There are two types of bad contracts: bad contracts that can still play a bit and bad contracts that can not play. There is no way that you are going to be able to move the second kind through the waiver wire. Unless I need them to fill out my lineup, I will normally designate these guys for assignment and stick them on a minor league inactive list to be used as injury subs later in the season if needed. Since they must pass waivers to be DFA'd, I of course will hope that someone claims them. Of course, noone ever does.

The first type, I do not use the WW for because if the guy can still play I may be able to get some minimal value for in exchange. Plus, someone else may be more willing to pick the guy up if I throw in some cash, something that can't happen on the WW. It is not a bad idea to simply pass a guy through waivers if noone is interested in a trade and you think he has value, but odds are noone will claim him either.

I NEVER release a player*. If you release a guy you still pay his entire salary including all future years. I would rather have the guy sitting on a AAA inactive list available as an injury sub then release him entirely. Plus, I may be able to throw him into a future trade and thus get rid of his salary without having to pay him any more money.

*even minor leaguers - I just store them on my Rookie League roster. The only time I release anyone is at the start of Rookie season, which I will get to in a couple weeks.

I just screwed up and lost my posting of my starting pitchers for this season, so it may be a few days before I get that up. Tomorrow is the final day of spring training and I will post about how I set my team up for the regular season once ST ends.

SEASON 4 ROSTER - PITCHING STAFF, Part 1 (STARTERS)

ok, here are my five starting pitchers for Season 4:

Clarence Smith, 28, 4.9 million. Smith was a late (during spring training) free agent signing. I inked him to a one year deal only to get me through this season. However, he does have solid but not great ratings across the board so I will have to make a decision by the end of the season on his future with the team.

Jason Wright, 25, 2.8 million. Wright was my other late free agent signing. His projected ratings are slightly better than Smith's and he is 3 years younger, so if I decide to resign either of them at the end of the season, Wright is the more likely candidate. Only signing both of these guys for one year gives me a ton of flexibility to figure out where my team will be heading next year.

Lewis Locko, 23, 360k. Locko is still a year or two away from being arb eligible. He is also the one guy I was hoping to hold onto from my original roster. He projects to potentially be an ace. I just hope that the prior owner did not stunt his development by bringing him up at an early age.

Darryl Thompson, 26, 378k. Thompson started on my AAA roster but has been in the big leagues before. He has very good projections though being 26 already I doubt he will ever each those numbers. He should still be solid for me though, and the best part, he is cheap.

Carlos Morales, 24, 327k. Morales was a key addition in one of my numerous trades. The deal unloaded a bad contract but also moved a pair of nice prospects. He has a chance to be a solid #3 or 4 guy in the rotation, and since he did not have to deal with my team's awful coaching for the past few seasons, he is ready for the bigs.

SEASON 4 ROSTER - PITCHING STAFF, Part 2 (BULLPEN)

I am going with an 8 man bullpen anticipating a lot of long, tough games. 4 long relievers, 3 setup, and a closer.

Jerry Logan, 30, 1.8 million, long relief. Logan was another single season free agent acquisition to help fill out my roster. He barely has major league talent. I had initially signed him as a starter due to his price tag being right, but a couple late trades allowed me to add both Clarence Smith and Jason Wright, thus moving Logan into long relief.

Johan King, 23, 327k, long relief. King began the year on my AAA roster. His STA is only 53, projecting to 55, so he will never be a starter. However he has solid control, good splits, and 5 pitches (1 good and 4 mediocre rated). I actually almost moved him as another owner was interested in picking him up, but as that deal feel through, I believe he is ready for the majors and promoted him up.

Ivan Guillen, 23, 327k, long relief. Guillen has an outside shot to one day be a starter with a projected STA of 67. However, I doubt he will ever be more than long relief. I picked him up in a trade that unloaded PT Baez's huge contract and stud pitcher Lorenzo Torcato (but also brought me a stud minor league prospect). While I would prefer that Guillen develop for one more year at AAA, I need good cheap pitching and I believe he will get a lot of work this season.

Allen Blair, 34, 6 million, long relief. My final long reliever is Blair, who began the season on my big league roster. Blair is ridiculously overpaid, but as this is the final season of his contract, I did not actively try to move him. I will get whatever I can out of him this season, and that should be it for his career, at least with my team.

