My team currently went through the Amateur Draft. Here are how I had my position targets set up, weights were equal:

0 - DH
1 - 1B, LF, RF
2 - C, 2B, 3B, CF, RP, ANY
3 - SS
7 - SP

I ended up with 3 1B, 3 DH, and 0 SS. How can that happen? My scouting is 12 college/8 HS (yes, I know that's far from optimal). Did I not have enough SS scouted, so it just picked other positions?

Yeah, I don't know the real answer to this, just that it's really difficult to get exactly what you ask for out of the draft settings. You're probably right that your prospect list ran out of SS. There are always a ton of useless DHs hanging around so by the end of the draft it's just picking whoever's there.

If you were to manually rank 500 players, you might get better results. Still wouldn't be perfect. I don't think too many of us rank more than the top 50 or so. Might go to 100 if you're really into it.

One time I drafted 20 pitchers and 5 position players. Spent the day after the draft just filling my rookie team with dregs from everywhere. Been trying to make sure it never happens again, since.

Posted by damag on 7/25/2019 3:09:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, I don't know the real answer to this, just that it's really difficult to get exactly what you ask for out of the draft settings. You're probably right that your prospect list ran out of SS. There are always a ton of useless DHs hanging around so by the end of the draft it's just picking whoever's there.

If you were to manually rank 500 players, you might get better results. Still wouldn't be perfect. I don't think too many of us rank more than the top 50 or so. Might go to 100 if you're really into it.

One time I drafted 20 pitchers and 5 position players. Spent the day after the draft just filling my rookie team with dregs from everywhere. Been trying to make sure it never happens again, since.

UI've notice that there are usually a bunch of DHs that are actually good defensive players. Curious why they are listed as DH?

what was your ratings threshold set at? I think that is the likely answer.

Goldie, yeah, I usually take a once-around through the DHs to see if there are actual fielders in there. Some of them are Catchers with weak arms, or low, low (20-30 fielding ratings) 1Bs. Players with fielding ratings that don't pigeonhole. But if you want to use them to play fielding positions, you can. Your FI will just send you periodic emails about them lol.

lou, I've messed with my Thresholds a bit. I have them set at 5 across the board. Think that's too weak?

Posted by GoldieGamma on 7/25/2019 4:08:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damag on 7/25/2019 3:09:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, I don't know the real answer to this, just that it's really difficult to get exactly what you ask for out of the draft settings. You're probably right that your prospect list ran out of SS. There are always a ton of useless DHs hanging around so by the end of the draft it's just picking whoever's there.

If you were to manually rank 500 players, you might get better results. Still wouldn't be perfect. I don't think too many of us rank more than the top 50 or so. Might go to 100 if you're really into it.

One time I drafted 20 pitchers and 5 position players. Spent the day after the draft just filling my rookie team with dregs from everywhere. Been trying to make sure it never happens again, since.

UI've notice that there are usually a bunch of DHs that are actually good defensive players. Curious why they are listed as DH?

I had a guy in last season's draft that was positioned as a C. But as you can see, he will most likely play SS at AAA.

Player Profile: Will Maurer - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

That's really interesting. I was under the assumption that if you put down those positions (like your 3 SS), and then you don't have enough of those positions scouted, that the AI will go "off the board" and draft an unscouted player. This is just purely from my experience, but the past two seasons I took players at SS or CF (positions I put targets into) that we're unscouted (despite having a full board of 500 guys) from what I thought was this situation. Maybe there's a set amount of unscouted players as well, so the AI will then take those guys, and if they're gone then you're just out of luck. Could be way off on this though too.

Also, I usually bump up a few guys I know will be useful to my lower level teams (SS/CFs, pitchers with high DUR and/or STA) to hopefully avoid this problem as well.

Posted by damag on 7/25/2019 4:55:00 PM (view original):
Goldie, yeah, I usually take a once-around through the DHs to see if there are actual fielders in there. Some of them are Catchers with weak arms, or low, low (20-30 fielding ratings) 1Bs. Players with fielding ratings that don't pigeonhole. But if you want to use them to play fielding positions, you can. Your FI will just send you periodic emails about them lol.

lou, I've messed with my Thresholds a bit. I have them set at 5 across the board. Think that's too weak?

hey damag - im referencing the Rating Threshold setting under the drafting strategy section, not the weight under position settings. Ive always taken the weight to mean, which will I prioritize, but the rating threshold lets you tweak that a bit. If you want to make sure that you are drafting a well rounded class by positions, I would set my ratings threshold between 10-15. That could lead to you missing better players, but you would likely not have the problem of classes that were very heavy at certain positions.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm guessing the ratings threshold was my problem. I had it set (as I have in years past) at 2. Never was a problem before, but this year it was. Guess I'll be bumping back up to 5....

Even with five set as the threshold I've found the system has odd results. One reason is that it is possible that no scouted players in unfilled positions remain by the time you get to the end of the draft. I've also found that there are around three unscouted picks that I often get in the 18-20 round that also are unknown positionally as far as the system is concerned. Perhaps that throws things off.

More annoying is that I still get guys that are questionable to doubtful in rounds where I have selected Very Conservative.

I never mess with any of this stuff. I take to top guy available on the list no matter what. I don't can about guys that will never make it to at least AAA. If I have to fill spots I will fill spots. I am always stacking my teams that have my main prospects. I have no problem signing a few AA level guys to put in High A. To make sure my main prospects go deep in the playoffs.