Posted by soxfan121 on 8/23/2010 7:22:00 PM (view original):
Stop thinking that projections are REAL. They are not. They are estimates. Even at $20M ADV scouting, you're just looking at GUESSES. 

Look at it this way: You're the GM of a Major League franchise. You get scouting reports from your minor league coaches, coordinators & advance scouts. You're trying to GUESS what the player in question will develop into 3 years from now. Are you SERIOUSLY going to be upset that Joe Smith's scouting report was a few points off (high or low) when he was 18? If yes, you should quit this game right now and start selling insurance. Because the actuarial tables are useful, concrete projections. If not, you should figure the guy won't develop 30+ ratings points in every category and then be pleasantly surprised when he actually develops 24 of those 30 "projected" points. If a player "has to hit his projections to be useful" he's NOT USEFUL. 

Good lord, I am really sad that more people haven't looked up "projection" in the dictionary and seen it's synonyms: MIRAGE, GUESS, ESTIMATE.

If they were just guesses, then some would be too low. If you have $20M ADV, then some of your guys who are projected to have 75 OVRs should make it to 80+.

The variance is skewed to over project ratings.
20M is usually accurate to within 0-3 points but occasionally off as much as 5-6 in a single rating or two.

What about putting a player just drafted, with a high makeup straight into the bigs?  You could stick a rookie at 1B, LF or DH and give him a ton of at bats.  Assuming you had excellent coaches and were in a re-building cycle... might make for a good experiment.

Posted by a_ersberg on 8/26/2010 4:10:00 PM (view original):
What about putting a player just drafted, with a high makeup straight into the bigs?  You could stick a rookie at 1B, LF or DH and give him a ton of at bats.  Assuming you had excellent coaches and were in a re-building cycle... might make for a good experiment.

Two things:

1)  In theory, he may not fully develop defensively if he is playing a "lesser" defensive position than he projects to.  Though some may argue otherwise based on anecdotal evidence.

2)  Do you want to burn through a prospect's pre-arb and arb years while he's still developing, and then have him become FA-eligible just as he's reaching his prime production years?