Posted by zbrent716 on 1/7/2011 6:24:00 PM (view original):

Posted by moy23 on 1/7/2011 5:14:00 PM (view original):

Posted by aginor on 1/7/2011 5:03:00 PM (view original):
Heck there are actually cases of MLB players being very seriously injured not in actual games.. Mark Fidyrch was shagging fly balls during BP and blew out his arm... went from Cy Young possible and Rookie of the Year to zippo (tried a couple of comebacks after surgery but NEVER really was the same). There are lots of cases..player getting caught up in the tarp while being unrolled or rolled up (not sure which), there have a couple of players injured in boating accidents (one even killed I think)...

Boating accident was with the Indians.... wanna say it involved Steve olin and Tim crews .

And Bob Ojeda.

Olin was the one who was killed.

NYT Story

Crews actually died from his injuries the next day.

Posted by eeyore1959 on 1/10/2011 5:18:00 AM (view original):
With the Fidrych reference, it was a knee injury during spring training drills, and he hurt his arm coming back too soon.

Amazing how realism is asked for by players, then complained about when it does happen....

I think a lot of us would be more accepting of "realistic" injuries if the draft was more "realistic."  You can't replace high end talent without a top 5 pick, a max deal or selling the farm.  I'd feel a little more confident facing Sparky and HBD's Spinning Wheel of [Injury] Death if a poorly placed injury wasn't so catastrophic.  This is why people spend so much time rebuilding.

Rebuilding or tanking?   Because I'm pretty sure most of us have had to deal with a major injury to a top prospect or BL stud.   However, not all of us have said "OMG!!  My team is ruined!!  Time to rebuild!!!"

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/12/2011 8:59:00 AM (view original):
Rebuilding or tanking?   Because I'm pretty sure most of us have had to deal with a major injury to a top prospect or BL stud.   However, not all of us have said "OMG!!  My team is ruined!!  Time to rebuild!!!"

Both?  Tanking is rebuilding --albeit an extreme and disruptive form-- and the distinction becomes even more subjective if you subcategorize tanking into soft-tanking and hard-tanking.  I'm not talking as much about competitive teams, moreso teams that are on the cusp and know what they're contending with.  There's no draft benefit to being middle of the pack, and IFA isn't reliable enough to make a budgetary power play in that direction either.  But you know that, and I'm sure you've heard it a million times already.

If one injury sends you from "on the cusp" to "rebuild again", you did a ****** job "rebuilding" the first time.

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/12/2011 9:05:00 PM (view original):
If one injury sends you from "on the cusp" to "rebuild again", you did a ****** job "rebuilding" the first time.

That's a minor straw man and you sidestepped the other stuff, but I'll conditionally agree with that.  Personally, I've been pretty lucky so far (mostly because minor league dev is a keen interest).  My gripe is with the draft quality, but that's not the topic.

OK, I won't sidestep the other stuff.  I've had players drafted as late as the 6th round(not counting DITR) make BL contributions.  Are they studs?  No.  Legit BL players?  Absolutely.   If you're building your team with studs only, you're probably in some 'tard world that will allow you to do so.   Saying "There's no draft benefit to being middle of the pack" is silly.  If you can't find players with the 20th pick, you're doing  poor job at drafting.    But I do agree with you assessment of IFA.   It's a gamble that you sometimes lose and "waste" 15-20m in scouting.

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/13/2011 8:33:00 AM (view original):
OK, I won't sidestep the other stuff.  I've had players drafted as late as the 6th round(not counting DITR) make BL contributions.  Are they studs?  No.  Legit BL players?  Absolutely.   If you're building your team with studs only, you're probably in some 'tard world that will allow you to do so.   Saying "There's no draft benefit to being middle of the pack" is silly.  If you can't find players with the 20th pick, you're doing  poor job at drafting.    But I do agree with you assessment of IFA.   It's a gamble that you sometimes lose and "waste" 15-20m in scouting.

I want to backtrack a little bit on that, pitching holds up very well deeper into the draft.  If a team needs to replenish pitching, the draft is pretty good with regards to that.  The generator for position players gets a little goofy, and I've been a little hung up on that lately and I overstated it.  (Top guy in my Mordecai pool is the best example: 95 proj overall, positionless --overqualified LF type-- and vR that might not hit 65.  Thankfully for whoever gets him, he's a signability problem.)

As for the IFA, has there ever been any thought of making it a more interactive?  I've been toying with the idea that when the scouting budget sets (IFA, college, HS), you get X amount of scouts and can assign them to particular area, indicated by a heat map of activity, past signings, other team's scouts, whathaveyou.  Figure $18MM in IFA gives you 36 scouts and you send 5 to DR, 3 to Venezuela, 2 to JP, one guy to one of the oddball spots like England or Afghanistan, et cetera.  Makes it more fun and takes the burden of not getting the top prospect off you guys somewhat.  Obviously it could carry the option to just follow the recommendations for people that aren't Operations freaks.

From 3 1/2 years ago:

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).
7/25/2007 4:58 PM	Customer Support
Mike, We have some ideas and we are currently discussing how to expand the role of Scouts in HBD. We will take these thoughts into consideration when we cross that bridge. Thanks!.

Haha, that rules.  Guess I'm actually late to the party.