Over half the teams in my league have their Prospect budget maxed out which going all in on IFA cost a team 60 million. My general experience is that if you don't draft higher than 14 a team is going to get a AAAA player in the first round and by the sandwich picks best you do is career minor leaguer or specially player by the time the third-round rolls around its all-minor league filler.

Just looking at your team I could only find two players on your major league roster that were picked up after the first round all the rest are DITR or international free agents.
4 of your ML team were picked in the first 12.
6 picks between picks 24 to 37
2 picked up in the 50s
8 IFA and 4 DiTR and one was picked up in with the 89 pick.
Your team isn't bad but it is just over 500.
I did not look at your leagues HOF but I would bet 40 to 50% are IFA.

I disagree, too. You might not consistently get all-stars after the 14th pick, you can definitely get strong contributors. Looking at my current roster, I would say I have a stud catcher with low durability (would be an all-star if he could play over 100 games in a season), a strong defensive catcher, a good DH/middling defensive catcher, starting LF averaging 30 HRs/season, and four relievers. I would recommend upping your HS/College scouting budget and taking another pass at ranking players during the draft. If you are maxing out your scouting budget and appropriately ranking players, you really should be getting usable pieces will into the second round.

If you feel IFA is overpowered in your league compared to the draft why not shift your focus to IFA instead of hoping for something to change that is out of your hands? You could punt the draft and zero out your draft budgets, freeing up more funds to toss at the best IFA's or in spend in regular FA. Influence the variables that are in your power to control.

I will agree with others too. I've found plenty of guys past the middle first round that were key to titles. Most of those guys are C/1B/RF/DH with huge bats, SS's with gold glove fielding, quality RP's, or platoon guys with extreme vs. L/R splits that other owners unfairly penalize in their draft rankings. But title contenders rely on all those guys too. You also need to target plenty of DITR canidates in the early round of the draft that will become good to great if they get the DITR bump.

Player Profile: Christopher Duncan - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 28th
Player Profile: Lawrence Donahue - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 27th
Player Profile: Adam Knecht - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 34th
Player Profile: Marlon Peterson - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 25th
Player Profile: Ed Bennett - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 79th
Player Profile: T.J. Morgan - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 72nd
Player Profile: Juan Delgado - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 81st
Player Profile: A.J. Ventura - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 18th
Player Profile: Les Latham - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 19th

Over the past 11 seasons on my UPPERDECK team, I have drafted once in the top 5 and have built my team around the draft. haven't spent more then 10 million on an international FA. It can be done; you just have to put the work in and envision what you want your team to be.

Posted by XtraHits on 2/17/2026 7:06:00 PM (view original):
Player Profile: Christopher Duncan - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 28th
Player Profile: Lawrence Donahue - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 27th
Player Profile: Adam Knecht - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 34th
Player Profile: Marlon Peterson - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 25th
Player Profile: Ed Bennett - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 79th
Player Profile: T.J. Morgan - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 72nd
Player Profile: Juan Delgado - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 81st
Player Profile: A.J. Ventura - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 18th
Player Profile: Les Latham - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports Drafted 19th

Over the past 11 seasons on my UPPERDECK team, I have drafted once in the top 5 and have built my team around the draft. haven't spent more then 10 million on an international FA. It can be done; you just have to put the work in and envision what you want your team to be.

I have 172 completed seasons and have never had a top 5 pick and can count on one hand my top 10 pick finishes. I have never won less than 71 games and other than one abandoned team I took over I have never dropped a team or world so have ridden every down cycle of every team. I usually have a first round pick in the mid 20s or later and drafting useful ML players there and into deeper rounds is a key part of making that happen.

2 things:

1. If everyone in your world is throwing all their money at IFAs, that means they don't have the budget room to pay their arb 3s and free agents. You should be able to exploit that and get good free agents at asking price or lower.

2. I'm the commissioner of two worlds with caps on IFA spending.

Problem solved