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Feeder leagues are a pain. They are a means to an end.The Pro's are pretty good but the Cons are pretty bad after time has passed. Particularly if your computer is lower end.
Pro: What they do provide is a draft pool that can be scouted, predicted, and has an actual history of stats. This is crucial if you favor stats only play with all ratings turned off. While playing stats only drafting without feeders is a total crap shoot because the game generated stat line is meaningless. At least as far as I can tell. Feeders provide a 3-8 year stat history so you can see how prospects have progressed. It also gives you the opportunity to plan for drafts two, three and four seasons down the road. It gives you the opportunity to actually BE a scout in game. Feeders don't just create players they also create coaches, trainers, and managers. So your pool of available personnel will get bigger and more diverse. That is a good thing.
Con: What they are not is a simulation of actual real world amateur baseball. They are pretty simplistic in operation. You need a hell of a lot of them. There is a formula for the number of feeder teams needed to provide a draft pool worked out by one of the members a few years back. It's a pretty good guide: Draft Rounds Needed = 5 x # Minor League Levels and Feeder League Teams Needed = (#Major League Teams x # Draft Rounds) / 6 So you end up with a heck of a lot of feeder teams. 140-160 is typical for 30 team ML and minors at every level. These teams play games, generate stats, make players, create history. Which means they consume game resources. Which means the slow they game down. The effect is small and incremental but cumulative. After 100 seasons you are noticing the difference with a good computer. Sooner with a system with limited memory.
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