I have on my list of draft prospects an 18 year old HS position player. I don't want to divulge too much about a draft prospect, but among the 6 most important "skill" ratings (ie, ratings that improve during the season-- glove, arm accuracy, contact, VsL, VsR, eye) he projects to improve at least 40 points in 3 of them and 35 in a fourth. That seems overly optimistic, but I have $20M in HS scouting.

I understand that when you invest $20M in scouting you don't get perfect projections. I also understand that there are at least theoretically supposed to be occasional players that improve a lot more than typical players do. My question is, what do people think are the relative probabilities of this player having unusually high devlopment potential vs. my scouting being way off even though I spent $20M? Examples would be nice. Makeup is 90 if you think that matters.

I think 35-40 is very hard to accomplish. Marginal improvement the draft year, 10-12 points in his first full season, 6, 3 and a handful of 1-2. 30 isn't out of the question. Someone would have to show me a 40 that wasn't DITR. My old HJ player, Slammin' Sammy Davis:

http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=1660080

28 in VL/VR. Add in the 3 he got in his partial rookie season and you get 31. I have never seen a player improve more.

I steer clear of players who need to improve 30+ points in the key categories. If a player has high makeup, I hope for 5-7 point improvements for four seasons -- or 20-28 overall.