What's a good league depth?

[Trojan Pony]

What's a good league depth so that there isn't a bunch of decent roster-worthy players available as free agents but you're also not scraping the bottom of the barrel going through back-up catchers and utility players? We had it set to approximately 350 players last year (29 active roster spots in a 12-teamer), but that was a tad shallow for my taste and I'm thinking of raising it to 375 this year (31 active roster spots in a 12-teamer). Will I find myself scraping the bottom of the barrel if I do that? Has anyone found a magic number?

[2119]

Our league is a 14 team Dynasty with 364 spots. That doesnt count 3 DL spots. That would bump it up to 406 but every team will rarely have all 3 DL spots used at the same time.

We also then have 8 minor league spots in addition to that.

[Trojan Pony]

Yeah, I've decided to go with 360 as the target depth, so that's perfect... Just out of curiosity, what's the breakdown of your roster positions? I'd be interested to compare it to mine.

[2119]

We start:

C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, 3 OF, 4 SP, 3 RP, 2 U

9 bench spots

8 minor league spots

[RDD15]

Just to ballpark this thing and "show my math".

Say 24 of the 30 teams have full-time starters at most positions, you have 24x8, that is 192 hitters, plus about 8 fulltime DH's from the AL gives you about 200 from position players.

Of the 30 teams, if you take the top 4 starters and 2 relievers from each team, you are looking at 180 pitchers.

I would say 380 is a good depth. Another key component of how deep your league will play is what percentage of those 380 start each day/week.

[23]

We are AL-only, 40-player rosters (14 hitters, 10 pitchers) with seven teams, so you can do the math. Free agency seemed to work well last year. At draft's end there were no big names available, but over the course of the year players like Chris Davis, Brad Ziegler, Brandon Morrow, Glen Perkins, Mike Aviles and David Murphy were free-agent pickups (in addition to guys that came over at the MLB trade deadline).