I took over a team in a world where the previous owner's College/ HS Budget was 17/0. I usually budget close to 20/20 for both so haven't seen a "0" budgets effects on player projections for quite some time. Out of the 500 players in the draft prospect report, I yielded only 3 HS players, one is ranked 26th overall but his projections show him as the #1 overall. I have the 8th pick in the draft. He is a 18yo 2B with the following projections:
Contact 88, Power 83, L/R 67/84, Eye 96, Range 95, Glove 100 AS 48 Acc 60 Durability and Health 100/100 Overall 94.

I know he may come down quite a bit but the college prospects this season are super weak and not 8th overall worthy. The 18yo "May sign" so I could draft him and wait and see if a better IFA comes along and hope he rejects so I get a comp pick next year. Any insight on how far off his projections are is appreciated. With him being 26th overall, I have a gut feeling he will really be 2nd Round material but want to see if anyone else has been in a similar situation. Thanks.

Personally I wouldn’t go near the guy, but others may have different experiences.

Just reviewed my most recent draft.

With 20/0 COL/HS scouting, I saw 9 HS players. That's high, it's usually more like 4 or 5. Only three of them (0 scouting) projected to potential major leaguers.

The third one, scouted as a RP, projected to be a poor-control high-splits RP. He was drafted in the 4th round and his control is actually so poor (currently 18) that he'll likely never make the majors.

The second one, scouted as a DH, is now listed as a C but his pitch calling is terrible. Definitely a DH. Now higher splits but only mediocre power. Drafted first round, 7th HS player drafted. So a first rounder, but doesn't look like a guaranteed stud.

The top one, scouted as a DH with LF fielding skills, is now a 1B. Will likely be a major league hitter but nowhere near a generational slugger that he was projected as. And he was the 13th HS player taken.

IMO it just depends on what kind of lottery ticket you like your lottery ticket to be. The college players I scout with 20 million, overall they end up within three to five points of what they're projected as. Yes sometimes that five points can be a letdown. But overall my 20 million is pretty consistent.

Thanks everyone I will let you know the results

I think it's too risky although I noticed the top college guy in my last draft ended up getting drafted 13th.(I'm 20 HS/0 College)

He was a reliever here are his 0 projection and his actual ratings after being drafted. 21 year old pitcher.
S C VL VR FB GB P1 P2
32 98 81 100 54 20 53 100
19 62 69 63 71 29 70 69

Update:

I had a two part plan.

1. Draft a decent but hard to sign College (Budget 17) player at 8th overall. Result success: I got a decent pitcher at 8th which if I can ultimately sign or use slot money for an IFA after he declines first offer. Most likely will take the comp pick for next season.
2. Draft the highly rated HS player (Budget 0) with my early supplemental 1st round pick and roll the dice. RESULT: failed but got a decent 1B slugger. The HS player actually got selected 7th overall so I wouldn’t have even been able to get him with my 1st pick. Once he signs with that team I will post his after draft projections.

thanks for your insights… much appreciated

How much money are you paying your Advance Scout? That affects the after draft projections.

Not great 10. Can’t wait to change the budget in the off-season but from his current that will show we can project. He is asking over 6m so he may take awhile to sign for that other owner.

When I have $0 allocated to HS or Col scouting and a player shows up with Godly ratings, I don't trust them enough to put them high on my board no matter what. I will still put them on my board, but just lower on the board. I would rather get a closer to certain bottom 15 of the mlb roster guy than a raffle ticket. Save the raffle tickets for later in the draft.

Posted by tlowster on 6/28/2021 6:55:00 PM (view original):
When I have $0 allocated to HS or Col scouting and a player shows up with Godly ratings, I don't trust them enough to put them high on my board no matter what. I will still put them on my board, but just lower on the board. I would rather get a closer to certain bottom 15 of the mlb roster guy than a raffle ticket. Save the raffle tickets for later in the draft.

+1

I am in the same situation as Brickyard was last year. Except I don't have zero scouting, I have 5 in college ( and 20 in HS). The top prospect on my list is a starting pitcher with a projected OA rating of 98(!!) including 99 control, and 100 against both LH and RH batters.

