The NNL has two separate draft cycles, The Free Agent Draft (FA) and the Rookie Draft. 

The FA draft is held between the end of the World Series and Mid February.

The Rookie draft is held after the FA draft, during March of each year.

The Free Agent draft:

With the theory that free agents would rather sign with teams on the way up the FA draft order is based on a teams improvement year from year. We also use the theory that teams who win at consistently high levels from year to year, maintaining near the same records would have payroll limitations that would prohibit them from 'big ticket' FA acquisition (George Steinbrenner need not apply for a team in the NNL)

If a team won 75 games two years ago, and 85 last year they have a +10 game swing.

Likewise, if a team won 81 games two years back, then slid down to 75 games last year they would have a -6 game swing.

Teams are arranged in order of best swing to worse, ties being broken by record. the teams with the better swings would draft at the top end of the draft, those with the worst swings would draft near or at the end.  

The Rookie Draft:

Only NL carded or computer players can be drafted in the Rookie Draft and must be in the NL at the end of the MLB regular season. The annual rookie draft will be held after SOM releases the cards and/or a new version of the CD-ROM game of each year. 

Rookie draft order is determined by Won/Loss Record. The teams with the 4 lowest winning percentages are placed in a lottery, the other 8 teams are ranked in order of Road Wins, with ties broken by total wins.

The draft lottery is held by the League President after the end of the regular season. The lottery is a weighted system, the team with the worst record is given a value of 8, 2nd worst is valued at 6, third worst is valued at 4 and fourth worst is given a value of 2.  20 slips of paper are created and team names are written on the appropriate number of slips.

The lotto results will determine the draft order of the first four picks.