I just took over a team that has been doing well. I noticed that the previous owner would do two things. One, will regularly waive his starting players, and I would imagine pull them back when they are claimed. Would the reason for this was just to gauge interest for possible trades? And two, he dropped multiple major league players to AAA prior to the offseason. These are players that have been on the ML team for one or two seasons, not players that have played at both levels during the same season. Does anyone know the value of doing that?

To game the system and gain extra arbitration years.

Interesting......so you get extra arbitration years but is there a negative effect that one sees to their development or to maintaining their ratings?

There's no downside to putting everyone on waivers as long as you set them to auto revoke. It leaves the door open for any potential trade. Demoting players before ST begins does not seem to diminish development.

It can also cost you a demotion penalty.

Which is gaming the system because you get an additional year of control.

Even though I'm new owner to this I would have to agree with bripat42 on this. I am at end of season in two leagues and have a few guys I brought up at end of year to help out, but I am not sure if they are truly ready and I want to avoid the higher pay if I send them down after roll over. It also avoids the dreaded penalty that MikeT23 talked about. I have noticed that the guys who are first promoted and then demoted have not suffered the penalty. At least in the cases I have seen. Plus if I bring them up after season starts then I get the possible promotion bump.