Fausto Herrera, 21, 327k, setup. Herrera was the only player of value I got back for moving Willie Guerrero's 3 year 7.5 per year contract and a very good prospect. He is an interesting player as he has the dreaded 0 DUR, but a 79 current, 90 projected STA. I intend to put him on a very low pitch count and pitch him in Setup B. His stuff is excellent, with projected splits of 90/78 and 3 pitches all of which project into at least the mid-70s. He would be a complete stud prospect that I would probably spend more time developing if he had even a decent durability.

Kyle Rolls, 25, 378k, setup. Rolls will be arb eligible next season. He started the season on my roster at AAA and has very solid stuff. I don't know that he will ever be a closer, but he could definitely be Setup A for almost any team.

Carlos Martin, 25, 378k, setup. Martin was claimed off of waivers. He is out of options so my guess is that his prior owner was trying to designate him for assignment. He has a 91 DUR but only a 9 STA, which means at best he will give me 10 pitches per game. However, his stuff (but not great) so he should do a good job.

Daniel Truman, 29, 4 million, closer. Truman is not much better than anyone else in my bullpen, but has the best stamina (18) of my setup guys (not including Herrera) and so gets the the nod as the closer. He may actually have some trade value as the season wears on, and if I can move him for a prospect, I will do it in a heartbeat because I have no intention to bring him back at that salary next season. (He started the season on my roster).

In all, my pitching staff is not dreadful (though my lineup is pretty bad). I can at least hope they will keep me from getting blown out too many times. Plus, I should get a good look at some of the young guys I have brought up and be able to make some decisions on my long term plans for the staff.

FINAL PRESEASON STEP - REGULAR SEASON SETUP

The final thing to do before the regular season starts is to actually set your lineups, pitching rotations, player settings, and manager settings for each of your teams. You cannot access your minor league teams until the AM cycle after the final spring training game. However, you can get your major league team setup if you go into the Manager's page and remove all Spring Training callups from your ST roster.

The first thing I do is figure out what Manager Settings I want for my team. Also, I make certain to adjust defensive substitution inning and player rest settings up to normal numbers as opposed to my spring training settings. Next, I will go into Player Rest, Defensive Subs, and Pinch Hitting and set these charts. I almost always use the Recs even at the Big League level, mostly because it takes too long to manually edit every time you make a roster move.

Next, I set my pitching staff by assigning everyone to their role. I also set my position players into the lineup that I prefer. I won't say how I set my lineup, I think that is completely personal preference. Plus, I tinker with my batting order constantly during the season if my team is in a slump.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is to go through the Edit Player Settings screen. Make certain that all Positions Players have the Recommendeds set so there is no chance they will come in to pitch. The big thing here though is setting pitch counts and Call Bullpen ratings. I always start with the Recs and adjust from there. For starters, I normally stick with the Recs. For long relievers, I cut the pitch counts down - I would rather use the guy for only 2-3 innings and have him ready in a day or two. The Recs like to suggest long relievers for 5-6 inning stints that would probably knock them out for 3-4 days afterwards. On setup/closer guys, the Recs often give pitch counts solely based on stamina. If I have a guy with a lower durability, I will cut his pitch count back so he can be ready to go the next day or with minimal rest.

As for Call Bullpen, it solely depends on how good your pitching staff is. If you have a great bullpen, you can use a higher number. But if your bullpen is weak, you don't want your starter leaving games early (though obviously you will want a low number for your true studs).

In Cincinnati, I set all my starters to Call Bullpens of 2 and actually debated using a 1. Because I doubt I will have any success this season, I want my starters to throw as many innings as possible. I did not set any relievers higher than a 3 - once again, eating innings may be more important than a few extra wins this season.

Tomorrow morning, when I can access my minor leagues, I will repeat this entire process for all 4 minor league levels. It is a somewhat lengthy process, but once set, there is very little reason to touch it all season unless a specific pitcher is clearly throwing too many or too few pitches. As the season goes on, don't forget every time you change pitchers on a roster, make certain his player settings are set properly. also, if you bring in a new position player onto a roster, make certain you reset your player rest, defensive sub, and pinch hitter list for that level.

Up next -- I will give a brief summary of how I manage to run all levels of my team without a huge time commitment. After that, I will probably give updates only when major events happen and maybe a weekly or so progress update.

Final note: We went 5-13 in spring training. Not that it matters, those games are meaningless.

This post could not be converted. To view the original post's thread, click here.

Actually, this plan would probably benefit the Baltimore Orioles the most. They could use some young hitting prospects in their lineup.

