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Eh, the approach kinda depends on where I am with respect to the team's window of contention.
I have been playing a current era MLB +2 expansion teams setup, and as one of the expansion teams (now in the middle of year 2) I tend to hold my draft picks quite close. To the point where I ignored most of the impressive crop of FA's during the first offseason despite having cash to sign one of the following: Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, Clayton Kershaw, Charlie Blackmon, A.J. Pollock, Andrew Miller etc. I did make an overture to Paul Goldschmidt, but only because he had an impossibly bad 2018 season and was asking for a pittance. Didn't get him, however. Zach Britton got traded from BAL to TOR in my game, so I was all over him seeing that he wouldn't require a comp. pick. I got him. I find the draft to be quite FUN in this game and get jealous when I am short of my complement of picks (although I don't enable pick trading). It takes a special mixture of young enough, cheap enough, and great lineup/positional fit to overcome my preference here.
I am also kind of a bargain hunter by nature, so I can't really shake that no matter the state of the team. Sometimes I think that I would rather negotiate a guy to the point of exasperation so that I can save $100K rather than him actually sign on the line that is dotted.
Finally, I am well aware that a lot of useful players will fall through the cracks during the winter months. As such, I wait until they get desperate and start asking for minor contracts with MLB options. These are useful players to load up on. I also get to feel like Mr. Burns, if only for a short while.
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