I am curious what vets have to say. Most comments I read are completely dismissive about spending any real money on advanced scouting. So, when is a good time to put money in that bucket?

If you like to trade for young players. 

I go with never.  I have my own formula for determining a prospect's projections that seems to work as good as advanced scouts no matter what I've budgeted there.  I find that even with a high amount budgeted for advanced scouting, there still is quite a bit of inaccuracy.  First of all, I try trusting my draft/international scouts, and also look at where any player was drafted and by whom, and the track record of who drafted/signed him.  Also, you can look at how the current ratings are progressing and make an educated guess as to where they will end up within a reasonable enough range.  This is a "formula" you can try.  Look at older players to see if it panned out this way, and you'll see that a great deal of them fall within the range predicted by it.  You'll notice that you can see the progression of current ratings over a player's career on their player card.  Add one to one and a half times the amount that a players ratings grow from the first to the second season to the second season's ratings.

If I am taking over a rebuild and I plan on making a number of trades.  I get to see what is my own fridge so to speak and make better trades.  Other than that, no.

At some point, everybody will zero out advanced scouting and there probably will be a competitive advantage for the person who looks at things differently with regards to advanced.

Until that point, I will continue to zero it out.

Won't happen until they change the underlying code.

I'm not so sure there isn't an advantage already.   But, for me, it just doesn't occur that often.   I was offered a deal a month ago.   2nd year player for a D-SS that I had stashed in AAA.    From the outside, it was a "Hit accept before he changes his mind" offer.   The 2nd year pitcher had been drafted 21st the previous season.  The D-SS had been picked up off the FA scrap heap as insurance the previous season.   However, the pitcher had very little development pattern and the owner didn't have much of a draft history(2nd season in our world and pitcher was drafted with 12m scouting).    He looked to me to be a 24th-25th man on the roster.   I pulled the trigger and HOPED that someone would complain that I was ripping the guy off.  No one did.  I think I swapped a current 25th man for what might be a 25th man barring injury.

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Albert Philips
Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Orber Forrester

There's something to be said for knowing what you're getting.  Or at least having a better idea.   I was blindfolded and throwing a dart with only a vague knowledge of where the board was located.

Posted by jtrinsey on 3/16/2012 9:33:00 AM (view original):
At some point, everybody will zero out advanced scouting and there probably will be a competitive advantage for the person who looks at things differently with regards to advanced.

Until that point, I will continue to zero it out.

I find that adherents of the 0 advanced scouting are less common than you think.  I had assumed that most owners were moving this way.  Yet, when I checked my worlds only Cooperstown had a strong majority of owners abandoning advance scouting.  I was pretty surprised to see how many experienced owners still relied on it.

I think there's value in it.    Not necessarily for me because of the way I play but, as I outlined earlier, there are gray areas where I'm just throwing crap against the wall to see if it sticks.

I just don't see the value in it in any world i play in these days. No one trades prospects for anything approaching what they're actually worth. If no one's trading >4yr Pro players, there's basic advantage in ADV. I used to be big on ADV, but when people (I) basically stopped trading, it became more valuable to have that 20M elsewhere. I used to like having the knowledge of what I had where, and what players were actually capable of, but looking at it, prospect development was nearly unscrewupable, so guys were ready when theyre ready, put guys on the 40M when sign them, and you never have to worry about losing someone due to bad ADV.

If you're a wheeler-dealer, it's easily worth it.   I seldom trade FOR prospects so I don't care what you have in your minors.  And I know what I have in my minors.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/16/2012 1:40:00 PM (view original):
If you're a wheeler-dealer, it's easily worth it.   I seldom trade FOR prospects so I don't care what you have in your minors.  And I know what I have in my minors.

Trading for <4yr Pros is like shouting "Take advantage of me"

I think it's a little more difficult in the worlds we share because they're aren't many rubes.  However, a lot of owners in some worlds build cheap(50m) 110 win teams over and over again.   They don't do that by trading for 28 y/o making 7.9m.

This is excellent stuff-and excellent reading--TYVM