I have just traded for 2 young arms.  One is already up in the majors, and although he is good enough I would like for him to get more time in the minors.  Would I take a demotion hit if I put him at AA or AAA when he gets to my team?

yes, check out this thread for some details to determine what you should do with him based on your situation.

I've never had it happen and I've done it several times.    That said, I don't know if that's 100% correct and I do know a demotion hit is possible if you put him on your BL roster first.   So he has to have options.

Uh, mhulshult that thread isn't helpful to the question that was asked. 

When you get a guy in trade, and he has options remaining, you can assign him DIRECTLY to AAA (or wherever) without a penalty. I've done it 10+ times over the seasons and never once had a "demotion penalty".*

If you put him on the BL roster and then demote him, you may be subject to a demotion penalty. 

ETA: I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm saying I've done it more than 10 times and I've never seen it. Your results may vary. But post an example.

I have also done this multiple times with no demotion penalty. You are not actually demoting him, you are assigning him and as long as he has options left you should be safe. I will sometimes deal for guys that are promoted 'too early' and get rocked, then I demote them and let them get a bit more minor league exposure before recalling them to my ML team and I have never seen one demotion penalty for doing this. Just make sure you assign him to AAA or whatever level right away, don't assign him to ML and then demote or you could be subjecting yourself to the risk of a penalty.

Quite a while ago, I had a player receive a penalty for being assigned to a lower level than he was at for his prior team. Obviously, I have refrained from trying to duplicate it since.

My ticket response - 

"Any time you assign a player to a roster there is a chance for the ratings to increase or decrease. Additionally, if you're assigning a player to a lower level then he was playing at there is a good chance for a demotion penalty and if you're assigning to a higher level there is a better chance for the ratings to increase."

I thought that there are no bumps for promotions. Wouldn't assigning a player to a higher level be the same thing?

Posted by strikeout26 on 8/4/2010 1:58:00 PM (view original):
I thought that there are no bumps for promotions. Wouldn't assigning a player to a higher level be the same thing?

One would think so.

This is one of the reasons I dislike submitting tickets for many things - in the rare circumstance that I get a straight-forward answer, it often seems to contradict what has been said in the past.

It gets really complicated when you assign a >3 year pro acquired in trade to a level lower than he was playing for the other team and see "Promotion" with ratings increases. 

This is because there are not "promotion bumps" - the "PROMOTION" line on the player card is a new report on the player's abilities. It helped me tremendously when I stopped thinking of them as "bumps" and started thinking of it as "I'm the GM and the new scouting report arrived". The player didn't improve from the event (i.e. the promotion, the assignment, etc.) the player improved and all I see is the updated scouting report, which may contain increases, may contain no new information, or may contain evidence of regression. 

I have always thought of it as a report, also. But, the last sentence in Zbrent's ticket response tends to say otherwise.

A response to a ticket = customer service staff who often contradict themselves or the Help Guide or Developer chats or patrick/tzentmeyer posts and don't REALLY know what they are talking about.

Developer chats, the Help Guide or posts by patrick or tzentmeyer = the way it actually is. 

Posted by soxfan121 on 8/4/2010 10:09:00 PM (view original):
A response to a ticket = customer service staff who often contradict themselves or the Help Guide or Developer chats or patrick/tzentmeyer posts and don't REALLY know what they are talking about.

Developer chats, the Help Guide or posts by patrick or tzentmeyer = the way it actually is. 

I can buy this.