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So, I broke down and bought 24. I am so far pleasantly surprised, but still wish they had given something we all playing historical leagues wanted. I very much have the sense of being ignored by the people making the game now.
But...what I really want to write about here is a few things I have noticed having run a few Random Debut drafts in 24.
First, as David Watt suggested, and to the delight of some of us, the random debut drafts are no longer super-star lists or else useless 20 rating players who only had a cup of coffee.
I use a 20-80 scale for all ratings by the way. Anyway, there is a much more democratic distribution of talent: not only are there now only a few superstars, and a few stars, followed by a few rounds' worth of good, talented players to form a team around, but the 20 rating players are also a little better - most of them seem to have had a season or two or three, making them useful bench players and not just "I am desparate, there is only this guy I never heard of" players.
Second, and be aware of this if like me you actually draft for a team. In 23, one could pick 2, 3, maybe 4 starters in the first 5-6 rounds and then settle on filling out your starting lineup of position players. About halfway, you would see that there were maybe 120 position players left but 200 plus pitchers, So you could get 7 of your 8 starting lineup players, pick one more starter, get your backup catcher, maybe one more pitcher if insecure about your rotation and then you HAD to go all out on batters, or they would all be gone.
Once ALL batters were gone, there would still be well over a hundred something pitchers left.
This held for 23 in all random debut drafts and while not quite as pronounced in straight (or gay, not being judgmental here) historical drafts (not random debut in other words), more or less you could emphasize batters over pitchers after the first 3-4 rounds, and still have your bullpen available to draft. Occasionally, if you wanted Sparky Lyle, Rollie Fingers, Mike Marshall, Mariano Rivera etc. in their prime, you would need to break this model a bit but otherwise the relievers went last.
NOT in 24. Pitchers are gone much faster and sooner than batters now. I have been having trouble getting to my minimum security level of 16 pitchers in the organization after the inaugural draft in random debut out of the 44 players drafted. They go fast. Batters now go more slowly than before, though of course the best ones, now being fewer in number and proportionally, go immediately. So the drafting is a bit more challenging and I have not yet found my optimal strategy.
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