[SI52]

Originally Posted by battists

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?