roster. Anyone below 60 can be re-signed to a minor league deal when they reach FA.

But I won't have to worry about the ratings factor before I need to put him on the 40, correct?  I just signed a IFA at the end of last season, he's a 64 overall right now.  I want to develop him properly so he'll spend a few years in the minors... I dont want him jumping ship.

You do not need to worry about this until the end of the season for players listed as having 5+ pro years. If you have players that are serious ML prospects, I would hope that they would be on the big club well before that happens.

Posted by a_ersberg on 8/20/2010 5:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by overeasy on 8/19/2010 5:09:00 PM (view original):
The 60+ overall rating comes into play for the guys that qualify as minor league free agents, per mhulshult above, as these players will demand major league deals. If you want to be able to retain them for your minor leagues, you must put them on the 40-man roster. Anyone below 60 can be re-signed to a minor league deal when they reach FA.

But I won't have to worry about the ratings factor before I need to put him on the 40, correct?  I just signed a IFA at the end of last season, he's a 64 overall right now.  I want to develop him properly so he'll spend a few years in the minors... I dont want him jumping ship.

You'll have him in the majors before he's a free agent I'm sure

Just take into consideration that a player (Not on the 40) with 4+ seasons is eligible for the Rule 5 draft.

Posted by plague on 8/21/2010 6:37:00 PM (view original):
Just take into consideration that a player (Not on the 40) with 4+ seasons is eligible for the Rule 5 draft.

Yeah, I have that planned in.  I just didn't want the guy to be a 70+ overall in  year 3 and say "HEY BUDDY I WANT A ML CONTRACT-- SCREW YOUR DEVELOPMENT PLAN!!!!".  

Note that the only guys who fall under the category of what you asked are guys who weren't good enough to be selected in the rule5 draft the previous season. In the RUle5 draft you select guys with 4yrs of experience who aren't on the 40man, as the Plague said. Players who aren't selected in the rule5 will then become free agents at the end of the following season. Its pretty rare that a good player gets that far, so just make sure you monitor who is going to have 4 pro yrs experience in your system, and then plan accordingly so you aren't losing guys in the rule5.