I have a prospect who is ready to jump to the majors.

From reading the forums, I understand two things...

1) One of the optimal times to promote in terms of continued development and ratings bumps is right after spring training.

2) Promoting a certain number of days into the season gives you one extra year of service time.

So my question is, is it better to save the year of service time, or is it better to maximize the ratings bump by promoting at the end of spring training? Which holds more short-term and long-term value? Also, what is the number of days into the season required to wait to get the extra year of service time?

I guess it was actually three questions...

1/ Depends on the player.
2/ Depends on the player.

(How important is he, how long do you intend to keep him, can he help your team now or not, etc.)

It's 20 games. tecwrg used to say to take the guesswork out of it just wait a full real life week. That's 24 cycles which should take care of any off days as well as games.

MikeT used to say this is wasting a useful player's 20 games over nothing because is he going to be on your team by the time he's first eligible for free agency in seven or eight seasons? Are you still going to be the owner?

Also consider if you're doing it with a position player you're using a full 20 games; if it's a SP you're missing four starts max.

I usually only do it when I don't want a whole bunch of young players going through arbitrations at the same time. I might try to stagger them by a season.

So end of ST is probably best in my situation, based on your analysis. Thanks for the info!

Just make sure he is a starting player.