I don't do a lot of college. I know IFAs have some baked in development so it's lower than 25 to 30, but I don't know the specifics to even provide a generalized response. I assume the same for college (more baked in development), but, I'd prefer to have others comment.

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Posted by bruinsfan911 on 4/22/2022 6:58:00 AM (view original):

Posted by tlowster on 4/21/2022 2:26:00 PM (view original):
If they're HS, you can add 25 to 30 ratings points to their coacable ratings points and about 15 to 20 points in their physical ratings points. The exception is batting eye, gb/fb and pitches. These usually develop closer to physical ratings.

Coachable=glove, arm accuracy, contact, split, eye, control, pitches, gb/fb

Physical= durability, health, arm strength, range, power, velocity, stamina

All of the above assumes decent minor league coaches and regular playing time.

I know college players develop less, but do you have estimates for how much less that you would be willing to share?

Looking at some old player ratings I used to track - the most I saw a 22 y/o draftee/IFA progress was 14 points, but usually it was closer to the 5-8 point range for most ratings.

For 19 y/o's the most I saw was 24 points while 15 points seemed to be about the average.

Small sample sizes so take with a grain of salt. Wouldn't be surprised if the max point gains were 15/20/25/30 for 22/21/20/19 y/o's respectively but that's pure speculation.

Thats on the high end. If you take values for each individual category I'd say

22 years old: 5-10
21: 8-12
20: 12-20
19: 15-20.

Thats the one thing I miss about scouting HS kids. There was a lot of room for growth. For collage what you get is pretty much what you get.

Posted by hockey1984 on 4/22/2022 4:07:00 PM (view original):
Thats on the high end. If you take values for each individual category I'd say

22 years old: 5-10
21: 8-12
20: 12-20
19: 15-20.

Thats the one thing I miss about scouting HS kids. There was a lot of room for growth. For collage what you get is pretty much what you get.

Thanks to both you and Brian for the response!

Posted by hockey1984 on 4/22/2022 4:07:00 PM (view original):
Thats on the high end. If you take values for each individual category I'd say

22 years old: 5-10
21: 8-12
20: 12-20
19: 15-20.

Thats the one thing I miss about scouting HS kids. There was a lot of room for growth. For collage what you get is pretty much what you get.

Yep but the HS kids start lower, on the whole. IMO scouting HS is pretty much just hoping to find one or maybe two great players, and drafting 20 absolute turds. I got tired of my draft class making me barf.

I would legit spend an extra step on the draft, go the bottom of all my prospects and move all the no-hopers to the bottom, so that from about the tenth round onward I'd start drafting as many unscouted players as I could. Better than complete no-hopers, was the logic.

Thats a good point. If I was able to I would scout HS picks 20 and above and scout College picks 1-19. Better chance of hitting on a high pick but then I'd rather take a lotto ticket then get SuB players and defensive SS's for the later first round picks.

Posted by hockey1984 on 4/25/2022 10:36:00 AM (view original):
Thats a good point. If I was able to I would scout HS picks 20 and above and scout College picks 1-19. Better chance of hitting on a high pick but then I'd rather take a lotto ticket then get SuB players and defensive SS's for the later first round picks.

And imagine, back in the day you could have done just that. "Wish I knew then what I know now."

Posted by damag on 4/25/2022 11:44:00 AM (view original):

Posted by hockey1984 on 4/25/2022 10:36:00 AM (view original):
Thats a good point. If I was able to I would scout HS picks 20 and above and scout College picks 1-19. Better chance of hitting on a high pick but then I'd rather take a lotto ticket then get SuB players and defensive SS's for the later first round picks.

And imagine, back in the day you could have done just that. "Wish I knew then what I know now."

Back in the day I just did HS Because fuzzy wasn't fuzzy and it was easy to predict how good a guy would be based off of his current ratings. So as long as you were willing to wait 4 seasons the HS kids were the better bet.

