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As a general rule of thumb, it is a lot harder to have a prospect to have negative player development from playing too easy competition. So if a prospect is dominating A-ball it does not necessarily mean he is going to be stunted in his growth by playing in A-ball. In fact he may develop his "overall" ratings faster by playing very well. I also notice in A-ball the sim is rather forgiving when a player has a low batting average, and even see a player batting .210 rewarded with a "Has improved his contact!" type message in Player Development. I have never seen something similar for AA or AAA. So, as a rule of thumb, give prospects plenty of time for A-ball, especially if as DisposableHero says, they are 21 and under.
Furthermore, and this really made me mad, in an online league recently I had my ace prospect, David Bailey, go down 2 points with a negative player dev in control. He was in AA and was #5 overall on the ERA list in AA and Top 10 in Ks and Wins. By all accounts, Bailey looked like a cannot-miss prospect. But guess what? He had 90 walks in 200+ innings, and the sim said "You know what? He's pitching great but... His control isn't what we thought it'd be." And he wen't down 2 full potential points on a 1-10 scale. At the time He was rated in Top Prospects as the #5 pitching prospect in all of the league and had improved 1 stuff point and 2 movement points during the year as a 19 year old. This makes me wonder why I ever put him in AA. I never really considered his control going down, but it did. So that goes do show you the sim can hit a prospect in unexpected ways. Bailey is no longer a cannot-miss prospect and is now a prospect with foreseeable control problems. The moral of the story? Always be on the safe side with prospects, because even when they are overall playing well at a higher level, there may be a part of their game the sim will penalize them for.
None of this is absolute. It is all chance.