Getting the hang of HBD, and loving it...but having trouble evaluating international free agents. don't know whether to empty bank on one guy or another. I know the price is $1 dollar more than next guy willing to bid, but don't know whether to hold back for a later guy or get the guy-of-the-hour...

Interested in your approach, and an eval of this guy:

			Age															$

SS

18

91

88

81

100

72

64

54

86

69

98

96

93

72

7

$70K

What is your budget? This evaluation always begins with what your budget is. Right away I'll guess it's not 20 million but not less than 12.

$12 mil

As for when to strike, it's a combination of three things:

1/ Do you really like the player and do you feel like you have a read on what your scouting tells you?

2/ What can you afford? Can you realistically bid for the top player or should you strike for a mid tier player?

3/ Know the other owners. Do you feel like getting in a bidding war with the owners holding out for the elite stud, or do you want to maybe sneak away with an early pick for a cheaper price while the others hold out?

OK at 12 mil I don't know if those projections are accurate at all. Reason I knew it's not 20 million is because three of his fielding ratings are super elite and the fourth one is below average. Experience tells me the system wouldn't generate a player like that with poor arm accuracy, of all things.

Taking that into account, he's probably not 100 Power. And the 91 Durability could be way off, since Durability drives a lot of Overall rating.

Now the good part IMO is that his Hitting ratings look consistent and plausible. He may not exactly be these projections, but - this is my opinion now - usually at lower scouting I see ratings that are weird outliers. There's enough to make me think no matter if I can't see accurate projections this could still be a useful player of some sort.

Not the fielding ratings, though. If you're hoping he's a real SS you might be disappointed.

I'd throw a few escalating bids out to see if anyone else bids on him. Could be you throw out 2 million and no one else does, and you can walk it back down. Set yourself a cutoff point, maybe someone else bids him up to 5 million, then it's just a question of whether you feel you should go for it or not.

Usually if I'm involved in IFA, I'm doing one of three things.

1/ I have a lot of cash in reserve and I'm hoping to land a big fish. So I'm also guessing who among the other owners might be doing the same thing. I'm looking at their budgets and making educated guesses based on their past histories.

2/ I have a little cash and reduced scouting so I'm hoping for a mid-tier player. Not a star, but maybe a useful starting pitcher, reliever, or a positional need.

3/ I just pick and choose whatever player shows up that looks interesting to me. Lottery tickets.

thanks for your continued help!

Also interested in how others approach IFA evals

As someone who rarely has more then 4 million in IFA scouting I bid on the market not on the player. If someone looks really really good (like the guy you have there) I’ll throw a minimum bid (what they are asking for) if they say the bid isn’t good enough I’ll usually bump up to 500k then 5 million. At 5 million if I am the top offer I’ll often take the offer away (after 40+ years in my league I have learned it takes about $10 million + to get a IFA that will play in the majors) sadly this is just experience with the same league and there is no formula.

that being said, I prefer the draft and rarely have success with the IFA. I typically only spend big money on it if I have cash to burn.