I have the fourth overall pick. I have no supplemental picks so my second pick is about 65th - the fourth pick of round 2.

My thought is to rank this player #5, so that I def won't grab him in the first round, but will take him in the second round if he's available. Any thoughts? I read through the discussion above, is there much difference between 5m and zero budget for college scouting?

Posted by deroches on 3/14/2022 9:43:00 PM (view original):
I am in the same situation as Brickyard was last year. Except I don't have zero scouting, I have 5 in college ( and 20 in HS). The top prospect on my list is a starting pitcher with a projected OA rating of 98(!!) including 99 control, and 100 against both LH and RH batters.

I have the fourth overall pick. I have no supplemental picks so my second pick is about 65th - the fourth pick of round 2.

My thought is to rank this player #5, so that I def won't grab him in the first round, but will take him in the second round if he's available. Any thoughts? I read through the discussion above, is there much difference between 5m and zero budget for college scouting?

I know this isn't perfect, but a decent rule of thumb is that even with 20 million in scouting, the scouts can be about +/- 10 points off in each rating. For every 1 million away from 20 million, add at least 1 point to each rating that the scouting is off by. So, if you have 5 million in scouting, instead of your scout being off by about ten in each rating, he could be off by 25 in reach rating.

There's a little bit of a difference. With 0 budget, you'll usually see 4 or 5 guys that you shouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, as damag said. With 5 budget, you'll see 9 or 10 guys that you shouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

Here's what I think about the move deroches proposes, a move I've never tried because to me it's a very possible waste.

Every draft I've ever been with 0$ scouting on one side, I've always seen one or two super prospects on the 0$ side. Usually like deroches showed, it's a too-good-to-be-true set of projections, like a pitcher who would be the best that ever existed in that world.

Looking back, surprisingly, about half the time one of the super prospects is actually a good player, and ends up drafted fairly highly. But the projections are nowhere near what they really end up being. And yes some of the others are real duds. This immediate season I'm playing, I saw two of these let's call them wild cards, the first was drafted sixth overall. The second went in the third round and the owner did not bother to sign him.

IMO if you're going to try to draft a player on who you've spend 0$ scouting, you're going to see otherworldly projections, you're going to basically take the leap of faith that he's actually worth whatever draft slot you have or better, and you're going to have to rank him highly. You could try hoping, as deroches suggested, that he drops to the second round, but if he's actually good, as my real life example above showed, he won't get out of the first.

Like, I'd probably only try it if I had very little invested in any draft scouting in the first place. If I have a good amount of cash - say 16 million or over on one side - I'm probably seeing good enough prospects on that one side that I prefer them over a wild card. And the only reason I'd have less than that in draft scouting is if I had a really low draft slot, in which case a good player likely isn't sliding that far.

Posted by deroches on 3/14/2022 9:43:00 PM (view original):
I am in the same situation as Brickyard was last year. Except I don't have zero scouting, I have 5 in college ( and 20 in HS). The top prospect on my list is a starting pitcher with a projected OA rating of 98(!!) including 99 control, and 100 against both LH and RH batters.

I have the fourth overall pick. I have no supplemental picks so my second pick is about 65th - the fourth pick of round 2.

My thought is to rank this player #5, so that I def won't grab him in the first round, but will take him in the second round if he's available. Any thoughts? I read through the discussion above, is there much difference between 5m and zero budget for college scouting?

I'm freshly back to playing HBD but this seems like a bad strategy to me. I think this would be worth while if all coaches were looking at the same data set. The fallacy I see with this, though, is many of the other coaches in your league will have much better information on that prospect. Either he is elite and therefore a different coach will scoop him in the first round (and you have bypassed him at the top of the draft) or your projections are WAY off so everyone that can see him will have him ranked lower and you get stuck with a dud at the top of round two. There is alittle middle ground where he's still a decent prospect and you'd pick him up in the 2nd. Even with that though, I think, you would likely be at least partially overpaying given the coaches that can seem him still didnt have him high enough to be drafted.