I would like to get away from spending 20mill on Adv Scouting. But I am only about half way threw my fourth season. So it still plays a big roll for me. I dont know if I would have made any trades with out it.

So far I made notes on all the players that have a chance of making the ML. I list all there projections. And I have been doing the same for the players I have been drafting. I plan on keeping my Coll and ITL Scouting high and keeping track of the projections as the players come in.

I one thing that I really dont know how to do is guess a players projections. Lets say the guy is in his second or thired pro season. How do you look at his numbers and guess where he will end up?

Just a heads up. For anyone willing to jump in on this. This is going to lead to a lot of questions.

Thanks

After a couple of seasons, look at how the individual ratings have increased from one season to the next.  You'll notice a pattern.  The increases will start to get smaller as the player gets older.  Some will stop totally.  With that, you should be able to project approximately where he's going to end up, at least within a point of two.

Is this with the assumption that ratings will go up until a position player turns 27 and pitchers turn 32?  Also when the ratings start to fall , will they fall at the same rate that they went up?  How many seasons do you expect them to remain the same when the ratings stop rising assuming they are getting regular playing time and barring injuries?

There's no fixed age when ratings stop progressing.  Skill ratings can continue to improve past the point when physical ratings stop improving, and even after physical ratings start to decrease.  Lots of factors contribute to these, such as training budget, injuries, coaches, etc.

Projecting based on improvement patterns isn't perfect.   An owner posted a player yesterday asking where we thought he'd end up.   His pattern was "odd".   That said, projections aren't perfect with 20m in ADV.   You also have to keep in mind that owners differ in their ability to develop a player.  I take into account a lot of things when trying to decide on a trade.   It includes the owner's minor league records, the player's draft position or signing bonus, previous players developed by the owner, his coaches and training budget, etc, etc.  Figuring out a development pattern isn't as much hard as it is time-consuminh because you have to account for a lot of things.

I think it's been said before, but I just want to clarify...guys who go with 0 ADV, pretty much get right out of the international market, correct?

No.  IFA, College and HS budgets determine the projections you see for those players.

I do a lot of trades and keep mine at 20mil. I know how to eyeball their progress also, but I use eyeballing it and adv scouting to compliment each other. I guess the adv scounting is really a convenience to make sifting through other teams' prospects a lot easier. Worth a lot more to me than say 10mil in IFA.

0 ADV is not for everyone.   I tend to use the money not spent on ADV on FA with options and send them to AAA.   Or I'll trade for an overpaid player I normally wouldn't touch.  I also think 0 ADV makes trading for a prospect much tougher. 
As for my prospects, I know how many players I ranked.  I only rank players I think can be BL players some day.  I make a note so they stand out and develop them accordingly.  I don't care what their projections are after they're on my team.  I have to develop the players I felt were BL players.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/20/2011 8:50:00 PM (view original):
No.  IFA, College and HS budgets determine the projections you see for those players.

Interesting.  I thought scouting gave you their current rankings, but ADV gave you their projections

Current ratings are always accurate.  The all various scouting budgets provide projections.

The biggest challenge with 0 adv scouting, which I run for all my teams, is trading players in their first or second seasons of pro ball, because you have to rely more on projections (which may or probably will be inaccurate) instead of viewing a couple of seasons' worth of development to guess their future skills.

I assume you mean trading for those players.   You should know what you have on your team if you trust who you draft/sign.

I use 0 advanced, but 20 IFA. I find that I very rarely trade FOR prospects (I recently made a big trade for a prospect, but only because I remember going after him in IFA but not having enough to get him, so I knew he was a beast), but I often trade them away. One good thing about having 0 advanced is that I find myself not trading for those mid-tier prospects that, IMO, other owners often overvalue. Like MikeT, I would rather just spend 2M in FA to grab that 4th outfielder than 15M in advanced to try to figure out if a prospect is going to develop into a 4th outfielder.

I think you can usually figure out when a prospect is going to be a star. If he's 18 years old and his splits are in the 60s, he's usually a pretty good bet. Whether his control ends up to be 82 or 86 is kind of irrelevant in my book, because you want him either way.

One thing I've learned(and you're pretty much forced to with 0 ADV) is that I'm no longer as hesitant to trade a prospect.   No matter what I knew, I couldn't trade the 22nd pick in the draft in his 2nd season when I saw projections he'd never reach.   I'd think "He was the 22nd pick in the draft.  I spent a lot of time ranking players and his projections show he was a steal" and refuse to move him.   Now it's "Well, he was the 22nd pick in the draft but his power only went up 3 points last season and his range didn't change.  He's not going to gain another 18 points in power or 10 in range.  I can move him."