As far as tanking is concerned we should just have a draft lottery for teams not in the playoffs.

Posted by Seventy_77 on 6/15/2016 7:18:00 PM (view original):
Something had to change. I had joined a league and took the worst team in the league just so once I could get the first pick in the draft. Hoping I never had to get that again. I had 14 and 14 on my scouting. The best player I saw was an 82 overall. What a joke. I was told by several others in the league they saw anywhere from 96-100 type players. As we all know, I have not seen any have better overalls after drafting them than I saw before. Most guys I had I got in the international market were all at least 10 points or more off of their potential I saw before signing them. And I had a similar 14 on scouting for that. So I had to assume the best player I was going to get with the first OVERALL pick I thought might turn out to be about a 72. That player was drafted 36th in the draft and was about a 76 overall. The player I selected was a hard to sign guy that did not sign. Most of the top ten players drafted I didn't even scout. That's ridiculous. I didn't even have a chance at the best player because I never even saw him. EVERYONE in MLB knows who the best players are. It shouldn't be a secret as far as top ten. Only whether you have the resources in the right areas to develop them. Or I would rather hire scouts for East, West, North and South and base your picks off how good and which scout had scouting him if it was up to me.

Not seeing players has NOT changed. So you used a lot of words that show you have no understanding of what has, and will continue, to happen.

You know what would be the easiest solution to all the complaining about "fuzzy ratings?" Just have all scouts overshoot every rating by ten points. The draft class comes out, everyone jizzes their pants, "best draft ever", I get an 86 overall, you get an 86 overall, the guy drafting 20th gets an 86 overall.

Five seasons, one real life year later, those players all turn out to be 74s but everyone's forgotten what the hoo hah was in the first place.

BECAUSE ALL PROJECTIONS ARE BS ANYWAY, ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

I like to break this out every now and then because I still think it's the best idea. And it solves the whole "EVERYBODY KNOWS THE TOP 10 PLAYERS!!!! THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!!" problem.

7/25/2007 4:19 PM

MikeT23

This is just a "wish" item. I stumbled upon the idea in a thread griping about coach hiring when someone sarcastically mentioned "scout hiring". Anyway, I'm not sure if it's practical to program but I think it would be pretty nice and add a handful of options/strategy to scouting(which is pretty much hands off except for budgeting). Thanks in advance for taking the time to read the following. The concept: Each 1m you allot "buys" you one scout. This applies to Int'l, HS and college. Scouts are of equal ability(for the most part). Each country will be a seperate entity for international scouts. The US will be split up into regions(15 is what I'm thinking. Probably by state). The regions will not be equal nor will they produce the same quality/quantity of players. The same applies to countries. The owner assigns a scout to a region(for HS or college) or a country(for internationals). Domestically, a scout in a region will find the top 5 players and 25(or whatever) other players of varying ability. If two scouts are placed in the same region, the numbers will double. Obviously college scouts will only report on college players. Internationally, each scout will find up to 8 players(or whatever # is chosen). These will be random and there will be no guarantee that you see the best 8. You will simply see the first 8 he finds. Doubling up scouting will double the number of prospect found. Regions/Countries: At the beginning of the season, before scouts are assigned, the owners will be sent a report giving the number of colleges in each region, the number of high school seniors playing ball in each region and the number of international prospects in each country. Again, the only constant from season to season would be the number of colleges playing baseball from each region. I'd recommend varying the number of colleges per region during set-up as opposed to making each region the same "size" to add to strategy. During the arbitration process, the owner will assign scouts based upon these reports/personal strategy. If an owner fails to assign scouts, they will default to previous season settings and/or one scout to the most populated region on down until scouting budget runs out. Overall scouting For each 2m spent domestically, the owner will see the top overall player regardless of region. This will not "add" a player to scouted regions but simply ensures he sees the top player(s).

@Seventy_77: With five teams and three seasons experience, you may want to get a feel for the game with just one or two teams at first. The first year with a new team is almost always a crapshoot in terms of the draft/IFA. You want a stud from the first pick? Then pick a guy who's unlikely to sign and get the comp pick in the following draft with an $18M budget. That's the only way around the imposed +/-$4M budget restrictions. Also the fact that you focus on OVR ratings shows your understanding of player ratings is still developing. It is possible for an 82 OVR to be the best player in the draft.

Your post has less to do with scouting and more to do with new player experience.

There were years of requests for less certainty with the draft. WIS changed the draft to have less certainty, You can't have a sure thing and less certainty at the same time. The first pick not being a lock is precisely what was intended with the changes. Not seeing the best players and not getting accurate projections with $14M was also intended. If you intend to never have the #1 pick again, the changes probably benefit you in the long run as you'll get better players at #10-20 than you would have under the old system.

If people were seeing 96-100 it would be unusual and is more likely the result of their own inaccurate scouting than an indication that you got screwed. I have three current-season drafts I could check and the highgest projections I saw with 18-18-14 scouting were 91-90-86.

