RonCo wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:59 pm
Bottom line: GMs are either going to complain about shallow drafts or about their draft picks crashing.
Exactly, you simply CANNOT have it both ways. I know I've said it before, but give me the deep drafts to get excited about 10 times out of 10. I remember the "lean years" where I was lucky to get a 6th inning reliever with a mid-20s pick in the first round of the draft. That was damn depressing.
Fat Nige wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:43 pm
So in other words, what you’re saying is that if my game plan is to develop players I’m a dead duck as the top teams have too much talent? It’s my 40-man roster taking the hit though not my draftees, I haven’t dared to look at them yet
If every team has 3 of their top 10 draftees develop every year then the ones that draft higher will (in most cases) have better odds of their 3 being better than a lower team's 3. That's because if team A picks #1 and drafts a 80 POT and team B picks #30 and drafts a 60 POT, a 20 POT lump* makes team A's player a quality ML starter and team B's player a role player. It's not a clean distribution like that, though - it might be that team B has 5 players develop and team A has 2. So... team A might have gotten 2 better players, but they got less of them by a sizable amount. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is 'yes'. If your only plan to improve is drafting players and watching them develop then you're a dead duck. It's a tale as old as time and I've discussed it ad nauseum before on these forums. Even if ALL your players develop, you only get the first crop of the developers for 6 seasons before you have to pay them and that's not quick enough to field a team full of superstar prospects, generally (I guess Rockville is an exception, but even though I wasn't here for their rise, knowing Aaron as GM I can guesstimate that he wasn't just sitting on his hands and watching prospect paint dry).
*Also, we need to define a player that has "developed" better. An 80 POT prospect that makes it to the majors at 60 OVR was a massive success in my book. So often I see those called busts, though.
You HAVE to do something other than draft and watch prospects develop. Be active in the Rule 5. Be active in IFA. Sign players in FA and flip them at the deadline. Sign younger players in FA with an eye towards keeping them for your next 'window'. Sign players in FA to 1 year deals, give them a ton of play time and try to recoup a comp pick for them at the end of the year. Look into trading 1 18 year old 80 POT prospect for 2 22 year old 55 POT ones to significantly raise the floor on your development risk. Trade for players with bad contracts to get prospects back in the deal. Trade your MLers BEFORE they run out of cost control years (4 ML service years feels like a sweet spot - long enough for them to develop a track record of statistical success while still allowing you to sell them as more than just a 'rental') to maximize their value on the market and make sure you get good deals (I mentioned a rule of thumb I have above - in general I need 2-3 prospects of equal talent to every MLer I'm sending out to offset developmental risk). Etc.