See?  I'm right again!

It will allow owners who take over projects to rebuild their minor league system in a season rather than 3.    I'm sure, if you've ever taken over a crappy team to rebuild, you were greeted with 5 position players at each level.   It will allow those who care about their minors to replenish them during the season if they're hit with an injury bomb.    It will remove the griping about 18th rounders never making the big leagues.    It will create a tryout camp for position players for those who want that sort of thing.  It will stop commissioners from having to remind owners to actually sign someone after the 5th round instead of letting 2m in prospect money to got to waste.

In short, it will allow those who want to care for their minors the opportunity to strengthen them.   For the worlds that require minor league maintenance, it would be a blessing.  For the owner taking over a project team, it would be a godsend.

I still don't see how this won't just lead to the most conscientious owners ending up with an even greater share of the talent.

I'm all in favor of more work bringing better results, but I think your scenario would more likely just lead to "ant" teams trading three bums to "grasshopper" teams in return for a marginal prospect (or better, depending on the world's veto habits).

Too many worlds have too few minor league FA, especially position players, but you're never going to correct this without somehow addressing the number of players who retire. I rarely have more than 5 or 6 retire, because I release guys I don't plan to promote at the end of the season, but obviously not everyone does the same. I see plenty of quality owners with 20 retirements every offseason. That drains the talent pool.

This goes back to how good is the 350th player in a draft.    I don't honestly think anyone is going to get a BL player from this group of undrafted players without a DITR(although I just found a 16th round pick for me although I expect he was a DITR http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=1932228).

If a world has owners trading three crap players for a 25th man, the world needs to take a look at itself. 

As for retirements, I'm pretty sure WifS has addressed this.   I seldom have many retirements but, for some reason, I think WifS has adjusted it so players have to be stuck in RL/LoA for 5-6 seasons before they retire.

WIS has NOT addressed retirements, at least not in the way you describe.

Dale Laxton was drafted (and unsigned) in S13 in Coop.  I signed him as a free agent in S14.  He spent the season in RL.  Retired upon rollover into S15.

I don't think your one example proves a whole lot.   I've got four 4 year pros in LoA in MG.  Maybe they'll retire at rollover.   I've got a bunch of 3 year pros in LoA in my other worlds.   Used to be that no 4 year pros would still be active in LoA.

What are their ages?  Were they college draftees or high school draftees?  Perhaps age plays more of a role in the retirement algorithm than does years of service.

I don't recall WIS announcing that they've made any changes to minor league retirements.  I would think that would be worthy of a mention in release notes for an update.

22 - 23.   The "update" was done quite some time ago and it wasn't announced.   I only noticed because worlds started having a handful of minor league position player FA during ST.  I checked and retirements were down.   I thought maybe it was cyclical(remember all the S6 retirements?) but that doesn't seem to be the case.   It could be age-related rather than pro years at low levels but something changed. 

Naw.

I'd take 50 rounds instead of 10. It also solves the "fix your minors in one year instead of 3" issue as well.

I think though, what I'd do is let a lot of the unsigned 50 hang around in FA and do away with tryout camp.

What's the worst part of taking over an abandoned franchise? Trying to fill out the abandoned minors in teh FA pool, especially position players. That would solve it.

And the better fix to owners not signing draft picks is to have a mandatory minimum not just on rookie ("if you do not sign 28 players by x date, blah blah blah" but on all minor league levels. If you don't sign 'em, Sparky signs 'em and puts 'em where he wants.

That, my kiddies, is the answer.

I'd be curious to know how many players you clowns rank.   I rank everyone I think could have a BL career.  Even if he's just a D-spec.  Beyond that, I let the settings stay as they are. 

In a typical draft I rank between 55-70 players, give or take.  Whoever I see as possibly being useful at the ML level.  Then I rank another 20 or so after that to try to get either (a) decent minor league filler, or (b) guys who might be interesting if they got DITR boosts.

Use the formula generator. I have three formulas, one that will give me more SP, one that gives me more RP, one that gives me more position players.

I tweak the top 75 after.

Actually, the generator works too well sometimes. Got 25 pitchers in the last Happy Jack draft.

Good job.  I'm sure you'd benefit from a tryout camp of position players who were drafted after the 10th round.

Actually, after a slight panic, picked off some cheap IFAs, picked off some released on the WW, some 8K FAs, and they're now 41-18.

Don't think I've ever had a rookie league team over .500.

So, there's your formula for rookie league success. Draft enough pitchers that you never have to throw out a turd that's not green for fatigue.