[NoOne]

first, don't make any choices based on your farm rating... that's too abstract. if your farm rating causes anything but good entertainment in your leisure time, don't even look at it. it is irrelevant to success.

if you are not getting any decent prospects from the draft, change how you make your choices. know that even the best methods result in numerous busts and bad choices.

** how to evaluate your methods:
you can test different methods out... use comissioner mode on, go into player editor and shorltist the "better" draft prospects or in your mil or in IAFA. then sort through your usual methods or how you pick a draftee/IAFA signing... are the capitalized names near the top or spread out all over? does any filter/sorting method cause more of those capitalize dnames to be near the top? if so, that gives you a greater % chance of picking one and you have found a better method.

when you do this with your mil system, look at player lists per level -- sort by potential... you'll see at Rookie level the capitalized names are all over the place from 21-80, fewer at rock bottom. by AAA, nearly all the capitalized names will be at the top of the list sorted by potential.. they are more accurately scouted in a noticeable way)

it's also going to put things in perspective for you. -- you get really bad info.. it's easy to make bad choices and it isn't necessarily your fault. you can only work with what you see. (use a throw-away league with similar settings / budgets / scouts etc to test this out.. the more bunched up the shortlisted/better players are at the top, the better the method of finding them/evaluating them -- shortlist based on editor/100% accurate values, then look through the eyes of typical scouting inaccuracy... they will be scattered in some contexts and no way to consistently pick the best ones)
**

a top-end prospect is near impossible to find outside the first 10-20picks... of those 10-20, maybe 1/2 are actually good -- ignoring whether or not they develop, which reduces that 1/2 even more.

after ~20 picks it starts going downhill quickly... by end of first round you can find a ~60's contact / ~60's power position player or a ~3rd-4th SP tops -- if lucky!... and they are hidden among a sea of inaccurately rated kids.

we have really bad info from scouts for draftees.. just as in real life. don't beat yourself up too much. by round 8-14, depending on depth, you can't even find guys with ~1/2 scale potential - ie borderlne MLB palyers at best..more likely AAA-ceiling guys that fill in for injuries for a week or two at a time.

if you have the budget space, spend even more on development/scouting -- max it out best you can after you are done signing FA and leaving a little wiggle room for IAFA signings on july 2nd, of course. i'd also suggest making ~$10M profit until you "need" it for a playoff run or to continue a playoff run, etc.

any money left unspent above $10M profit is wasted and lost the next year. so, use it.

with iafa i'd suggest quantity over quality. their ratings are even more useless than an amateur draftee -- common sense since they are even younger @ 16ish. just as a 18yo HS kid is less accurately rated than a 22yo college kid in the draft. any of the 21/80 + guys could be decent. are more of them at the "top" when sorted by potential? *use the method described above with shorltisted players with accurate info and sort under normal scouting accuracy, you'll see exactly what i mean* sure, but it's an extremely weak correlation.. instead of getting ~1 of those top guys, if they take your $5M over someone else's $5M, go grab as many low demand IAFAs as you can that aren't the rock-bottom of the scale. (works better with larger resolution scale)

this same logic carries over to accuracy of your MiL players. years of experience + age + mil level (last one may jsut be a funciton of "pro svc years") all influence how accurate you are with a player.. mlb players are very accurate at "normal" scouting, decent scout and at least ~$4M in MLB scouting. lower $? maybe, i haven't fleshed it out, so 4M is a guess.

if you don't have int'l leagues, dump that scouting money into mil and amateur draft.

now, based on what i said about accuracy, if you aren't drafting 1-10 for a window of years, you are more likely going to find 'bett'er players through trading.. .it costs more, but you are also way more accurate with seeing thier ratings.. .so trading 2-3 prospects and an aging vet for a 'better' player isn't as costly as it seems. it takes 2-3 draft picks to get 1 decent player anyway.

if you go this route, who you trade for should be about future needs. and the replacement for the vets you traded should be already in the pipeline or a FA signing stop-gap etc.

you also end up with a high proportion of arbitration contracts this way. those that are willing to sign cheaper extensions are the keepers... those that don't are traded before the last year of arbitration or during that year .. of if a compensation pick is worth more, let them go to FA.

so, if you always feed the pig for the future, you'll inevitably have the best farm system, if not by some arbitary ranking, then through function. i.e. replacements for the next "oldest" and soon to be rid of player on your team. (FA for some, of course)

29-33 should be the time you get rid of players. this also allows you to actualyl get good prospects in return that will outwiegh compensation picks. even younger than 33 for position players, especially C.. and if cf/ss have any decreases in defensive ability etc. RP can be relatively safe upto ~35. you dump big contracts day 1 of offseason through day one of FA,because the most teams have budget space at that time.

you want to be recycling 2-3 players each year on average (1-2 "imprtant" contributors and some scrubs). try to stagger ages or be willing to get rid of some earlier than others to avoid too much turnover in one season. currently have ~5 players at 26/27 years old... i have to trade at least 1-2 of those guys early, if i wan't to avoid having to raplce ~5 important players at the same time.

don't spend 20M on a bench or extra money on your 5-7th reliever. if you desperately need these players to perform well, you don't have a good playoff team anyway. (excludes a platoon situation, but you should avoid those too if oyu have 'better' talent in your pipeline).

a core of players is what wins WS. 3-4SP, 3-4RP, ~6 excellent batters, one of which should be a great obp guy that can skimp on power. ~12 players, some of which can be on cheaper contracts, so it's doable for any team. every team can maintain ~10-12 elite players with the right financial management and personnell choices.

focus on keeping at least that many players at an elite level, and do as best you can around them... yankess or dodgers can have ~15-20elite guys with the right mix of young and old (back to that staggering of ages concept).

1/2-2/3rds can be on heavy contracts, you'll want at least a few on year 1-5ish arbitration deals. (500k - 10Mish.. then the last 2 years of arb they get to 15-20+M if superstars. hopefully the ones interestsed in a cheaper extension have signed before then). let the high salary demand guys go/trade and keep the ones interested in cheaper extensions. sometimes i let the high-demand guys hit FA if ithink i can resign for cheaper that route... or i will trade for optimal return > compensation pick.

you want to be targetting MiL prospects that will replace someone 3-4-5 years down the line and you err on the side of overdevelopment. i.e. if they sit at AAA for an extra year, who cares... or trade the vet early -- the opposite is a problem.. you can't promote an underdeveloped player unless you have a deep team and can absorb that underperformance for a year or 2...

since you are trading for playrs wiht 1-2-3 years of pro svc or more, you can be more confident in their ratings.

the ranking of your farm system means nothing if it doesn't provide needed players... if it is providing the needed players and not ranked well, who cares. more likely, if it is providing players you'll also be a top-5 mil system most years. a young mlb team typically means a weaker farm system that's re-stocking.

between trading aging vets and former draft picsk, you can easily supple 1-2 players every year to your MLB club. supplement that with an occasional FA and you have a perennial playoff team and winning WS ~25% of the time or more like the yankees in RL.