SEASON 4 ROSTERS - PROSPECTS, Part 1

Despite my gameplan going into the start of the season of trying to package my prospects with my bad contracts in order to clear out my payroll - then using the draft and free agency over the next few seasons to build an organization from the bottom up, I actually have several very good prospects that I was able to either acquire or keep. I may still move 1 or 2 of these to clear out my final bad contracts, but if I do it will be either mid-season or, more likely, at the start of next season.

POSITION PLAYERS

At AAA, I have Roosevelt Abbott, a 20 year old second base prospect with projected offense of 93-65-79-78-67. Defensively, he will be solid as well. His only current problems are that his ratings took a hit under bad prior coaches and he may take 2 or more seaons at AAA to recover to the point that I can seriously consider a big league promotion. Luckily, he is only 20.

At AA, I have Marshall Ferrell, a 20 year old shortstop I acquired in one of my trades. Ferrell projects to 68-84-78-72-76, another stud bat. His range and glove only project into the 70s, but he has a great (mid 80s) arm and 91 accuracy projection. He does have good speed and baserunning. I may play him at 3rd when he makes the bigs, but he also is still a couple years away.

I also have Parker Bennett at AA, a 19 year old center fielder who projects to 80-83-71-73-86. His defense needs a lot of work because it took a bad hit under poor coaching. 2-3 years away currently.

Down at Low-A, I have a pair of right field prospects (one I have playing this season). Domingo Cruz projects to a mid-90s power and a 96 versus ies (only 46 versus righties). Bo Tomlinson, another trade acquisition, projects to a mid-60s contact, 100 power, and a very good eye. His splits only project to the mid-40s. Both guys look like legitimate power threats.

I also have several other major league prospects - these guys are just the best of the bunch - the others may be decent players but this is the "studs". All of them need a few more years to develop, but when they do, I should have a very solid core group of players. One of the best things about this group is that they are not simply a group of big hitting first basemen or fielders, but rather have defensive talent to play several different positions.

Up next -- my (very limited) pitching prospects

SEASON 4 ROSTERS - PROSPECTS, Part 2

Looking at those stud position player prospects, it looks like my team may not be that bad off after all. Of course, that brings us to the minor league....

PITCHERS

At AAA, I have one or two guys that will eventually give me some big league innings, but noone worth mentioning.

At AA, same thing for all starter prospects. I do have one long relief prospect (projects to 20/54 DUR/STA so he will never be a starter), Lyle Sturtze. Sturtze projects to a 98 control, 54/73 splits, and projects 2 pitches over 80, a third in the 60s and two others in the 40s. He may be a setup guy instead of along reliever, but either way, while his innings will be limited, he should get guys out when he reaches the bigs. Right now he is 23, and from his ratings could possibly be ready for the majors by Season 5, 6 at the latest.

At High A, I have only one pitcher even worth mentioning, setup/closer prospect Ruben Iglesias. Ruben is 20 years old and his DUR only projects into the 50s, so he is probably a Setup prospect and not a closer (he wont be able to pitch back to back days). he has good splits and 3 very good pitches, though his control is not the best. Presently, Ruben is probably 2 years away from the bigs.

Other than Ruben, noone at High A is worth mentioning. My Low A pitching staff is ever worse, as there is not even anyone on my Low A staff that I even rank as a longshot to make the majors. Complete garbage that is just there to eat innings and get me through the season.

As you can see, I have absolutely no big time starting pitching prospects. All I have is a couple setup/long relief guys that are a couple years away. Obviously, I will need to concentrate on building a pitching farm system this season when we get to the amateur draft.

Very interesting, GrandWiz. This is one of those things that proves that I still don't know all there is to know about this game. I had assumed that after regular free agency ended that contract demands did not fall any further. If you are correct that they drop again after ST ends, then I should have waited. I will keep that in mind if I need any one year FA's to fill out my roster next season. Thanks!

This point shows that one of the keys to success in this game is knowing how it works - especially knowing the little things like this. As a piece of advice, every time WIS comes out with an update to the game, make certain you read what the update is and, no matter how minor and possibly useless, go and take a look at it and see how it works. Knowing the ins and outs of everything in the game can do nothing but help give you an advantage over your competition.

Side note: We won our opening day game! Undefeated!!!! Go Flytraps!

... and in fact I just spent some time looking over the free agent lists now that ST is over and signed 4 or 5 guys to minor league contracts. None of them are going to be superstars, but they all have decent shots at the big leagues. I will have to add these guys to my 40 man roster before the end of the season if I want to keep them because they were all 6 year minor league free agents. But who I am going to protect like that is something I can determine later in the season.