Is the most effective way to have a good draft ranking the players individually or is there another way? Trying to figure out the whole draft process.

Rank them individually.    Here's how I do it.

1.  Overall.   It's probably somewhat pointless because of the rest of the process but I rank all guys over 70 in order.
2.  Defensive specialists.   Catchers first, high range guys next(which moves them ahead of the catchers)
3.  I then sort by whatever ranking I deem most important.   Usually VR.   I then copy/paste to excel all players over whatever minimum number I decide upon.   I repeat the process with whatever ranking I deem #2(it varies).
4.  I do the same with pitchers.
5.  Both position players and pitchers are plugged into my formula.
6.  I alter the formula so that the top PP and P have a 100 ranking(as simple as dividing the formula # by 2.38 or whatever to make the highest 100).
7.  Rank the excel players worst to first(move bottom player to top, 2nd bottom to top which moves bottom to #2 and so on).

Then I tweak the top 25 based on the eye test. 

It probably took me longer to type this than to actually do it.

Suppose you have your list but you have chosen a conservative strategy.  If you already have taken a questionable guy within a given range of rounds, does the process just skip any other questionable guys in your list until it hits a signable guy?

Similarly with doubtful guys - do I need to manually put them at the bottom of the list if I want to avoid them, or do I just rank players and let the computer sort it out based on my choice of conservative strategy?

I'm going to have only about $11M for prospects and so I think I may need to go conservative.  Is that what others would do with $11M available?

Depends on how many prospects you want to sign. If it's just the one, you don't need to be conservative. In my experience, if you can get your picks for slot money, 11 mil is more than enough. Probably double what you need, really. But if you go after the guy who's going to up his demands it could get dicey.

Thank you mike. I don't like the way the draft works but hey what can you do.

I am doing my first draft since the scouting changes and I notice that 50% of my players are listed as DH. because of lousy fielding projections  How do you guys handle this - I was thinking of putting 25 into "ANY" in my position settings?

Every time I've set more than ten at "ANY" I get all pitchers in the "ANY" slots.  Toward the end of the draft, it means they're useless, and I have to scrounge around for filler players for my rookie team.  Is there a way to avoid that?

Rank scrub position players in front of scrub pitchers.

MG I had 19 "any" and got 9 pitchers 18 PP.
Coop was 22, 9 P, 16 PP.