How many draft rounds do I need if there's no draft pick negotiation?
 

Hey all,

I know "5x minor-league levels" is the typical rule of thumb, but what's the rule of thumb if every picked player signs with the team? (i.e., no draft pick negotiation). I'm a little worried that my fictional league is populating with too many players.

Thanks!

What I typically do if I'm worried about stuff like this is:

1. Back up my league and save the backup with a different name or something.
2. Set the draft pool to a certain size.
3. Go into Commish Mode. Turn off baseball cards and almanac and let it sim, say, 5 or 10 years. (Turning off cards and almanacs just speeds up the sim, no deep reason for that.)
4. After it's done, look at your league; things like how many people are in the FA pool and how the talent is looking throughout the league.
5. If you don't like the results, restore from your backup and try a different setting.
6. Once you find a setting you like, restore from your backup, set the value to the value you like, and move forward!

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with having a large pool of free agents. What you DON'T want is a large pool of extremely talented free agents. My fictional league is like 25 years in, and there are 5000 free agents. But on a potential scale of 20-80, there are only like 10 who are 50 or above, and half of those are relievers, and it's just my scout's opinion.

It's a little time consuming, but it will save you from fretting too much about what might happen down the road. Also, just try not to succumb to the temptation to look at your future team and cheat the game by knowing which players get better, etc. :)

Love that idea! I never considered using FA pool as a proxy for judging the draft class size. If I may ask, how many rounds do you use, and how many minor league levels do you have? Also, what % of draftees do teams typically sign?

I have 5 league levels below major. Just straight AAA, AA, High A, Low A, Rookie. I use 30 rounds and I generate enough players for 32 rounds.

To be honest, I have no idea what % of draftees sign. I'm playing as a minor league manager right now, so I don't really pay much attention to that!

the number of minor leagues will have no bearing on how many draft rounds you need.

how many per mil level per team is the key. if you have a team with 4 rookie leagues and you only allow 3 years playing time there, then you need enough in your draft over 3 years to cover 4 rookie teams (~120 players?, so ~40 rounds should do it, but you need a bit more, because not all 40 players go to rookie league, so 45-50 rounds would be needed for this example).

typically, systems get smaller after rookie, so this should be the largest portion you have to look at to guage how many rounds are needed.

mil roster rules and such can make this complicated. but, it's about how many affiliates per team at 1 level that matters, not how many mil levels you have. that has absolutely no mathematical tie to # of rounds needed. maybe, in extreme cases, but not anything normal.

not many dont sign, so it shouldn't be a huge impact. you won't have a glut of players due to this one factor, that's guaranteed. talking 1-2 players per team at most? likely averages less, if reasonable about expectations. players tell you when they will be a problem to sign.

more is better than too few. more doesn't cause high end prospects to play at the wrong level. more doesn't throw an error stopping the simulationb ecause there are too few players in A-. if more bothers your eye, change that feeling asap, lol. make adjustments to minimize anything whacky, but be forgiving. it's better to have ~15 extra players occasionally on a couple teams in any given year than having to deal with a real problem.