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and the same goes for internationals - real life is much more a crap shoot than HBD. The best way to mimic that is to not let everyone see all the players.

Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 2/16/2010why are there only 3 options

Because that is all there is.

#1 is current

#2 is seeing all players with vast differences in projections (Real MLB)

#3 is seeing all players with minor differences in projections.

Options 2 and 3 nullify scouting budgets. Unless ofcourse you are a new owner and in which case #3 may be beneficial

I suppose you could include a 4th option which would be a variation of the current in which you only see a certain amount of the total number of players and vast differences in projections exist, but that wouldn't really be too much different than #2. I mean if its just a pure crap shoot, does it really matter if you can see all the players or not?

Quote: Originally Posted By bigal888 on 2/16/2010and the same goes for internationals - real life is much more a crap shoot than HBD. The best way to mimic that is to not let everyone see all the players

Yes, Albert "The Machine" Pujols was a 13th Round pick, 402nd overall after playing 1 season of community college ball. His draft signing bonus was 60K. Very few teams were interested in him.

Barry Bonds was the 6th overall in the 1985 draft. Kurt Brown was taken the pick before him. Kurt Brown's only notable acheivements are having 5 children and being a bust after being the sandwich pick between Barry Larkin and Barry Bonds. The MLB draft and IFA is absolutely a crap shoot based on high draft picks that bust and late round picks that outproduce Top 5 picks. The system in place now is much more fair than what is seen in real MLB. You'd think people would be happy having a "fairer" system in place, but no matter what someone will complain.

Quote: Originally posted by rdunn22 on 2/15/2010I agree w/ torrone about the top 10 of the draft...a top 10 prospect should be on everyone's list.

I am sure not all scouts, scout the same. My opinion of a guy, might be different than yours. I think the draft is great the way it is, as well as the IFA's . Like a previous owner mentioned, it is a way for a owner budgeting less money to see a stud. It is not intended for all the owners who have 30 mil in prospect budgets.

IRL, scouts have to determine upside and potential based on a players raw physical talents, his age and his performance. In HBD, we already know what that upside is via scouting. It's just a matter of whether he reaches that "ceiling" determined by various factors, training, promotions/demotions, coaching, etc. The process has already been dumbed down to make drafting/IFA signings a much easier thing to deal with. Not every scout sees the same thing is my guess and I think a lot has to do with the personal evaluation process of each individual scout, talk amongst professionals in the business and knowing your coaches. If I know I have the best hitting coach money can buy, then I know I might be able to get more out of him than a guy coaching t-ball for a bunch of 6 y/o's.

Disclaimer: I am not involved in anyway in baseball so its all speculation, but based on the draft results from say the last 10 years, you can see that teams value players much differently and assign much different scouting projections. A top 10 is not a top 10 for all.

Quote: Originally Posted By firemanrob on 2/16/2010Ok thats exactly where I thought you were going. You want scouting to be devalued.

There are 3 options:

#1 - Keep the current system

#2 - You see everyone, but with vastly different scouting results meaning the amateur draft becomes an absolute crap shoot and your Rnd 15 pick might turn out to be better than most people's Rnd 1. (Now this might happen with DitRs, but that is so random and rare)

#3 - Everyone sees all available prospects. Minor variation in projections based on scouting budget. This would effectively render scouting obsolete. A budget of 0 gives you the floor and 20 gives you ceiling. An experienced owner that pays attention to player improvement will be able to read a players ceiling (or somewhat close) based on current ratings, age, proposed "floor" rating, makeup, etc... This is the same option that produced overstocking of fielding coaches effectively meaning you can sign a 60 FI for the minimum market value may have dictated 2.5M before the fix

I'm fine with the current system, but there is a 4th option. If option #2 is vast differences in scouting with all players seen (such that your 15th rounder might be a star), and option #3 is that we see everyone with small differences in projections (such that we all go to 0/0 scouting), then option #4 would be medium sized differences in projections. Such that the "best" player in the draft wouldn't fall into the late rounds, but might fall past the top 5 into the deeper 1st round. Throw in a few "busts" (each team sees a couple of guys as high projection players when really they're not- and the lower your scouting the more of these you'll see) and the motivation is still there to scout hard. It's an option.

At the end of the day, the success of the draft program, to me, is not in a realistic system, however. It's in a realistic distributive outcome with regards to the talent pool, and I think that is more or less what we see. So I like the draft system as is.

I thought this thread was about internationals?

