Does it matter how much yu spend on farm teams, or what you are rated as?

[Adam22]

For example, if you spend 25 points on your farm team, but you are ranked number one, will you get awsome prospects as opposed to you spending 200 points, but only being ranked 5th?

[takaplan]

Exactly. The game takes into account your average rank over the past 162 regular season games to determine how good your prospects are, how many you receive, and how fast players develop in your AAA. However, your record also factors into this; a team that went 62-100 and had #1 farm would get better rookies than a team that went 100-62 and had #1 farm, because, like in the real Major Leagues, they get a higher pick since they had a worse record.

To summarize, it does not make a difference if you spend 200 pts and are ranked #1, or spend 40 pts and are ranked #1. So spending 100 pts and being ranked #5 is actually worse than spending 50 pts and being ranked #3.