[Syd Thrift]

I think if you use the really big Spritze/Gambo DB you can get away with requiring roster sizes after a few years if you scale down your total minor league sizes to ~2 levels. Even there, please note that 2 levels represent 50 extra players per team.

One issue with filler players IMO is that there is nothing that really and truly separates people who actually made it to the big leagues and those who didn't except for the definition. There were the equivalent of 5-star prospects in the 1930s who never climbed out of the massive minor league system that was in place back then, or got hurt. In the case of "cup of coffee" players and sometimes even guys who managed to have longer careers, perhaps one team happened to have the sudden need to fill a hole at a specific position and the guy who got the cup of coffee just happened to be the AAA player at that position. In a replay you can't guarantee that that team will have the same need, and at the same time you can't guarantee that some other team will not experience some sudden need they didn't have before.

One thing that may help a little bit is, instead of ticking the "fill in the minors" button, before every year go into the League Settings and manually fill the teams with fictional players. That's still problematic if you have an 18 year old in AA ball (now your lowest level) who can't crack the lineup because the computer-generated players are better and thus doesn't develop, but if you're really set on not having ghost players that may be the way to go.