Greetings,

So, if you keep a Rule 5 pick on your big league roster for the full season, he's yours, free and clear, right. What happens the next season...can I demote him to the minors since he has options left?

I've been carrying a couple Rule 5 guys with promising futures but they're overwhelmed and need more seasoning. Want to be sure I can move them back down to minors next season until they're ripe.

You can move them down at end of season. However it is unlikely they gain much ratings. 5 year pros and 6 year pros simply don't gain much regardless.

even if their ratings projections are much higher? Let's say a guy is 23, drafted at 18, and still projects to 8 points higher at key metrics. Since he's been a pro for 5 years, you're saying he might not reach those projections? Even with 4 more years til the 27 yr-old peak? If so, then I've been looking at things wrong.

Posted by Scotb50 on 12/15/2020 2:16:00 PM (view original):
even if their ratings projections are much higher? Let's say a guy is 23, drafted at 18, and still projects to 8 points higher at key metrics. Since he's been a pro for 5 years, you're saying he might not reach those projections? Even with 4 more years til the 27 yr-old peak? If so, then I've been looking at things wrong.

I have never used projections. If I had 20 in adv scouting id say it may be close but I do not see the advantage as it still is not perfect and use 0.

Posted by Scotb50 on 12/15/2020 2:16:00 PM (view original):
even if their ratings projections are much higher? Let's say a guy is 23, drafted at 18, and still projects to 8 points higher at key metrics. Since he's been a pro for 5 years, you're saying he might not reach those projections? Even with 4 more years til the 27 yr-old peak? If so, then I've been looking at things wrong.

He will not reach those projections. If he's a pitcher and you have an excellent (like 90+) pitching coach, he might (might!) add two or three points over a span of like five seasons. But a guy at that stage pretty much is what he is.

Posted by Scotb50 on 12/15/2020 2:16:00 PM (view original):
even if their ratings projections are much higher? Let's say a guy is 23, drafted at 18, and still projects to 8 points higher at key metrics. Since he's been a pro for 5 years, you're saying he might not reach those projections? Even with 4 more years til the 27 yr-old peak? If so, then I've been looking at things wrong.

The reason most 0 Adv Scout is because of a few understood principles of player development: 1) 5 seasons or 2) 26 y/o, the player is basically what he is/will be. The exceptions: 1) DITR, 2) Inj/Med'l bug, or 3) Awesome coaches. Depending on timing, 1 or 2 might see significant bumps, but generally at best expect only 1-2 pts in select attributes, but probably not anything that will change what the player is.

Overly generalized, what I'm hearing is (other than exceptions like DITR or highest coaching), players develop over first 5 years, regardless of age...so if they signed/drafted at 18, they're gonna be fully developed at 23, not 27.

And sounds like they may hold those ratings from 23 to 27 or whenever their age-related decline begins...but not going to improve during that 4 year period.

Does the same hold true for pitchers? Still fully developed after 5 years, even though they may hold it longer before their decline begins?

And, it seems then that a whole lot of players never reach their projections, maybe not even close. Other than injury, bad coaching, lack of playing time, or being moved to inappropriate level, what would make them not fulfill their potential? Is it something straightforward, like if Makeup is low they won't reach their potential?

(and, this topic is bigger than the "Rule 5" headline it started under...hope the veteran owners comment)

Pitchers will continue to develop a little longer, just not very rapidly after the first 5 years.

You have to take projections with a grain of salt. Even if you spend $20m on advance scouting (which is a terrible idea), there will still be some margin of error in the projections you see. Even when I first take over a team and I have to spend at least a little on advance scouting, I mentally subtract five points or so from every projected rating. Even if the projections are accurate, players rarely hit them, even if you do everything right in the development process.

Over time, you'll notice patterns in the rates at which players develop, and you'll be able to have a good idea of where a guy's ratings will end up by the All-Star break of his first full pro season. Generally, the development happens mostly in the first two full pro years, and to a lesser extent in the third. Regardless if age, if you see the number 4 next to the words Pro Years on a player card, and he isn't a DITR, you can safely assume he's not getting much better.

Posted by Scotb50 on 12/15/2020 10:44:00 PM (view original):
Overly generalized, what I'm hearing is (other than exceptions like DITR or highest coaching), players develop over first 5 years, regardless of age...so if they signed/drafted at 18, they're gonna be fully developed at 23, not 27.

And sounds like they may hold those ratings from 23 to 27 or whenever their age-related decline begins...but not going to improve during that 4 year period.

Does the same hold true for pitchers? Still fully developed after 5 years, even though they may hold it longer before their decline begins?

And, it seems then that a whole lot of players never reach their projections, maybe not even close. Other than injury, bad coaching, lack of playing time, or being moved to inappropriate level, what would make them not fulfill their potential? Is it something straightforward, like if Makeup is low they won't reach their potential?

(and, this topic is bigger than the "Rule 5" headline it started under...hope the veteran owners comment)

I think the biggest thing with Projected Ratings is that it represents that Player's absolute cap...with a bunch of "if" qualifiers. Realistically you learn to look at player's development in the first 1.5 yrs pro as a "guide" to what that player will most likely become.

Player development is a very nuanced part of the game, that even when done right the franchise will still fall short in developing the player. This is an area of the game that you can get real detailed, closely manage, and allocate substantial resources, or you can opt for gross development and allocate resources elsewhere (like veteran acquisition and maintenance).