Maybe WIS could set up Lake Woebegone World, where every player and coach is rated 100 in everything and every team wins 120 games and is a World Series champ.

Posted by brianplath on 6/15/2016 8:34:00 PM (view original):
@Seventy_77: With five teams and three seasons experience, you may want to get a feel for the game with just one or two teams at first. The first year with a new team is almost always a crapshoot in terms of the draft/IFA. You want a stud from the first pick? Then pick a guy who's unlikely to sign and get the comp pick in the following draft with an $18M budget. That's the only way around the imposed +/-$4M budget restrictions. Also the fact that you focus on OVR ratings shows your understanding of player ratings is still developing. It is possible for an 82 OVR to be the best player in the draft.

Your post has less to do with scouting and more to do with new player experience.

I mentioned overall as a simplification of what I was talking about, not as my lack of understanding. Based on what I did sign, I was correct that most were about 10 points lower than what I was seeing. Most of the best players that were drafted I didn't see. As far as the first player I chose because his splits were the decent I had seen to take a chance on for the first pick and if he didn't sign I would be ok with it based off the poor scouting reports I had see previous to the draft. It just happened to be a bad draft for me overall as my reports turned out to be way off.

Now on the other hand my first team with my first draft I had $10 million across the board on scouting and had several players that I had seen and drafted turn out to be as good or better than the projections. Draft turned out to be good one. By the way I rank my own players and have done fairly well in the draft. But like anything else your only as good as the information that you have and you have to try and find out a pattern on how the scouting is off or on. The other team just had pretty brutal scouting reports and it showed. Knew how they were off but missed finding the best of a bad situation.

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/15/2016 7:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Seventy_77 on 6/15/2016 7:18:00 PM (view original):
Something had to change. I had joined a league and took the worst team in the league just so once I could get the first pick in the draft. Hoping I never had to get that again. I had 14 and 14 on my scouting. The best player I saw was an 82 overall. What a joke. I was told by several others in the league they saw anywhere from 96-100 type players. As we all know, I have not seen any have better overalls after drafting them than I saw before. Most guys I had I got in the international market were all at least 10 points or more off of their potential I saw before signing them. And I had a similar 14 on scouting for that. So I had to assume the best player I was going to get with the first OVERALL pick I thought might turn out to be about a 72. That player was drafted 36th in the draft and was about a 76 overall. The player I selected was a hard to sign guy that did not sign. Most of the top ten players drafted I didn't even scout. That's ridiculous. I didn't even have a chance at the best player because I never even saw him. EVERYONE in MLB knows who the best players are. It shouldn't be a secret as far as top ten. Only whether you have the resources in the right areas to develop them. Or I would rather hire scouts for East, West, North and South and base your picks off how good and which scout had scouting him if it was up to me.

Not seeing players has NOT changed. So you used a lot of words that show you have no understanding of what has, and will continue, to happen.

I know what happens and continues to happen in that nothing is as it seems. Just the frustration with the first pick and really fuzzy reports in that league. I've spent $14 million in other scouting in other league and reports weren't so far off. Just think bad roll of the dice at that time. Sometimes closer reports and sometimes really far off. I definitely have not figured out why one league with same money spent on scouting and two way different out comes as far as how close to reports or how far they are from reality. Seems to be a little randomness in that. I have not spent under $10 yet so it would be interesting to see how those reports turn out. I have taken over a team that has its scouting set really low so I guess I will try and learn from it when the time comes. And try and pay attention to you guys and get bits of information on what is going on as far as the fuzziness thing.

Thanks for all the info guys. The more I get the more I will learn. Hopefully new way will good for game and everyone.

Kind of an aside, but just out of curiousity - if you have a low scouting budget, are all projections always off on the high side? Or could you see a guy that projects at 60 overall who turns out to be an 80 overall guy once drafted? If it's always the former, that's kind of lame - even with horrible scouting you should still be able to find the "blind squirrel's nut" on occasion.

Posted by Seventy_77 on 6/15/2016 7:21:00 PM (view original):
As far as tanking is concerned we should just have a draft lottery for teams not in the playoffs.

It wouldn't really be a baseball simulation based on MLB then would it?

Posted by sjpoker on 6/16/2016 3:14:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Seventy_77 on 6/15/2016 7:21:00 PM (view original):
As far as tanking is concerned we should just have a draft lottery for teams not in the playoffs.

It wouldn't really be a baseball simulation based on MLB then would it?

I agree with your point but just a solution to the tanking problem.

Well with all three of my teams, I've been running HS only drafts since the fuzzy ratings update. Scouting usually between $16-20. My 1st rd picks, for the most part, have been really off in a bad way. This new update that's coming really has me considering switching to COL. It's just that now it'll take me 4 seasons to get my budget up to a reasonable level. :(