im setting up a budget for a new team. i am wondering if i should start zeroing out col/hs/int'l scouting. do we see the same guys anyway but just don't have accurate or any projections for those players? Can't we just make our draft settings take the type of guys we want? can't we just sign an international that appears to be legit? even if we have no money in international scouting would we see a fair amount of guys anyway? Would their projections be waaaaaaaaaay off? i already zero out advanced scouting. any thoughts?

If you zero out your International budget, you will not see any IFA's.

If you zero out your HS/COL scouting budgets, you will still see some (but not many) prospects from either category. And the projections that you see will be virtually meaningless.

The higher you set your COL/HS/INTL scouting budgets, the more prospects you will see, and the more accurate their projections will be. Though even at $20m in a particular category, you will not see every prospect nor will the projections be 100% accurate.

Two owners with the same budget in a particular category will not necessarily see the same prospects. There is always some variability.

What are the downfalls to minimizing or zeroing out advance scouting?

None of you don't intend to trade young players.

It's a matter of organizational philosophy, draft is more flexible than IFA, and ADV is still mostly useless. Since the most recent wave of updates, I personally observe that budgets relate exclusively to volume moreso than accuracy. Budgeting 6 or 16 is equally inaccurate; 16 simply gives you a larger pool.

Draft is flexible based on team context, specifically # of type-A and type-B free agents you are schedule to lose or to bring in, etc.. In seasons where you are losing free agent players you will have more picks in the top 75 (the most I've ever picked in the top 100 is 12), therefore you can re-distribute player payroll budget units into scouting for those specific seasons. If you're drafting 12 times in the top 100, you're going to have booms and busts alike. Because every budget includes wildly inaccurate scouting, every pick is a guess. I give myself the most guesses with the largest pool. When I don't have a lot of guesses, I shorten my pool. My teams draft better players because of the effects of trickle-down rather than accuracy

For these reasons, in my opinion it is smarter to balance your HS and COL as 10/10 rather than 20/0 or 0/20. In seasons which you draft more often you can raise to 14/14 (+8 units total), as opposed to 20/4 or 4/20 (+4 units total), and in seasons where you want to attack free agency you can go down to 6/6. Having a wider range (12 units thru 28 units) is more flexible. In similar fashion, draft/IFA scouting is +/- 4 but with prospect you can go from 6 to 20, and if you aren't doing IFA there is no reason to have more than 8 or 10 in prospect, which gives you more money for big league free agents and/or better draft scouting.

IFA is a heavier commitment and much riskier. You basically must commit 15+ to IFA scouting and commit 20 into prospect, plus transfer penalties. Even with that you might sign a bust, or you might not sign anybody at all. Draft >>> IFA

10/10 is terrible. I've found 12 is reasonably inaccurate while 16 is reasonably accurate. The concept of 6 to 14 is nice but the inaccuracy of 12 makes 78% of those possibilities bad(and possible 100% as I've never used 13-14). I tend to go 0/12 to 20 based on when I have better picks.