I just lost significant ratings points in the off-season. Some players up to 5 points in areas like glove, power, etc. Important categories. Many of these players are 31-33 years old, not older than age 35, for example, so age is not the reason driving the point loss.
Lower makeup seemingly made these drops worse. But, the makeup ratings are not lower than 50. So I cannot blame makeup as being the primary driver behind the dropping.
Would this dramatic swing be more likely the result of $12M in training last season, or perhaps $8M in medical?
I do not usually run these numbers, but when I took over a new franchise, the budget was largely pre-determined.
I know that some other owners run $0M for medical. Is the drop in ratings points part of doing business in a low-medical spending universe?
Help.
JRNY

Position players will lose ratings as they get 30 + in age. More so with a low budget in training. The first ratings I see go down ( I never go below 20 in training) is range and power. Pitchers take longer to drop with my 20 in training its usually around 37 yrs old

I sometimes start seeing ratings drops as early as 27-28 yrs old. When I was really heavy into fantasy baseball and studied Bill James a lot, the message was that the average player's prime is at age 26. I always looked for up-and-comers younger than 25 and with at least 2 yrs of ML experience.

I did notice in one of my worlds I had more ratings drops then I have seen in the past. Could be a change?

Thanks for the help here, fellas. I don't know if it was a change, but it was an awakening, no doubt :-)
I like to sign 32 year old guys to 5 year deals. Knowing that if their makeup is sketchy that they might lose points in the final year of the deal. But, to lose 5 points from the glove at age 33 did not feel right to me. If it is because I went with 12 training for one season while I move my way up to 20... I have to wonder if I have any chance at getting those points back. Hmmm.

The dropped ratings will not come back

It's different for every player and makeup has a bit to do with it. When a player has low makeup, his ratings drop at an earlier age. However, I have seen guys with average makeup still make it to age 36 with little drop in coachable ratings so the above is just more of a general statement.

What I have also noticed is that training ratings like power, range, arm and velocity develop a lot quicker than coachable ratings like glove, arm accuracy, splits, contact, eye and pitches. So if they develop quicker, I guess it only makes sense that they drop quicker. It works the same way in real life I guess, the first thing to leave is a player's speed, power and arm.

The sad thing is that I have not noticed a trend with the exception of the makeup rating and international talent -- I have noticed that International talent seems to fall off faster than domestic talent. I am not sure if that is on purpose -- maybe the sim is trying to implement some of the "lying about age" that happens in the international free agent market???

tlowster, thank you for adding to the discussion.
You wrote, "What I have also noticed is that training ratings like power, range, arm and velocity develop a lot quicker than coachable ratings like glove, arm accuracy, splits, contact, eye and pitches."
Would this mean that a 4 point drop in both range and power would be more likely due to putting $12M in my training budget and that the $12M training budget would not be to blame for a 4 point drop in glove (for example)? I have an example exactly like this. 4 points lost in range and power, but nothing lost in glove. Would this also mean that my infield coach was not as bad as I thought he was since I got him on the cheap?
Thanks for clarifying!!

Rather than discuss this in specifics, I'll go for generalities.
Think of what we know about draft scouting: At 20 million you get all the benefits, and some owners still complain how it's not perfect enough. At 16 to 18 million you already see greater projection "mistakes." By 12 million you're not sure at all if you can trust the projections.
Apply that same sliding scale of diminished returns to Training and Medical.

I run 20 million Training and Medical for both my teams. Because yeah, I like drafting rookies and not worrying about low health ratings. If they get injured I won't have blown a high draft choice on a player who's cooked. And I get attached to some core players and want to keep them on my teams until retirement. I'm also someone who buys life insurance.

There are a lot of owners who are successful redirecting money from T & M to other areas, and to my mind they are those who don't get attached to the players, who realize they're just disposable data packages. I think if you're gonna run low T & M you have to be that way.