Quote: Originally Posted By shobob on 2/16/2010I thought this thread was about internationals

It stopped being about that when someone complained about not seeing top-10 picks.

yep. And then it went to well we should see everyone and scouting shouldn't matter.

If big differences and small differences nullify scouting, medium doesn't make it into a gold standard. The current system gives a pretty good chance that the best player in the draft isn't slipping out of the Top 5. In something other than a tard world, I find it hard to believe the #1 player isn't seen by the top 5 teams. Currently, scouting matters because it should give you a larger pool of players to choose from with more accurate projections

Quote: Originally Posted By bigal888 on 2/16/2010
Albert Pujols? 13th pick in 1999 402nd overall. Three teams had even a slight interest in him and he is arguably the best player in baseball right now. It happens in real life and it happens less here in HBD. We will never see a 90+ rated guy go in the 13th round

He was obviously never projected as a 90+ guy by anyone then. The closest thing to an Albert Pujols type of situation is the double DITR (same cycle) as has been posted in the forums previously. Don't have time to look at the thread. Bottom line there is that just like the Cards, an HBD can strike gold without skill. The Cards were obviously the lucky beneficiaries in that sitation. That it happens at all in HBD is fine, since it does happen in MLB, but it should be extremely rare, especially since this game is patterned after modern times...in theory anyway.

Generally speaking, MLB produces more talent from rounds 2+ than does HBD. On the Yankees starting lineup, here is the breakdown:

LF - Gardner (3rd Rnd)
CF - Granderson (3rd)
RF - Swisher (1st)
3B - Rodriguez (1st)
SS - Jeter - (1st)
2B - Cano - (IFA)
1B - Teixeira - (1st)
C - Posada (24th)
DH - Johnson (3rd)
Sabathia (1st)
Burnett (8th)
Vazquez (5th)
Pettite (22nd)
Chamberlain (Supplemental)
Rivera (IFA)

Now that is the Yankees that can actually afford to accumulate #1 picks. I would imagine other teams might have fewer #1 picks, but thats just a guess without me bothering to look. Either way, Posada, Pettite, Burnett, Vazquez and a bunch of 3rd rounders playing for a World Series team. Also a guess, I think that most WS teams in most HBD worlds do not have players on their ML roster drafted in round 5 or later.

Again, the MLB draft is the biggest crap shoot in professional sports with the NHL draft probably 2nd. In order to mirror RL in HBD, pre-draft predictions would vastly differ and the advanced scouting would be the only real value. You would see every player, but your projections would mean jack until the players were drafted and signed. so HS/Coll would be like 0 for everyone and AS would become 20 for all.

here is the Royals 25 Man roster

Kendall 23rd
Pena IFA
Butler 1st
Getz 4th
Callaspo IFA
Bloomquist 3rd
Betancourt IFA
Gordon 1st
Fields 1st
Podsednik 3rd
Ankiel 2nd
Dejesus 4th
Brian Anderson 1st
Mitch Maier 1st


Greinke 1st
Meche 1st
Hochevar 1st
Davies 4th
Bannister 7th
Farnsworth 47th
Tejeda, Soria, Cruz, Colon, Osuna IFA

Ok now compare both of those teams to my 6th seed playoff team.
LF - Amaral (IFA)
CF - Nunez (IFA)
RF - Forrester (1st)
3B - Medrano (1st)
SS - Truby (1st)
2B - Franco (1st)
1B - Borders (Supplemental)
C - Ortiz (3rd)
SP
Gload (1st)
Aramboles (IFA)
Lucano (IFA)
Valdes (IFA)
Herzner (2nd)

I think the first thing you notice is that in HBD, unless you are a 3rd round pick or better you have really no shot. (Unless you happen to be a DiTR.) IFA's are probably pretty prevalent on most HBD teams. What we currently have is pretty fair because you know what you're getting most of the time. A top 10 pick is a top 10 pick and not going to be a huge bust as happens in MLB with frequency

uh, I hate to be the one who points this out, but the players drafted late are all on the back-9 of their careers. Scouting, in the past 10 years, has improved to the the point that the late round pick - that ISN'T about Scott Boras and signability - superstar is mostly a myth.

To those who complain they "don't even see the top 10 players" - you do. Every player is on your list. What differs is whether you have his ratings. And saying you can "pick up a magazine and know the top 10"....well, you people just don't recall the history of blown top 10 picks. So....it's a choice.

Should everyone see ratings on every player, with the increased risk that there's one or two HORRENDOUS stinklogs in the pool or the current system of hiding some ratings and making fuzzy others, but basically GUARANTEEING a first round pick is gonna be good?