Your season is over, you didn't make the playoffs (again), and your players are already on the virtual golf course or getting drunk on virtual Ti-Punch in St. Barts while recovering from nerve irritation - arm.

What is a good checklist of things to follow, to prepare you (or your replacement) for next season? (promotions in the minors, release dregs, FA moves, etc.)

Figure out your budget for the next season. Who you want to keep, who you want to walk. Options and if you are keeping them. If they walk who you are replacing them with. Potential coaching upgrades.

If you want to be successful, plan for three seasons. If you're in S20, who will be with you in S23?

The only thing you HAVE to do is make sure your 40 man is right. No reason to have a guy you want to keep in the minors as insurance be unprotected then ask for 4.3m per despite never being in the bigs.

I do promotions and releases. I release HiA/LoA crap pitchers only. I can sign more next year.

Agreed that you want to set up what your 40-man is going to look like. No "oh crap I wanted to keep that guy"; no "oh crap what did I keep him around for".

Promoting all top prospects including key draft picks and IFAs, and especially DITRs is super important. It can be easy to forget, esp if you're concentrating on ML playoffs

Promote every MinL you want around next season. You may or may not buy into it helping development, but I doubt it hurts. Exception to this is anyone ready for the ML if you want an extra arb year. Keep them in AAA and promote 24(?) games into next season.

Demote or release borderline players on your ML roster you don't want to pay $350K+ next season.

Look at your departing ML FAs. Sign anyone you want to keep if there is any chance they'll be Type A or B. Type A's will rarely sign with you next season unless you make a huge offer. Type B's more likely to sign next season, but why risk it? If a player is aging and you expect their ratings to drop, usually they'll ask for less next season. Easy call if they won't be Type A/B. Gamble if they might be Type B.

Look at your departing MinL FAs. If they are any kind of prospect, put them on your 40 Man. No harm releasing vet FAs you don't plan to resign who won't be Type A/B.

Check option and arbitration reports. Decide who's staying and who's not.

Spend all your $$ until you fill your MinL rosters. Sign draft picks, MinL FAs (this one you have to do the last week of regular season, they won't sign after that), & maybe even 1-2 Tryout Camp filler. Most of them won't retire. Less work to do at the start of next season. Worlds can run out of players if enough GMs don't sign their draft picks and keep 27-30 players at each MinL level. This one is as much of a community service as anything else.

I rarely release MinL filler. I will put them in LoA or Rookie and dare them to retire. I'll take any warm body at those levels next season. Every warm body I start with is one less I have sign next season.

Look at the FA report for next season. Anyone worth targeting? You can start thinking about budget for next season.

Look at your coaches. Compare to others at that level and look at the level(s) where you're best prospects will be. You can't control coaching staying or going, but you can start to think about maybe raising or lowering your coaching budget for next season. Coaching hiring SUCKS. Sucks a little less if you have a reasonable budget going in.

Study what works. Look at the roster of the playoff teams (you can do this in other worlds, too). What do you see there? What kind of role players do they have? How much to they pay them? Everyone knows a player with 80+ ratings across the board is a stud worth big money. Winning is identifying value everywhere else. Look at the 100 loss teams. What do you see there? Don't copy that.

If I have money left over I sign all the IFAs I can focusing on good defensive players and pitchers with high control and Ks. You use it or you lose it. Having those payers for next season in RL allows you to draft the best available positions and you don't have to worry about filling the roster. Depth in the minor leagues is something I never have to worry about. Plus if you got good minor league fielders behind you're pitching prospects that certainly does not hurt.

If I can actually piggyback onto something tufft said-

"Promote every MinL you want around next season. You may or may not buy into it helping development, but I doubt it hurts. Exception to this is anyone ready for the ML if you want an extra arb year. Keep them in AAA and promote 24(?) games into next season."

You can also safely do a promotion from AAA to ML at the end of the season, then after rollover and once budgets are finalized then you can demote back to AAA without ratings penalty, and then promote back to ML after 25 games or whatever. That way you can get the extra promotion bump without worrying about losing anything for needing to demote, and you get to keep the arb year. The only thing you lose is 1 minor league option but that should never factor into this scenario either way

I write up a roster of everybody under contract for next season and what they will cost. From there, I determine what I slots I need to fill for next season, whether from FA, the minors, where ever. Depends on the goals....When I'm aggressive and looking to build a contender, I'll scope out the FA market and try to estimate what I can spend on each position and on what player. Right now I'm in between contending/rebuilding and I'm just looking for good value at each position. It's always tough to predict the trade market for certain players just based on other owners and their situations. Sometimes I'll have a good player that I want to trade over the off-season but sometimes the market just won't be there. I don't make a budget based on potential trades for that reason.

Posted by pjfoster13 on 6/8/2017 9:47:00 PM (view original):
If I can actually piggyback onto something tufft said-

"Promote every MinL you want around next season. You may or may not buy into it helping development, but I doubt it hurts. Exception to this is anyone ready for the ML if you want an extra arb year. Keep them in AAA and promote 24(?) games into next season."

You can also safely do a promotion from AAA to ML at the end of the season, then after rollover and once budgets are finalized then you can demote back to AAA without ratings penalty, and then promote back to ML after 25 games or whatever. That way you can get the extra promotion bump without worrying about losing anything for needing to demote, and you get to keep the arb year. The only thing you lose is 1 minor league option but that should never factor into this scenario either way

Wouldn't this bump happen during rollover regardless? I thought these bumps are just reflecting what's going on behind the scenes.

No. I just had a DITR hitter get +6 vL and +5 eye at the end of season promotion bump. You're not getting +10 boosts in spring training as if they're carrying over. None of us have ever gotten that. Spring training boost is for ST games by themselves. Promote at the end, use it or lose it

Posted by pjfoster13 on 6/9/2017 4:11:00 PM (view original):
No. I just had a DITR hitter get +6 vL and +5 eye at the end of season promotion bump. You're not getting +10 boosts in spring training as if they're carrying over. None of us have ever gotten that. Spring training boost is for ST games by themselves. Promote at the end, use it or lose it

But isn't there a bump that happens at rollover?

Well yeah, Training budget..... But that's only physical attributes including Power, Arm Strength, Velocity, Dur, Inj

You don't get coaching boosts at rollover, you carry over whatever was the last entry from the previous season.

Sorry to bring this back, but when should I do end of season promotions? Also, if I want that extra arb year, do I promote then rollover then demote and wait how many games to promote again? 20, right?

Its two separate discussions.
1. Any players in AA or lower, promote them directly after the season or playoffs is over - which ever comes later.
2. Any major league call-ups should happen at the beginning of the season after 20 minor league players have past.