Curious if it possible to sign a BL FA to a minor league contract. Looking at the pool sorted by lowest demands up top. I simply switch the contract from "major league' to "minor league', submit the existing $ demand and I get the RED message :

"Error: A minor league contract will default to 1 year for the player's minimum required salary and cannot include a bonus."

The message doesn't clearly state that the player is rejecting my offer, it seems to be suggesting that I need to change the contract offer. I am pretty sure the system will not allow me to sign BL FA's to a minor league contract no matter what the size of the contract, but the above error message always leaves me guessing if I am overlooking something in the offer section. To be clear, I am not going after "Pro"-rated contracts, but rather sorting the pool by minimum demands. I think the last guy I tried this on was demanding 307k big league. Any suggestions, tips, clarifications?

I just tried it but I didn't change the dollar value, and it let me submit the minor league deal, but at 327k salary.

I think what the system is saying to you is "I see you want to sign this guy to a 57k deal, but due to his experience he has to get 327k minimum. In which case you should just sign him to a BL deal anyway."

You could throw him an invite-only deal, but if you assign him to a roster he has to get 327k... or whatever his BL minimum allowed/ demand is.

But it won't let you have him for 57k.

Makes sense. I am even willing to pay the BL minimum, but assign to minors. I guess what i am seeing is that if said player is out of options, he must be signed and then clear waivers before allowed into the minors. The only way I can get a BL FA directly into the minors at a low cost is to wait until the demands are equal to or less than the BL minimum, make sure the player has options and then sign him to the BL contract but assign him to minors

Yep I think you've got all that right... also don't forget the real life rules. A player out of waivers may not be sent to the minors more than once without his consent. Also a player with more than (three or five?) years major league service may not be sent to the minors without consent.

Which is why you get the occasional veteran player who can refuse minor league service and elect immediate release.

So if you don't want to deal with all that then yes you want the players who still have options.

Posted by damag on 5/25/2020 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Yep I think you've got all that right... also don't forget the real life rules. A player out of waivers may not be sent to the minors more than once without his consent. Also a player with more than (three or five?) years major league service may not be sent to the minors without consent.

Which is why you get the occasional veteran player who can refuse minor league service and elect immediate release.

So if you don't want to deal with all that then yes you want the players who still have options.

I have always wondered what the rule was . Thnx very much. I generally run into refusals later in the season when I am trying to pick up an FA for the minors and I am required to assign to BL and immediately designate. What happens then is that usually somebody else picks him up. I am basically advertising best values from FA pool to the rest of the league and they get snapped up.

While we're at it.. who is going to take the division this year? I am overweighted on the pitching side and will probably lose too many 1 run gms to get there.