Was just looking at my squad and some of the guys that i have brought up thru the system. Noticed a few had the same scout in their profile. Leads me to wonder if scouts may have an unseen rating that can be factored into the confidence of their skills to find prospects. Probably not, but who knows. A few things that might be interesting are:

Assuming 20 mil in draft scouting... It might be interesting to look at the top 20 draft prospects projected ratings vs what they come in at on 'current ratings" right after being signed. This particular exercise would not determine how well a player would progress which is more directly related to "makeup", but it might rather shed some light on which scouts (all with 20 mil budget behind them) are finding the most developed players prior to any development we as owners impact.

What led me to think of this? well, just that the game developers took the time to actually add in the names of scouts. Why even do that unless they might be a factor?

If scouts are actually a factor, perhaps one could further evaluate the draft board by looking at the scouts names. In my teams case, i see "dwight roland" and "henry ducey" as two scout names attached to my most successful draftees. the overall development had more to do with minor league playing time and timely promotions, but perhaps these players also came in right after signing with favorable 'current ratings".

I cannot currently see this season's draft prospects, but if anyone else can see them in their world, is their a scout name attached in their profile? If not- just flush this post down the toilet. If yes... maybe there is something to this.

There's definitely a scout's name attached to every draft pick...whether or not they actually make a difference is something I've never investigated.

Is the scouts name visible before the draft?

It is visible if you click on the player's name and view his player profile.

All I can offer is this: $20M gets you within a +/-10 ratings variance of the players true ratings. For most players I've noticed those variances across all ratings (save for DUR and STA) net out to close to zero when working with a $20M budget. My hunch is the different scouts are just cosmetic. With HBD, when in doubt, assume less complexity not more.