So my world is in spring training, and after a few games I realized I hadn't yet promoted a lot of my young guys through the minors. So I promoted all my major prospects and the game gave the customary "promotion" updates, and I was a bit surprised (but pleased) to find that most players had experienced significant ratings bumps despite only having a few games of ST experience so far this year.

Then I came across this guy-- Cedrick Pickering. After being promoted from rookie ball to Low A, the ratings page showed that he experienced one-point bumps in control, vLH, vRH, P1, P2, P3, P4, Arm Accuracy, and even batting vLH. I don't think anyone would argue that this is a significant bump. There's just one problem-- this player has not made ANY spring training appearances. That ratings bump between "Spring Training" and "Promotion" occurred with no playing time whatsoever. He is on the ST roster, but has 0.0 IP for the year. The same thing happened with Alex Romano and Raymond Rossy.

I assume this is not a well-known phenomenon, since everything I've heard has led me to believe that to experience a ratings bump in ST a player must actually get a good deal of playing time, or at the very least a few innings. Now it seems young players will get significant bumps in ST even if they don't get any playing time at all. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

This unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your viewpoint) is not a new problem.

It may be that he was due a bump, but you only saw it now because of the promotion. That's the answer I've seen previously to this type of thing, though odd it happened between the new ST and Promotion... the question is was there a bump between last season's last update and the new ST.

prez, as I'm sure you understand there is no "ratings bump". What you are describing is a ratings report, which happens at the end of ST for every player (under the "Opening Day" line, most of the time).

The ratings report for ST shows ratings "improvement" from the beginning of the off-season to the end of ST, under the "Opening Day" line. When you promote a player during ST, the report generates a "Promotion" line, showing the player's "improvement" up to that event. The younger (and better) the player, the bigger (and better) the "improvement" on the report.

I know it helps me to think of ratings as "10.X" with "10" being visible on the player card and "X" being the incremental, hidden number. Assume that at the start of ST, all players have an even, non-decimal number in each ratings category. Depending on playing time, coaching, makeup, etc. that decimal increases until the next scheduled "reporting day" when the player card gets a new line. At that time, the new rating is reported - incremental growth. A player who is promoted (or traded) BEFORE the end of ST does not get an "Opening Day" report - the system reports the ratings numbers at the time of the event. So, when you say guys like Romano and Rossy improved despite no playing time, I respond "of course" because they were working out, working with coaches, etc. and were improving (according to their makeup, etc.) anyway. Increased playing time MAXIMIZES their development. But you can leave a top prospect (or DITR from the previous season) on the inactive list, at LoA, and he'll also show SOME improvment, because he wasn't sitting a the local Chili's sipping a beer - he was "working out", working with coaches, etc.

Put simply, it is NOT the event (promotion) that generates improvement. The event provides a (premature) report of the ON-GOING improvement of each player.

Quote: Originally Posted By prezuiwf on 11/24/2009
So my world is in spring training, and after a few games I realized I hadn't yet promoted a lot of my young guys through the minors. So I promoted all my major prospects and the game gave the customary "promotion" updates, and I was a bit surprised (but pleased) to find that most players had experienced significant ratings bumps despite only having a few games of ST experience so far this year.

Then I came across this guy-- Cedrick Pickering. After being promoted from rookie ball to Low A, the ratings page showed that he experienced one-point bumps in control, vLH, vRH, P1, P2, P3, P4, Arm Accuracy, and even batting vLH. I don't think anyone would argue that this is a significant bump. There's just one problem-- this player has not made ANY spring training appearances. That ratings bump between "Spring Training" and "Promotion" occurred with no playing time whatsoever. He is on the ST roster, but has 0.0 IP for the year. The same thing happened with Alex Romano and Raymond Rossy.

I assume this is not a well-known phenomenon, since everything I've heard has led me to believe that to experience a ratings bump in ST a player must actually get a good deal of playing time, or at the very least a few innings. Now it seems young players will get significant bumps in ST even if they don't get any playing time at all. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

You couldn't be more wrong.

PT has nothing to do with anything.

They claim "rust" for MLers, but as far as prospects go, it doesn't matter one bit.

Quote: Originally Posted By soxfan121 on 11/24/2009prez, as I'm sure you understand there is no "ratings bump". What you are describing is a ratings report, which happens at the end of ST for every player (under the "Opening Day" line, most of the time).

The ratings report for ST shows ratings "improvement" from the beginning of the off-season to the end of ST, under the "Opening Day" line. When you promote a player during ST, the report generates a "Promotion" line, showing the player's "improvement" up to that event. The younger (and better) the player, the bigger (and better) the "improvement" on the report.

I know it helps me to think of ratings as "10.X" with "10" being visible on the player card and "X" being the incremental, hidden number. Assume that at the start of ST, all players have an even, non-decimal number in each ratings category. Depending on playing time, coaching, makeup, etc. that decimal increases until the next scheduled "reporting day" when the player card gets a new line. At that time, the new rating is reported - incremental growth. A player who is promoted (or traded) BEFORE the end of ST does not get an "Opening Day" report - the system reports the ratings numbers at the time of the event. So, when you say guys like Romano & Rossy improved despite no playing time, I respond "of course" because they were working out, working with coaches, etc. and were improving (according to their makeup, etc.) anyway. Increased playing time MAXIMIZES their development. But you can leave a top prospect (or DITR from the previous season) on the inactive list, at LoA, and he'll also show SOME improvment, because he wasn't sitting a the local Chili's sipping a beer - he was "working out", working with coaches, etc.

Put simply, it is NOT the event (promotion) that generates improvement. The event provides a (premature) report of the ON-GOING improvement of each player.

Thank you for the explanation, but I did understand this-- my surprise was at the fact that my player improved even though he had no playing time. As I understand it, if a player isn't playing at all, his ratings will not improve (though apparantly I was wrong...)

ST is the one time when this is the case.

For the regular season, you are correct.

While I know that players can improve without playing in spring training, do we know for sure that ST playing time doesn't affect development at all?

It was stated in a dev chat a while back that players who do not attend spring training are still working out with their MiL teams. maybe those attending ST improve due to the ML level coaching despite any lack of playing time.

And btw, I play my best prospects all 18 games and have found they are more lickely to get a bump or two than those who play less, especially true for the prospects with only 1 or 2 years of experience.

I am careful with assigning ABs/IPs to players in ST. Moreso for MLers, since it is my understanding that the amount of PT they get in ST factors into their overall fatigue for the year. So if you have a guy with relatively low DUR, you might see him dropping below 100% sooner than you might think during the season. As to the prospects, the same thing applies. These guys might be playing at low fatigue late in their MiL seasons due to the excess PT they got in ST.

Quote: Originally Posted By pb15 on 12/01/2009
And btw, I play my best prospects all 18 games and have found they are more lickely to get a bump or two than those who play less, especially true for the prospects with only 1 or 2 years of experience.

The problem with that kind of proof is that in any situation your best prospects are more likely to get a bump or two than lesser prospects. IOW, given equivalent treatment and non equivalent projections, you can expect that the guys with the better projections will develop better and faster (after controlling for makeup, age, etc). So the fact that your best prospects are developing faster than non-rostered middling prospects doesn't really prove much.