There's no process, plague.  You make a bid.  They sign the best offer at the designated time.   No different than offering to your 18th round pick.

Very few teams have major league quality players below the 5th round. It's rare if I have a player on my major league team past the 2nd round. The lower round draft picks is not for my major league team, but for my minor league teams. Just because you don't sign drafted players below the 5th round does not mean others do not. I don't care if you add in tryout camp position players, but shortening the draft and sending non drafted players to the tryout camp just adds in extra un-needed steps.

As someone said this is similar to when WIS had us compete to resign our own 6 year free agents. Very few people wanted to add in those extra steps for career minor leaguers. Very few people will want to add in these extra steps to sign career minor leaguers.

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/13/2011 10:38:00 AM (view original):
There's no process, plague.  You make a bid.  They sign the best offer at the designated time.   No different than offering to your 18th round pick.

it is different in 1 aspect. When I offer my current 18th round pick I know he will sign with me, in your situation its possible every player I offer a contract too signs with someone else.  This is the same situation with the 6 season minor league player. Keep it simple. Keep the draft the same and add in tryout camp for position players.

Currently I just go through my draft picks and cross reference it to my available spots on my rookie roster and I offer contracts to the needed position players that I need for that team, next cycle they sign and are auto assigned to my rookie roster and I fill the rest of my rookie roster with tryout camp pitchers. When it comes to career minor leaguers I want the quickest and easiest way.

Mike, it's all about convenience.  People don't want to worry about guys who won't make the big leagues.  They just want to fill up their rookie leagues easily.  You're the only one asking for this change.  And you know that just having a tryout camp for position players would accomplish the same result without all the headaches of revamping the draft system. 

I can also assure you that 25 isn't an arbitrary number.  They came up with it while accounting for how many players each team will need to have a full system.  Your suggestion is nowhere near realistic.  A 10 round draft is absurd. 

You do know that MLB doesn't have a 25 round draft, right?

If owners need 25 to fill out their rosters, why don't all the players get signed?

If making one offer is a "headache", I don't think you have time for HBD. 

As for the only one asking, it's a suggestion forum.   A couple people like it, a couple people don't.

Finally, a tryout camp for position players would eliminate the need for a draft longer than 5 rounds.    As I stands, the smart owner doesn't sign any pitcher from the draft that won't make the big leagues.  You know why?  Because of the training camp for pitchers.   Why give out a bonus to a guy who won't make the bigs?  Apply that to position players as soon as a "training camp for position players" is created.

As I stated, it does not matter to me if its 10 or 25 rounds. When it comes to filling out my minor league rosters with career minor leaguers I want the plan that puts forth the least effort on my part. Keeping the draft at 25 rounds and adding in tryout camp players for position players is in my opinion the simplest and best solution. I don't want to bid for career minor leaguers just like I did not want to bid for 6 season minor leaguers.

If your plan was easier and less effort then it currently is then I would be for it, but bidding on career minor leaguers is not easier than A-giving the offer to your draft pick and getting them the very next cycle, and B-grabbing the players from tryout camp similar to how tryout camp pitchers are currently done.

"As I stands, the smart owner doesn't sign any pitcher from the draft that won't make the big leagues.  You know why?  Because of the training camp for pitchers.   Why give out a bonus to a guy who won't make the bigs?  Apply that to position players as soon as a "training camp for position players" is created."

That is why a lot of people don't sign  mid round players, sometimes I wait until the end of the season after I have already grabbed my Intl free agents, but I can grab a lot of low round draft picks for 25-100k. If there is a bidding process for career minor leaguers who would bid more than the minimum for a career minor leaguer? The bidding process is going to come down to semi random assignments of career minor leaguers.. It my opinion the whole process is not needed and time and effort in game would be better spent elsewhere.

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/13/2011 9:35:00 AM (view original):
Let's do the math.  32 teams would not be drafting 15 players each.    That's 480 players.   And, as we know, everyone doesn't see all the players.   So, in all likelihood, there will be 600+ players undrafted. 

All 600+ would go into the undrafted free agent pool.   Every owner can submit a bid for any of those 600+ over the next 36-48 hours.   All players with a contract offer would sign at the end of that period.   The remainder would be treated like tryout camp pitchers who'll sign a 8k contract as soon as they get an offer. 

This doesn't seem complicated to me.

I don't think you read this.

If you're not going to bid on any UDFA, that's no big deal.   You just offer contracts, without bonuses, on hour 37 or 49.   And you get your minor league filler. 

This falls under the "unnecessary change" umbrella.  Despite all your yammering, the system is NOT broken.  As many have already said, all they need to do is take all undrafted players and immediately throw them into the Tryout Camp file.  At the end of the season, all unsigned draft picks get thrown in too.

No need to shorten the draft and add unnecessary steps to fill out a Rookie/LowA roster.  Most of us are using rounds 10-25 to simply fill out the low level rosters so our real prospects have some live opponents to pound on mercilessly. 

They should focus on multi-year contracts for coaches or something that would actually improve the realism of the game before working on some of these completely unnecessary "fixes".

Although I will admit that this isn't a "must have".   Just seems to me it would make it easier for folks as they won't be worrying that the 40k they gave their 18th round slug will be the difference between landing the big IFA or just missing.

Revisited.

As mentioned many times, a position player tryout camp eliminates the need to have a 25 round draft.   Shorten it to 5 or 10 rounds.   There are no Mike Piazzas waiting for us in the 19th round(nor should there be).   Now, with the tryout camp for position players, there's no need to sign any draftee that isn't a legit BL prospect.

Make it so.

Yes, 10 rounds! 

Dammit.  Now I have to figure out what's wrong with my plan.