By reading the manual and coaching descriptions is a ML bench coach worth the 1.5-2m or can a minor league coach from AAA handle it fine at a significantly reduced cost? I know someone commented in an older post about never hiring a big league bench coach for million(s) but wondering if anyone has experience or thoughts on this?

ML Bench is usually the last coach I hire.  By the end of the coach hiring period - due to AAA coaches being "hired up", plus out of work coaches from the season before - there is usually a surplus of highly rated bench guys available.

I spend the majority of my coaching money on other coaches which I prioritize more highly.  Then on the morning of the final day, I lowball offer three acceptable BCs with my remaining budget.  One of them will take it.  I'm not sure if it starts to happen earlier, but I do know that the PM1 Part 1 cycle is when they'll take lowball offers for a ML job.

Depending on the surplus available, I sometimes do this for HCs and PCs too.  It helps to keep your eyes on the Remaining Openings notification.  When there are only two remaining BL positions and ten acceptable coaches, you know you can lowball them.

Again, it all depends on whether there is a surplus in your world.

When you try and lowball them (or for that matter hire a AA coach for High A for example) do all the openings need to be filled first? Or in the scenario you mentioned because there are 10 and only 2 can get the job they start to take jobs wherever? Thanks for your input

Well, I never try to hire down. Maybe some other owners have had success but I never have. If you try something like hiring a BC as your FI or 3B as your 1B they'll wait till the last minute and the money's got to be there. But hiring for the level below, as far as I've seen they won't do it till the very last chance. Too much of a risk for me that the sim will auto hire a turd coach. Maybe it's worked for someone else, not for me.

I definitely say some ML coaches will accept a low all offer at the 11 AM cycle of the final day. By that time many of them have dropped their demands to around 1 mil anyway. I'm not talking about a huge lowball, it's getting a 1.2 mil demand guy for 800k. I just saying with the remaining openings plus time factor, some will accept below their demands. Not sure if all will, that's why I put out three offers.

Don't forget the main point, this is only useful if you're in a world with a surplus of qualified coaches at the top level. If there are two or three openings left and you've got four or five unhired coaches with 85 plus ratings.

If you do all this just to end up with a 75 rated coach, then you might as well just have promoted a AAA guy.

1) If all the openings are filled, coaches will drop their demands down a level, with the accompanying drop in salary demands.  This rarely happens-- guys like me who only hire their big 3 ML coaches at the last cycle eliminate the possibility of all the openings' filling.
2) Hiring down is possible at any time by offering 1.5x demand.  Your offered will be beaten by any offer at the demand level, even of less money.  This is moderately useful in the low minors, but hiring AAA coaches by hiring down from ML gets expensive.
3) In the last cycle, ML coaches will accept 0.5x demand.  Have never tried it at the next to last cycle.
4) Hiring a BC as an FC, if you offer their BC demand, is ordinary and does not have to wait until the last minute; I've had them accept those offers at the first cycle on which coaches sign.  I don't know about offering a BC a FC job at FC demand level.  I've never seen a BC who was an acceptable FC remain available until the last cycle (when you could offer 0.5x demand).