Tidbit from the FAQ:
Manager's Office |
What is the point of Spring Training? |
Spring training serves several different roles. 1: It allows players more time for development with the big league coaching staff. 2: It allows the owner to get a better feel for how HBD works and how his players fare against tougher competition. 3: It's definitely wise not to play your starters more than half a game because they will build up fatigue as the season progresses. Also, you'll want to make sure your pitch counts are lower during Spring Training so that your starting pitchers aren't going 7 innings (the recommendations do this automatically during spring training). 4: It's very similar to real life spring training in that you want your prospects to play more and you can also use the time to evaluate non-roster invitees and fringe-type players to see if they are worth keeping on the big league club or sending to the minors. 5: Spring training is also a good time to showcase potential trade bait, determine shortcomings for trade proposals, etc. At some point in the future, we'll be adding a rust-like component to the game so that if players don't get enough PT in spring training, they'll start off slow but it's not in the game yet. |
#1 is good advice, the first part of #2 is good but obv only applies to new players, #3 is good advice for fatigue esp for position players, #4 is good advice about prospects but is redundant to #1, #5 isn't really a thing and the reference to "adding a rust-like component" makes me laugh. Like damag said it's better to play the ML guys only at the beginning and then switching to prospects and minor leaguers as it gets to the end. (The main reason is for injury purposes, whether you have low medical or high medical.... I'm a 20 medical guy so I'm actually hoping for a minor injury or two so that I can capitalize on a 60-day recovery cycle that only overlaps with 35 days of the regular season instead of the full 60. Delivers ratings value without sacrificing man-games. But if you're a low medical guy you obviously don't ever want injuries so it's smart to insulate them and reduce risk)