One idea that I came up with, which might improve upon the concept, is to have more high-end prospects who will only sign if they get a huge deal. This would also be more similar to real baseball.
So, amending my original idea, out of the 800 or so guys who are actually in a given draft, I would have 200-250 who on draft day appear to be legit major league prospects. Of those, maybe 40-50 would be guys who not every team would want to draft, because they say they will likely only sign if they are drafted in the first round, or are given 1st round money. (It could also be that they say they want to be drafted in the top 16, or get top 16 money -- so essentially, even if you got one of these guys in the 3rd or 4th rounds, you'd still have to give them $1.5M-$2M).
If you put the money into the draft -- if you have $20M/$20M for scouting -- you are going to see a lot of the guys with major-league ceilings, and if you rank well, could conceivably land guys as late as the 8th-10th rounds who on draft day appear to have major-league ceilings. If you have $0M/$0M for scouting, you'll probably wind up with a 1st rounder, maybe a supplemental 1st or 2nd rounder, who on draft day appear to have major-league ceilings, but not much more.
Part of my idea would involve changes to how players develop. Right now, barring a major injury or a complete mishandling by an owner, you know that a guy is going to get pretty close to his ceiling, and so the guy who has a major-league ceiling on draft day is probably going to wind up in the majors. Also, as is, prospects who are handled properly tend to have their ratings grow at roughly the same pace.
Under my scenario, there would be a wider range of how players' ratings grow, based on a combination of their makeup, your minor league coaching, medical and training budget, and luck. Some players would have an acceleration in their ratings growth, so that they could go from draftee to major-league ready in 1-2 seasons. Other guys will progress as they do now, and others will progress extremely slowly.
The benefit to owners is that they may be able to trade for another team's "bust," and watch that player's ratings progress change dramatically in their system. Or a team may trade for a very good prospect, only to see their ratings slow to a crawl with the new franchise. (Some players obviously would not see any change in how their ratings grow, regardless of whether they are traded).
As MikeT points out, it is possible that an owner could spend $20M/$20M and wind up going 0-9 in the draft year after year. But the odds of this happening would be virtually nil -- about as likely as an owner going 9 for 9 in picking future stars.
Most likely, the average owner would wind up with 2-3 guys who rapidly grow, 2-3 who grow at a normal pace and 2-3 that turn into busts. Some owners would do slightly better, some would do slightly worse. Factor in advance scouting budgets, injuries, mishandling, etc., and there would be additional variance in how prospects do. For example, an owner with a 12M advance scouting might think they have 8-9 guys on draft day with major league ceilings, but if they had 20M, they'd realize that they only have 5 guys with major league ceilings, and 3-4 who are AAA-caliber.
A team that consistently drafts guys with low makeup may not fare as well as one who consistently drafts guys with high makeup. A team who doesn't hire high-quality minor-league coaches may hurt his prospects chances of rapid or even normal growth, compared with the team who hires high-quality minor-league coaches.
The goal here is to try to increase the realism of both the draft and prospect development. Right now, there's a lot of predictability to both. Increasing the number of potential major-league prospects and variance in how they develop will lead to a lot more potential possibilities for owners, make the trading of minor leaguers more interesting and potentially rewarding, and IMHO improve the game.
MikeT and a few others disagree, and that's fine. I'll present the idea to HBD and let them decide if it is worth pursuing -- either as I've expressed or in part.