Player Development

[AndyHustle]

Hello friends!

I've recently begun reading "MVP Machine", it's basically about how player development in baseball is exploding and becoming the new Moneyball. Great book and would highly recommend for my fellow baseball nerds. Anyway - as I got reading, I was bummed out that OOTP doesn't really factor this into it's games. In solo sims you can put $$$ into player dev but I'm not sure it actually does anything. Because we don't have that in our league - everything is up the OOTP Gods. My general idea is this - what if teams in our league could spend excess cash that they have leftover on "player development expenses" at the end of each season? The thought is that player development becomes less hoping that players become good and more something that all of us would invest in. This would also act as another avenue to maybe tighten up some loose cash that we all have sitting around the league.

I've passed this idea through a couple of people, including Huck, all with solid feedback. We all generally agree it's intriguing but there are challenges to implementing it. Here are some of the concerns...

1) How much $$$ per upgrade is our baseline? $10K per 10 points of upgrade to a player?
2) Does it go to players "actual" or "potential"?
3) How many times per year can you upgrade a player? And can there be a limit?
4) Can you choose any players? Or is there a pool of five players who are able to get development bumps?
5) Does each player have a cut off point? I think it would be a good idea to have one. My friend in AA for the Indians will never be Francisco Lindor, no matter how much investment or time they put into him.

I think this could be a really cool idea with some very big challenges of how to implement it. Would love to hear all of your thoughts on this and if you think it's feasible for our league.