Can y'all please post experiences where a player was promoted too fast, what the result was, and what you do differently now because of it (rules of thumb)?

Back in my very first season of HBD (half season actually, I took over an abandoned team), I signed this guy as an IFA, not knowing that even though I gave him a BL contract, I could still assign him to the minors. He was projected to be a stud short reliever, but he ended up very short of that. Rule of thumb? Don't bring a newly signed prospect straight to the majors. That's an easy one to remember. I would say that when a guy's ratings growth/development starts leveling off, it's safe to bring him to the show.

Thank you for this example. So #1: Do not promote to ML before a number of seasons in the minors. I've heard 3-5: any other rules of thumb on that please post them.

I'm also seeking examples of promoting too fast through the minors. I'm struggling with understanding if I should hold off promoting someone to get to my best minors coaches because of evidence of being penalized.

The only real thing you don't want to do is hold a guy at a lower level for two full seasons.

My rule of thumb is 1200 minor league AB with a minimum of 200 at RL/LoA/HiA, AA and AAA. So a player may get 200, 500 and 500 or 200, 400, 400 and 200. I generally treat RL, LoA and HiA as one level. A player may start at HiA, play his half season, play his full season, get promoted, play another full season in AA and get promoted to AAA. Or he may play his half season at RL or LoA and follow the same path.

Excellent info. Sounds like one other adage may be to never skip AA.

How does this equate for pitchers?

Also, is there any evidence of bad results if you promote someone to the next level in the middle of their "year" at RL/LoA/HiA?

How do you decide what level to start someone you just drafted in an early round?

Pitchers are a different beast because of SP/RP. My "rules" are a lot looser for a couple of reasons but it's usually 50 appearances/150 innings at a level and they seldom reach AAA before they have to go on the 40. Pitchers develop later so I don't think I've "wasted" a guy if he doesn't hit the bigs until he's 26/27 y/o.

No, I just try not to rush players because I don't want them in AAA before I know I can use them in the bigs after half a season in AAA.

Coaching. I prefer to start lower but I seldom hire RL/LoA coaches because they're all crap. So I let simmy auto-sign those guys. Sometimes you get something good. Sometimes they're crap. If they're crap, the player starts in HiA.

Rules of thumb are of course made to be broken.

Billy Roosevelt and Alfonso Romano were both IFAs that never played a day in the minors. Both were assigned to the ML team immediately upon signing in mid season, and both have continued to develop nicely.

Those guys are exceptions to the rule. They were probably ML ready upon signing, so they weren't "in over their heads"