Anyone send draft holdouts who eventually sign and late season IFA's straight to inactive to save a year and/or injury? I've noticed 1st year players don't progress much in their first year (1 point per cycle, sometimes not even that) so you're not losing a whole lot development wise. May not make as much sense for draftees and IFA's signed early in season.

Thoughts?

I play prospects in as many games as much as I can. But they only play the first few innings (2-3 PAs).

Save a year of what? They don't start accumulating service time until they're on the ML roster. I could be wrong, but I don't think there's any advantage to putting a guy on inactive over playing him in minor league games.

Save a year of them having to be on the 40-man??? Seems like this would only come into play for bad or mediocre prospects, and in that case who cares...

I'm sure someone will correct me but I thought if you inactivated them late in the year it doesn't count as a year of playing. So they still have ~4 years of development rather than 3.

Sorry but I don't get that line of thinking. I always thought of development as tied to a player's age, not the years he's playing. i.e. that's why 22 year old Internationals hardly improve at all. So to me, if you don't play an 18 year old draftee when he's 18, all it means is that he starts playing when he's 19. But I don't think you get that 18 year old year "back" anytime.