Just wondering what the feel is out there regarding the new scouting fuzziness for IFAs and draft picks and was going to share my recent experience.
16M IFA budget
Projections I saw for 19yr old lefty SP:
Ctrl/ VL/ VR/ P1/ P2/ P3/ P4
82/69/64/82/73/57/16

Current Ratings after signing:
70/73/61/72/63/38/17

He is almost the same pitcher now at 19 that I saw for him all grown up. The numbers at $16M used to be pretty solid. Are people getting better results with $20M or is all youth scouting a crapshoot now?

6m IFA

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Rico Abad
I saw, starting with stamina: 

0

92

62

94

28

59

80

47

43

41

0

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Aramis Belliard
I saw, starting with contact: 

60

43

71

57

31

Both seem way off, current eye and P2 are much better than projections, but it is only 6m.

Pitcher I just signed in Summer of '49.  Projections I saw with $20MM int'l scouting and current:
               Proj       Actual
Control     67           68
vL             67           52
vR            91           56
P1            88           74        
P2            91           62
P3             0             0
P4             0             0
P5             0             0

Doesn't seem especially close for $20MM.  Now we'll see how the development patterns may have changed.

I just started this game post-update.  The IFA market seems outrageously overpriced to me.  I understand that the current ratings are now hidden and all that is seen is Proj (and the quality of the projection depends upon your scouting budget), but is the issue here that folks are bidding on the possibility that IFAs are ML ready and the update was meant to make that impossible?  Has it worked?

Posted by rogelio on 7/20/2015 11:56:00 AM (view original):
I just started this game post-update.  The IFA market seems outrageously overpriced to me.  I understand that the current ratings are now hidden and all that is seen is Proj (and the quality of the projection depends upon your scouting budget), but is the issue here that folks are bidding on the possibility that IFAs are ML ready and the update was meant to make that impossible?  Has it worked?

No.  Depending on your world, the IFA market is likely to be outrageously overpriced anyway.  Owners with amateur draft picks 20 and over might put nothing into their drafts, knowing they have no shot at an elite player.  And they're not likely looking for an ML ready player, just the best available in future.  Fact is, in IFA you can just flat out buy an almost guaranteed future HOF player (if one such comes up) so you might see an owner spend 40 million-plus just to acquire such a player.
 

IFAs have always been overpriced due to the nature of an open market where everybody can bid on them.  IFAs were more likely to be major league ready, or closer to major league ready than draft prospects, so that made them more attractive.

The recent update was not intended to make it impossible for IFAs to be major league ready, but to make it more difficult to determine if they were legit ML prospects, and how close to ML ready they actually were.  The "blue chip" IFAs usually had high starting demands, which was an red flag indicator that they were legit ML prospects.  You could have a low IFA scouting budget, but if you saw an IFA with initial demands of $4m or more, then without even looking at ratings you would know he was somebody worth pursuing.  That loophole has been closed.  And now, with no current ratings to determine where he is now, and fuzzier projected ratings to determine where he may end up, the IFA process is more of a gamble than it was before.  There is much more incentive to go with a higher IFA budget (for less fuzzy projections) than there was before.  So in that respect, the update is accomplishing what it intended to do.

Thanks.  The lowered initial demands were the item I was missing.  So now, there is no way to know whether an IFA is nearly ML ready and there is an incentive to put $$ into INTL scouting.   

How long into the season do IFAs continue to appear?  After the amateur draft, have coaches run out of prospect budget to the extent that an HOF INTL talent can be signed on the cheap?

You can check your world schedule but it's supposed to be the last day of the regular season when they stop showing.  I think it's earlier than that.

You can sometimes get a bargain in the IFA market at the end of the season.   Or you can be left holding a bag of prospect money.  It's a gamble.

I think the IFAs stop appearing once the minor league regular season concludes, at around game 144.

That sounds right despite what the schedule shows.

I've seen them for a cycle or two beyond last minor league game, but not later than that

The feedback I am hearing from people with 20M draft scouting is that the draft has now become a crap shoot.  Did the fuzziness go too far?  Is there now too much luck involved with draft picks?  Or is this a good thing that will thoroughly discourage tanking?

I deleted my screen cap of my first round pick but with $14 M high school I drafted a pitcher who was projected with good numbers and 22 durability overall. I drafted him and his current durability is 14. I feel like I just picked a massive dud 9th overall.

I have yet to see a guy with improved numbers after the draft. Looks now like more picks rather then higher picks will be more valuable. I don't like it.

Here's my first experience with the new ratings system. International pitcher, 21 years old. I have $18 mil in int'l scouting and projections showed: 98/94/64/71 with a durability of 34. Another guy in my league has $20 mil in international scouting and saw projections of 86/92/65/74 with a durability of 16.

What his ratings currently are, after signing: 78/81/66/63 with a durability of 25. It is a bit troubling that the best scouting budget provided a significant disadvantage in durability while the other important ratings were all within reasonable distance of each other.