Posted by bripat42 on 12/16/2020 10:41:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Scotb50 on 12/15/2020 10:44:00 PM (view original):
Overly generalized, what I'm hearing is (other than exceptions like DITR or highest coaching), players develop over first 5 years, regardless of age...so if they signed/drafted at 18, they're gonna be fully developed at 23, not 27.

And sounds like they may hold those ratings from 23 to 27 or whenever their age-related decline begins...but not going to improve during that 4 year period.

Does the same hold true for pitchers? Still fully developed after 5 years, even though they may hold it longer before their decline begins?

And, it seems then that a whole lot of players never reach their projections, maybe not even close. Other than injury, bad coaching, lack of playing time, or being moved to inappropriate level, what would make them not fulfill their potential? Is it something straightforward, like if Makeup is low they won't reach their potential?

(and, this topic is bigger than the "Rule 5" headline it started under...hope the veteran owners comment)

Scouting projections are not always high. Those who keep perpetuating that argument are allowing themselves to be biased by players with the highest projected ratings. For a true, representative sample size, you also have to track the developments of the players you might otherwise have dismissed or ignored because their projections were too low for your liking. I see examples of this in the amateur draft every year. When doing a postmortem on the draft, I'll always find a number of really good guys I could have drafted but didn't, and sure enough, when I go back and look at my scouting projections for those guys, they were low, and I had moved them down on my draft board.

Scotb50-- all of the below does not apply to DitRs.
1) Drafted players achieve almost all of their development by the end of the third full season after they are drafted. The 5th year is most often a zero for development and when there is improvement it's just a trickle.
2) International players achieve almost all of their development by the end of the season in which they are 21, regardless of age at signing. Guys who sign at 20 or 21 may have 2-3 points left in their age 22 season, but they mostly just don't develop very much at all. Basically, international players develop relative to age as if they were high school draftees, which means that a 20 year old INTL has as much development left as a 20 yo HS guy drafted two seasons ago has left at that age (ie, not very much).

3) Most players don't reach their projections; I would estimate that about 85% of players are over-projected, and that 30-40% are substantially over-projected. bripat's statement is correct-- there's a buyer's remorse element inherent to the draft because you up-rank your highest projected players, which increases the probability that you, personally, will draft guys you over-projected-- but still, under-projection is relatively rare.
4) For non-DitRs, makeup appears to have a greater impact on timing and rate of decline than on development; I don't see a meaningful relationship between makeup and development. Playing time and coaching are the keys.

This thread has troubled me for 2 days now...If such a high percentage of players don't reach their projections, what good are the projections at all? you can just look at current ratings and age/time, then extrapolate. While this is probably why experienced owners zero-out their adv. scouting budgets, it seems more of a game flaw than anything else...yet it doesn't seem to bother people, which makes me think I'm missing something.

I think of it as an issue of what kind of return am I willing to accept for the resource committed. Am I ok with a hypothetical 75 attribute, when the projection says I could get an 80? But in order to get that 80 I'd have to commit $3M more for the right coach for that prospect's level and I'd have to diligently monitor playing time in order to squeeze out those final 5 pts.

And if the prospect came into your organization as a draft/raw player, then you're talking 3-5 seasons of that effort and resource commitment. Where could that additional $9M-$15M in coaches have gone over those seasons? All for those 5 attribute pts

Posted by Scotb50 on 12/18/2020 9:39:00 PM (view original):
This thread has troubled me for 2 days now...If such a high percentage of players don't reach their projections, what good are the projections at all? you can just look at current ratings and age/time, then extrapolate. While this is probably why experienced owners zero-out their adv. scouting budgets, it seems more of a game flaw than anything else...yet it doesn't seem to bother people, which makes me think I'm missing something.

Scouting projections are called Projections because they're a snapshot of what your budget shows you at an exact time.
My feeling is that once that time is over they're no longer Projections, they're Hypotheticals.

When using Projections compare apples to apples. Say you're talking about two players from the same draft class, or two players from the same year of IFA. The Projections allow you to choose which player you prefer.

Once you're comparing one of those players to, say, a player from another draft class - or just looking at a player you drafted on his own - that Projection is just a nice idea but you're not doing apples to apples anymore.

I like to say it's like you're with a woman and you say "ah I thought she was an eight but she turned out to only be a seven."

It's for comparing players, not for looking at them on their own and saying "ah I wish this one was better."

And the reason for zeroing out Advanced scouting is, those of us who do it, you're right, rely on our own extrapolations. Because there are just too few times we feel the need to use them, and there are better ways to allocate that 20 million toward actually acquiring players.

I guess my point is they're neither projections nor hypotheticals if 90+% of the time they are unattainable...they're just numbers.

It seems it should work like...if the dude gets perfect conditions (defined as: regular playing time, at the right levels, with above-average coaching...) he'll get to these projections. What I'm hearing is that this "might" have been true if everything had been done perfectly all along, but this dude is already behind the curve cuz of his first 2-3 years, so those numbers are already impossible...yet we're gonna leave the numbers where they were so you can see what might have been, rather than adjust them down to see what the dude can attain from here forward under perfect conditions.

Put another way...the numbers reflect the dude's once-upon-a-time ceiling rather than his current ceiling....I'd prefer they reflect his current ceiling...but, as mentioned, nobody seems bothered by this. To me, this should be one of the very first things a new owner learns.