Even with $20m training and advance scouting budgets, great coaching and players with solid work ethic, and slow rises through the minors (generally a year at every level if the prospect was a HS draftee), I've never had a player reach his real potential. Most fall far short.

It's just maddening to have these players never reach their potential. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

What is a player's real potential?

Well, you'd know far more about it than I would, Mike, but I'd generally think the potential an owner sees with a $20m advance scouting budget should be almost exactly "real potential".

OK, you don't understand the meaning of "potential".   It's a best guess.   20m gives you the "best guess" possible in HBD.

No, I think I understand "potential", Mike. It's the number under the current ratings. It's the level a player is capable of reaching. I understand $20m gives you a best guess, but I think that guess should be VERY accurate, otherwise Advance Scouting is largely worthless.

Here's my question for you, Mike: do your players routinely hit their potential? What % reach their potential, what % exceed their potential, and what % fall short?

In my limited experience (15 seasons), 98% of my ML-level draft picks have failed to reach their potential, often by a considerable margin, and I think I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do to help a player reach that potential.

No, you don't.   That's number under a player's current rating is his projected rating.   One has to assume a few things to think that's a realistic number.

1.  The projection is 100% correct.  20m in ADV does not do that.
2.  The player plays the perfect number of games at each level.   I doubt that happens as we don't know the perfect conditions..
3.  The player has fantastic coaching.   No one has coaches with 100 ratings across the board.

Since none of those are even remotely likely, it's not surprising that few players reach the numbers you see.

 

And, to answer your question, I use 0 ADV scouting.  I trust the 20m I used to draft a player to be my guide.  If I picked him in the first three rounds, I expect him to be a contributor at some point.    Because of that, I make a note and put him in the best situation to develop.   If he's not BL-quality by season 5, I screwed up.  I don't blame the program.

First, "potential" is essentially the same as Projected. I realize it's not exactly the same, and I realize there are variations. I also realize $20m in Advance/HS/College scouting is not 100% accurate, but I do assume it should be close, like 95% or higher.

Second: You didn't answer my question. I didn't ask how many of your players became BL-quality. I asked what percentage reached their potential, what percentage exceeded their potential, and what percentage fell short.

In real life, players exceed the their draft day potential all the time (see the list I made in my DITR post for examples). As I mentioned before, I've only had a few players reach their draft-day projected ratings, and this was primarily because those ratings were modest to begin with.

I wouldn't expect 20m ADV to provide 95% accuracy.   That seems like a number you pulled from thin air.   Why not 90%?  84.6%?

I don't keep records of what my scouts said they'd be on draft day.   I explained how I went about doing things.   I don't care about projected(or potential) numbers after they're on my roster.  It's my job to turn them into BL players. 

In real life, lots of first round picks become massive flops.   That only happens in HBD if the owner screws up.    Real life players don't have little numbers attached to them so scouts are working with "projections".    And they miss as often as they hit.

You're almost making my point for me.

"90%? 84.6%"

Sure, yeah, whatever. My point is, i would expect $20m scouting budgets to be largely accurate. I would expect some players to fall short of their expectations, some to meet expectations, and some to exceed expectations.

"I don't keep records of what my scouts said they'd be on draft day."

This makes me wonder why you feel qualified to comment on this if you don't even keep track of how often players reach/exceed/fall short of their potential. I do keep track of these things. You don't. Who do you think would be more qualified to comment on the matter?

"In real life, lots of first round picks become massive flops."

Absolutely. But in real life there would also be a number of really late round draft picks who would become HOF level players. (Greg Maddux, Albert Pujols, Ryne Sandberg, et al.) There would be plenty of players who would EXCEED their projected draft-day ratings. Please note I capitalized "exceed", as I keep mentioning it and you don't seem to be willing to admit that players rarely, if ever, become better than their draft-day potential.

 

I'm qualified to comment because I understand the meaning of potential and projections.    I'm not sure how someone who seemingly doesn't know what those words actually mean can use them so often and with such conviction.

Listen, Mike, this is the point I'm trying to make:

In real life, athletes exceed their projected/potential/expected ability ALL THE TIME. Albert Pujols did this. So did Greg Maddux.

As far as I can tell, in HBD players only meet or fall short of their projected/potential/expected ability. In my experience, the vast majority of players fall well short. According to my numbers, 98% of my drafted players have not reached their full potential.

If you don't think this happens...if you think people DO meet and even exceed their projections higher than 2% of the time...then we're approaching this discussion from two completely different view points, and we won't find common ground, and I understand why you wouldn't care if this issue was fixed. If that's the case, let me know.

Projections, even the ones that you see with a $20m scouting budget, which for the sake of agentverde's argument should be "95% or higher", do not exist in a vacuum.

With "perfect development" . . . yes, some should fall short, some should come close, and some should exceed.

But, as Mike pointed out, there's no such thing as perfect development.  Injuries, coaching, playing time, timely promotions, etc. all factor into development.  The game is pretty much designed so that it's virtually impossible to get everything to perfectly line up.  And to expect that you should be able to is borderline foolishness.

If you have a number of players who never come close to their projections, then maybe the problem is with your scouting/projections, and your player development skills.

I'm sure I'm not ideal at development...I didn't say I was. As far as I understand it, development depends on coaching, years in the minors, a player's makeup, playing time, etc.

Tec, in your experience, how often do players exceed their draft day projections in HBD? How often do players exceed draft day projections in real life?

Posted by agentverde on 3/18/2011 1:45:00 PM (view original):
Listen, Mike, this is the point I'm trying to make:

In real life, athletes exceed their projected/potential/expected ability ALL THE TIME. Albert Pujols did this. So did Greg Maddux.

As far as I can tell, in HBD players only meet or fall short of their projected/potential/expected ability. In my experience, the vast majority of players fall well short. According to my numbers, 98% of my drafted players have not reached their full potential.

If you don't think this happens...if you think people DO meet and even exceed their projections higher than 2% of the time...then we're approaching this discussion from two completely different view points, and we won't find common ground, and I understand why you wouldn't care if this issue was fixed. If that's the case, let me know.

First, HBD isn't real life.   Pujols and Maddux were drafted because scouts saw potential.   Maddux didn't have a 68 control rating that could potential become a 97.  He had "Good command of his pitches".    Unlike HBD, real life players don't have little numbers that directly influence their performance.   To pretend scouting, the draft, or any talent evaluation process in HBD is the same, or can be the same as MLB, is folly.

Second, you still don't understand the meaning of potential/projections.   I can't elaborate any further on that.

Third, I detailed what needs to happen for a player to reach his absolute best.   None of those happen.  None of them will. 

Finally, rather than demand a program change to suit your expectations, maybe you should just change your expectations to something realistic.