The new feature allows a player to be drafted a few years before his real first year in the Majors. For ex., I think Johnny Bench came into the league in 1967 at the age of 20 in real life. Before this feature, that is when the game would import him. Now it will probably allow him to be drafted at 18 in 1965 and you will have to develop him in the minors before he's ready for the Majors.
I believe this feature only works in real mlb mode and only if you start a new league, because you have to click the option when you first create a league. I tried it in pure sim classic mode with real players and it would not let me choose this option.
After I updated the game with the 1.24 patch, I'm having the same problem, as Rainbow is, with the computer crashing when trying to import real players. I'm using Windows XP home edition. A friend of mine, who uses Windows ME, isn't having this problem after the 1.24 update.
ORIGINAL: Hitandrun I believe this feature only works in real mlb mode and only if you start a new league, because you have to click the option when you first create a league. I tried it in pure sim classic mode with real players and it would not let me choose this option.
I did a PureSim Classic mode import of the 1903 season last night (so I can have an initial draft with the players) and the "import early" box was automatically toggled on for me and I could not uncheck it (which is fine because I wanted it checked off anyway)