Last season was definitely interesting. If you wanted to win a 4- or 5-star player early, you had to bid way high.  Then as the teams that lost those early auctions still had full RP, the price of the 3- and 4-star players late also rose, because teams had to sign somebody to fill roster spots.  Then the teams that bought a star player for over half their RP, and missed out on later players because they couldn't keep up without blowing the rest on only a 2nd player (and being 2 short), then had to pay a premium price in the off-season to pick up 2 or 3 recruits.  In short, inflation is a thing even in virtual markets.

Floating some suggestions to maybe balance the ship:

1. The idea of a flat "preseason bonus" is good.  That would let everyone be able to start the season bidding on at least one player in the opening round. A suggested starting point would be what it costs to minimally recruit a 4-star OH, which would be 25+25+450, which is... 500 RP, as Al already suggested.  Man's a genius.  You won't win a player at just 500 total with everyone able to start bidding at that same amount, so a team that blew their whole wad in the late/off-season sessions will still suffer some for it, which is how I think it should be.
2. Forcing teams to pick up a fourth (and maybe even a 2nd & 3rd) player in the off-season at premium (twice normal) prices is a good way to encourage more in-season bidding.  It may be excessive though.  Perhaps drop the cost a smidge to 1.5x instead of 2x?  Or give every team one "freebie" 3-star L, MB or RS or a 2-star S or OH?
My reason for suggesting this is when looking at last season's recruiting stats, league-wide, even with the massive boost we all got to RP last season, the per-player cost regular season vs. off-season is significant and perhaps almost punitive for a team that only got one or two recruits.

There were 41 players competitively recruited last season, costing a total of "final bid" (does not include rounds 1 & 2 from what I can see) amount of 27,614.  That's 673.5 per player, for 3 to 5 star players.
There were 23 players picked up in the off-season, for 16,425.  That's 714.1 per player, for 1 to 3 stars.  Players at times significantly worse than the recruited ones are costing more.

Calculate or speculate as you like with those stats.

3. Only 2 teams (Squirrels & Tornados) last season got all 4 players by competitive auction. Again, that's with the 2000RP bonus.  One team (Bullfrogs) didn't get any.  Everyone else got 2 or 3, so they had to spend in the offseason or violate the league rules.

In my thinking right now, if everyone got a free walkon (just one, and only 2-star for OH or S), that would not only reduce the cost for teams that didn't win the better players, but would provide for more competitive bidding as now a team really only needs to bid up to get 3 good players, not 4.  Perhaps it would also drive up the 3-star bids on OH and S, as you can't get a free one, so you're paying 540RP or 600RP to get a 3-star in the off-season.

Ultimately, I think right now once a team gets stuck having to recruit in the off-season, unless you go all 1-stars and consign yourself to 2-3 losing seasons, then you have to overpay for mediocre quality while also annually draining the bank account before each season starts, so you can't be competitve on any early 4- and 5-star players, so the cycle continues as you get the leftovers and have to spend more in the next off-season for more mediocre talent.

Split the difference and get your first 3-star off-season recruit at half price, then the others (if any) at full?  To again encourage more in-season bidding so everyone tries to get at least 3 recruits?

Stopping now to let others chime in too.

I didn't budget for the rule change correctly and don't have enough RP to truly be a player in the game of recruiting this season. Will be lucky to sign one player.

I would also lower the 3500 RP holdover rule to 2000 or 2500 so that every team will start the season with between say 500 RP and 2000 RP, so that hoarding RP isn't a viable strategy.

Another idea for future seasons which would trickle some RP out is for any recruit which isn't recruited to be placed in an end of season auction with a slight minimum price reduction (say 25RP).

What if teams were rewarded for their recruitment in the following season... Parallel to the XP reward, teams could be given X RP per set that underclassmen play in (Y for Freshmen, Z for Sophomores). This would be like building a recruiting reputation where schools actually play their recruits (unlike those mean teams at the top who only play the Juniors and Seniors).

What Kevin said (no, this no just a cheap comment to achieve media bonus...or maybe it is).

3 - thought three-stars already had this, but agree they should all have some sort of bonus.

4 - two ways to go with the timing on this: pre-+500 or post-+500, so a team gets 2500+500+bonuses. I'd probably make the cutoff 2000 at the end of the season and then add the bonuses on top of that 2000.

5. doesn't need to be ad hoc/manual: if unrecruited and auction <= 8, insert the player into the auction table again for round 9.

I really like the idea of the unrecruited players coming back up in the last session or post-last-session.  Kudos to whomever thought that one up.

And the 3-stars getting a skill booster/specialty to set them off from the 3-stars you can simply pickup as walkons, who have no maxed or + stats.

So, my thought is to mimic what is being done for the XP.

The main difference being to limit it to just Freshman and Sophomores. The thinking is that this shows potential recruits that the team is willing to play its underclassmen and not have them wait until they're Juniors to get a starting role. Gives potential recruits more incentive to come to the team. 

I don't have last year's players' stats, but looking at the current stats for 2 Antioch players:

So, Jose Valentine has played in 38 sets so far, so he would have earned 38 RPs for Antioch so far. 

Justin Hart has played in 37 sets. Based on the XP structure, this would be 12 RPs, so far.

We're roughly 70% of the way through the season, so if the same pattern holds, both Valentine and Hart would end the season having played 54 sets. Valentine would earn 54 RPs while Hart would earn 18 RPs.

Antioch has 4 Freshmen. Using those same stats, that would be an extra 216 RPs from the Freshmen. The team has 4 Sophomores as well, which would be an extra 72 RPs. This would be a grand total of an extra 288 RPs earned throughout the season simply by playing underclassmen. 

It's not a massive number, but it's also not insignificant. We could tweak the numbers however we see fit if we feel more RPs are needed through this method. 

In my head, these RPs are given at the beginning of the new season (on top of the 500 free RPs), so teams that were good about playing their underclassmen throughout the previous season will see a boon in recruitment the following season. But, there's nothing saying this couldn't be paid out each session.

Just by way of confirmation.  You can assume an approach similar to what I've proposed above will be used for Season 4.

See:RECRUITING & RPs PROPOSAL

There may be slight tweaks to it taking into account feedback from Kevin/John,

There may also be a very slight add-on based on Rob's ideas that I'm working with him offline on.

But, I wanted to let you know we'll be very close to the proposal above for next season before I get to my next post on Home Court and Team Staff.  

So, Al and I had a little conversation offline, and it's interesting how things work strategically from one sport to another. I came at it with my approach from a soccer player's point of view... there, you have a bunch of starters that tend to be upperclassmen. So, coming in as a freshman, you want to know how much playing time you can expect. If you know you stand no chance to start for 2 years, that might spur you to go to a totally different school. But in volleyball, the expectations are pretty much the reverse. You go in knowing that you'll sit for a year or two, and work your way in as you mature. 

So, with that in mind, my idea kinda flips on its head. Literally.. Replace Freshman with Seniors, and Sophomores with Juniors, and I think it still works well to provide a moderate boost to RPs that have a sense of realism to the recruitment process.