My question is do teams that have zero budgeted for College Players see all high school players? I have 20 in each, and I only drafted one high school player in 25 rounds in one of my worlds.

You can budget 20-20 and still not see every player. Frustrating part of the way the game is set up at the moment.

I've drafted with 20/0 for both College and HS. With 20M College I see 500 College projections and about four or five HS. With 20M HS I would see about 200 HS projections (the rest of the 500 are "??") and about four or five College.

(Some years ago when they re-set how scouting worked they decided to do it this way. It pushes some of the good players down in the draft and redistributed talent, because not everyone can see every player. Before that, drafting at the back end of the first round was near useless. Drafts were so predictable that every prospective Major Leaguer was gone by the 20th pick.)

Posted by damag on 8/18/2023 7:11:00 AM (view original):
I've drafted with 20/0 for both College and HS. With 20M College I see 500 College projections and about four or five HS. With 20M HS I would see about 200 HS projections (the rest of the 500 are "??") and about four or five College.

(Some years ago when they re-set how scouting worked they decided to do it this way. It pushes some of the good players down in the draft and redistributed talent, because not everyone can see every player. Before that, drafting at the back end of the first round was near useless. Drafts were so predictable that every prospective Major Leaguer was gone by the 20th pick.)

I think there is value in the certainty of seeing projections on all 500 of your players. I also think there is value in seeing only 200 players and having 300 or so ??? players.

Obviously seeing 500 players is nice because you know what you know and you know what you don't want and can put a list of wants and eliminate the undesirables with little difficulty. There is value in taking this more certain less difficult road. Of course, seeing projections on all 500 players does not mean those projections are accurate. I've seen projections be off as high as 11 points with 20 million in scouting. Nonetheless, it is obviously better to see 500 and maybe 30 of them are mlb players than it is to see 200 and only 20 of them are mlb players. The percentage of mlb players from the HS ranks might be higher, but the flat numbers that the college guys get you is superior from a quantity perspective. This can change from class to class, but generally speaking, you're going to see more projected mlb players over the course of ten seasons by doing 20/0 college then you're going to see mlb projected HS players doing 20/0 HS. Some might refute this by looking at draft classes and claiming there are just as many HS players drafted as there are college players drafted in the first round where you find mlb talent but, they're forgetting that the college players are more seen than the HS players.

When you only see 200 players, you have even less of a pool of players to rank so this can also add value by making it less difficult to sift through so many players. However, you can also add difficulty and value by ranking those ??? players by certain aspects to give your self some lottery tickets that have a low probability of paying off.

My point is that value can be found in both. If you are the type of person that wants to spend 20 to 40 minutes on your draft class and have the most certainty and see the most mlb projected players, I'd suggest you go with 20/0 college. If you want to spend a whole lot more time on your draft class and rank 150 players each season with the hopes of getting a lottery pick from time to time, I'd suggest going 20/0 HS.

There are definitely other nuances to this. Some have said in the past that HS players are more of a wildcard because they have less baked in development. I'm not certain if this is true, but across most of my Worlds, the HS budgets seem to be higher than the college budgets. Maybe some folks believe that high school players have higher potentials??? Not sure. What I do know is that you can also use the averages to your advantage as well. If your world has significantly more HS budget than college budget, you can switch to college and try to take advantage of those inner world market conditions.

Your observations bear out my experiences as well. I think I said elsewhere that if either HS or College yielded a clear advantage, the majority of us would figure it out and take it.

I think an owner can choose what kind of draft experience they wish to have. Yes some say HS players MAY have a higher potential ceiling and College a more certain floor. That's probably oversimplifying it.

And also yes there is great value in having knowledge of what the other owners in your world are doing. I've seen drafts where 8 or 9 of the top ten owners all draft from the same side of the pool. It's entirely possible that with a pick outside of the top ten you can still get one of your top three ranked prospects.

I said that when drafting HS I'd see about 200 prospects with full projections, and when drafting College I see a full 500. My draft prep usually involves manually ranking between 40 and 60 players, and that would hold for both HS and College. The difference is that the other 150 of the 200 that I'd see in HS scouting were essentially useless... the kind of players who maxed out with Overall ratings less than 50. Players not even good enough for AAA. College gives you better minor league players. I know many owners don't care at all what their minor league teams are like, but when you draft from College you end up with better minor league teams IMO.

I prefer HS for the simple reason that my guys will more or less enter their prime at age 21-22 rather than 25-26. If they are truly ML caliber keepers, they’ll be quality for longer before they start to regress.

I do think there is more certainty going the college route, but you’re more likely to find a star sleeper outside the top 10 by maxing out HS.

Most of the worlds I have been in show that the average money spent on HS scouting exceeds that put into college scouting. Plus, I do play the IFA market. So I usually go 20-0 college scouting, because the amateur draft is a crapshoot unless you have a top 10 pick. So I get amateur draft college players that are more predictable, and then I can pick and choose what players I go after in the IFA market.

Posted by LoboOne04 on 9/4/2023 6:32:00 PM (view original):
I prefer HS for the simple reason that my guys will more or less enter their prime at age 21-22 rather than 25-26. If they are truly ML caliber keepers, they’ll be quality for longer before they start to regress.

I do think there is more certainty going the college route, but you’re more likely to find a star sleeper outside the top 10 by maxing out HS.

Good point here, too -- those college infielders that don't hit their ratings until age 25/26 vs. the HS infielders that hit it at age 22. I've inherited teams where they have that 25 year old SS or CF sitting in AAA and I've asked myself why he's not in the MLB, then I realize that the player was drafted as a 21 or 22 year old and needed the fielding development. You get five or six seasons, then you need to decide if they're still good enough to play the position at their $ demands.