One problem I have with Challenge Mode

[TuckerDuckson]

It eventually causes very very slow sim speeds due to the vast majority of free agents that enter the pool and are never picked up by any teams.

I run usually very large sims (Every expanded league, plus a few fictional independent leagues I make) that my computer can handle and run with ease, however in ~3 in game years of simming, I have around 4,500 free agents in around mid May. Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem, I could hop into commish mode and do a massive delete, leaving all players with major league service time in free agency and reduce that 4,500 to maybe 300 or less.

However, in Challenge Mode you can't shift into commish mode and delete those players, which leaves me with the problem that I have to many players and not enough teams, causing a mass decrease in sim speed.

This is just an observation of mine, if there is anyway to reduce the amount of free agents, that would be appreciated.

[stl jason]

is your amateur draft still set at 15 rounds? I noticed that as well when I started a league in challenge mode... an over-abundance of players rotting away in reserve rosters or unsigned-player-land.

might try to change the draft rounds to something smaller to control the number of players than flow in each year.... I started a second league and after the inaugural draft, I changed it to only 4 rounds....

[Warhawk]

For similar reasons I'm starting to wonder if I should set my historical challenge league with real minors imported to "retire players according to history." I'm at the end of 1903 and every team has about 60 reserve players, and there's over 800 free agents.

EDIT: Say, how difficult would it be to add an optional feature that players who have not been signed to a team for X number of seasons are automatically retired?

SECOND EDIT: Anyone know if enabling "retire players according to history" when real historical minors are used retires them after their last MLB season or last professional season if they finished their career in the minors?

THIRD EDIT: I checked it myself, players are properly retired after their last professional season (including minors). They're also properly out for the season if they missed that season IRL, even if they only return to play minor league ball, and are also properly available to play if they spent a season in real life out of the majors but playing in the minors.

[TuckerDuckson]

Originally Posted by stl jason

is your amateur draft still set at 15 rounds? I noticed that as well when I started a league in challenge mode... an over-abundance of players rotting away in reserve rosters or unsigned-player-land.

might try to change the draft rounds to something smaller to control the number of players than flow in each year.... I started a second league and after the inaugural draft, I changed it to only 4 rounds....

It's not my draft that is the problem per se. I would say it's the mass amount of drafts that are happening throughout each league, (Korean, Mexican, Cuban etc) this causes an over abundance of players that are just clogging down the system. And I cannot do anything to stop this short of just deleting the leagues to eventually weed out the over saturation of players over like a 20 year span.