I can honestly say that I have never deliberately tried to loose to get a lower draft pick - though I've only been in PB 2 seasons so thats hardly a strong moral position ;-). However I have been the kind to ignore a loosing team when other things are happening which has resulted in overused players littering my roster.

Anway, I'm not sure this is something that should be fixed. While its generally referred to as "Giving the young players experience" or "Playing for the future". This sort of thing happens a lot in major league baseball. While you may never hear an owner or manager admit it, it is a fact of life that loosing teams are more likely to pull a starter for a season because they worry about his shoulder or take a moderately sucessfull veteran and replace him witha prospect.

Now your not likely to see someone like Bagwell or Bonds pulled for a stunt like this in RL baseball because the fans would go insane! But the fact that it happens in fantasy baseball shouldn't be a surprise. Without fan/player pressure, it would happen in MLB too.

I'm not a fan for trying to fix the symptoms of the problem. The issue is that people will throw games to get better for future seasons. Is this a strategy I like? No. But why would you deliberately hurt the teams that honestly try and still loose, just to punish the teams that are taking advantage of the system?

Rather than coming up with more rules/regulations - which will just be worked around by the people who are already doing it. I think the only genuine solution is peer pressure. Perhaps some league forum where this can be addressed - public postings on league boards, calling out the teams doing it. Perhaps even the ability for the managers to vote to take away a teams #1 rookie or FA pick for blatant abuse of the rule. While I don't like trying to solve this problem. At least a solution like this doesn't hurt the managers who through bad luck or lack of skill - or both, honestly have terrible teams and need that high pick.