10 rounds.

Several reasons.   Many owners don't sign late round picks.   There are no BL players beyond round 7-8(if you're lucky).   There will be no need to create a tryout camp for position players as if will be populated by undrafted amatuers.  There will be no more "the draft isn't realistic" threads(it's not realistic anyway as the MLB draft doesn't have 25 rounds). 

Make it happen.

Is this implying that all the undrafted players immediately show up as free agents?

Doesn't that give an advantage to the owners who check in at 3:05am (after the 3:00am draft) to sign all the best of the leftovers to fill out their rookie league roster?

It is.   Not sure how valuable the 350th player is but it's easily solved.  Put a 24 hour delay on the signing of the undrafted players.

Here's the problem as I see it.  Some owners will sign a bunch of what would have the 11-15 round guys because they act quicker, and some will be stuck with the 21-25 round guys.  Or none at all, if they choose to not care.  Certainly not franchise makers/breakers, but can cause an even bigger disparity of talent in minor league organizations than we have today.

A better solution, if the goal is to get people to sign their draft picks, is to have the engine auto-sign any draft pick asking for slot money from rounds 11 and beyond.  This assures a more even distribution of mid to late round talent across all organizations, and also ensures that most mid to late round picks are getting signed.

I guess that would concern me if I gave a damn about minor league wins.  I don't.     If someone wants to get up or be up at 3 AM so his LoA team can win the WS, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

In truth, I think you're creating a problem that will affect .00023 of the population. 

If you live in California  or Idaho it is not 3 A.M.!! Correct?

It would be midnight.  Still not concerned.  If you're screwing around with your HBD team at 12:15 AM just so you can sign a handful of players not drafted in the first 10 rounds, I feel sorry for you.

Posted by MikeT23 on 7/26/2010 11:05:00 AM (view original):
It is.   Not sure how valuable the 350th player is but it's easily solved.  Put a 24 hour delay on the signing of the undrafted players.

This sounds like a good and fair solution to the problem to me.

The best pick I have ever gotten is 16th. So I don't hang around for anything.

Shorten draft to 10 rounds, limit player pool to maybe 350 players.  Then assign everybody 15 random players (maybe one for each position, 4SP & 2RP).  Could make all such players AAA projections at best, or could very occasionally sprinkle in a good prospect.

Posted by MikeT23 on 7/26/2010 10:14:00 AM (view original):
10 rounds.

Several reasons.   Many owners don't sign late round picks.   There are no BL players beyond round 7-8(if you're lucky).   There will be no need to create a tryout camp for position players as if will be populated by undrafted amatuers.  There will be no more "the draft isn't realistic" threads(it's not realistic anyway as the MLB draft doesn't have 25 rounds). 

Make it happen.

The MLB draft has up to 50 rounds. See http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/draftday/faq.jsp.

Question:
How many rounds are there?

Answer:
Up to 50 rounds. Each Club continues to select until it makes its selection in the 50th round, unless the Club chooses to "pass" instead of making a selection in a round. Once a Club chooses to pass, it is precluded from making any further selections.


Actually, I kind of like the way MLB does it. Why not make it truly realistic (since everyone loves that) and allow for up to 50 rounds. People like Mike can draft 10 guys and then pick through the leftover undrafted guys if he wants. People who like drafting guys and/or want to win minor league World Series can rank and draft up to 50 guys. Plus the realism argument.

Win-Win, no?
 

Yes, that was my point.  The MLB draft does not have 25 rounds.

Because owners would still draft 50 and sign 4.    And then ***** that there are no Mike Piazzas in HBD. 

Posted by MikeT23 on 7/26/2010 11:05:00 AM (view original):
It is.   Not sure how valuable the 350th player is but it's easily solved.  Put a 24 hour delay on the signing of the undrafted players.

So then people will wait until 3:05 a.m. two days after the draft to sign all the decent leftover players?

Except offers will have been made during that 24 hours and the players will sign the "best" deal.

What existing problem does this suggestion correct?

I agree with you that too many owners allow their late-round picks to go unsigned, which leads to the problem of not enough minor league FA to fill out rosters in subsequent seasons. But that's only half of the problem. Another culprit is that too many owners allow non-prospects to retire, instead of promoting or releasing them at the end of the season.

Shortening the draft will only exacerbate this problem, because an owner who doesn't sign his own draft picks sure as hell isn't going to scour the FA list for roster fodder. Keep the draft as it is, but follow tec's suggestion to auto sign some late-round picks and add some mechanism at the end of the season to limit the number of players who retire.