Hey guys. New player here. Reading through this thread and it has a ton of useful info. On the topic at hand, is the following accurate

Future development is based on age, rather than HS/College
High School players generally start with lower ratings, and have more room for growth but they aren’t necessarily “higher upside”, they’re just earlier in development
A well scouted early first round pick has a chance to be a stud, whether they’re college or HS at the time of draft

If that’s all true, it seems like College theoretically gives the same upside with less variability.

Posted by BardoHBD on 4/25/2022 6:46:00 PM (view original):
Hey guys. New player here. Reading through this thread and it has a ton of useful info. On the topic at hand, is the following accurate

Future development is based on age, rather than HS/College
High School players generally start with lower ratings, and have more room for growth but they aren’t necessarily “higher upside”, they’re just earlier in development
A well scouted early first round pick has a chance to be a stud, whether they’re college or HS at the time of draft

If that’s all true, it seems like College theoretically gives the same upside with less variability.

The answer is a little trickier then that. Its a 'yes and' with a 'no but'.

What I mean by this is I have found there is far less risk by taking College players. They tend to be closer to to their scouted and projected ratings, they are closer to their max ratings and tend to have less overall risk. All signs would point to drafting College kids, and for someone starting off I would 100% agree with this.

The problem is if everyone is scouting college kids then even if you are picking 10th you get the 10th best college kid in the draft. This may be a great player or it may be a decent defensive replacement who comes off the bench. Meanwhile the guy who picks 11th is picking High school kids and gets the best high school kid in the draft because no one else is drafting high school kids.

Back in the day when it was easy to draft good High school kids I always had the mentality of 'fish where others don't'. Meaning that if the majority of owners are on college kids, pick high school kids and vice versa. The problem is the ratings are so fuzzy now for 18 year olds that you could be picking high school kids with 5 other owners and the first kid you pick could be the 30th best 18 year old in the draft. It is so much of a lotto pick its not even funny.

Where was I? Oh right! Starting off and getting to know and learn the game I would honestly say get 20 million into college scouting as soon as possible. Once you have a dozen or so seasons under your belt and you feel comfortable determining what a good player looks like at all positions, then if you feel like you want to switch, then you can look at high school kids, but for now I feel like 80% of the time it will only lead to heartbreak.

Agreed on all counts. First of all, "fish where the others aren't" is always good advice. But you need to know the world to do that.

HS players, you're taking a shot on highest upside. College players, a bit more security. So it depends on your draft and team building philosophy.

Best player I ever drafted was a HS player, picked 6th overall. First five picks were College players.

I'm going to completely ruin everything Damag and I just said in 2 short paragraphs:

Best 2 players I ever drafted were HS kids.

Johan Butcher
and Jair Sanchez
and both were taken in the 20's of the first round.

Now, to reel it back in, for every Butcher and Sanchez, there are a dozen

Bob Greenwood's
and
Andrew Jeffries

I'm curious, for the vets and for the guys that lay heavily on the stats, do you try to have at least 1 left handed starter in your rotation or do you just take the guys with the best ratings and accept that it is what it is?

Usually I try to have 1-2 lefties in my bullpen for specific matchups but I always feel like a left handed starter will be at a disadvantage more often then a rightie would.

I take the best pitchers available. If lefties are in there, it's a bonus. The game creates too many Leftie starting pitchers that are dominat vs. LHBs, but are subpar vs. RHBs. I prefer the LHP that are 75/75 split vs. the LHP that are 85/65. While the 85/65 guys are serviceable, I target them less so they have a tendency to be lower on my boards and not on my teams, but every now and then I get em on my team.

I have a few teams where it's all RHP or maybe one LHP relief pitcher and the rest of the staff is RHP. But, that's not by design. I am just trying to get the best pitchers.

Thanks for the very informative responses to my scouting question.

Since you guys insist on being helpful, I have a few more.

I’m sure this has been asked and answered a hundred times, but these forums aren’t the easiest to navigate.

Is there an “optimal” pattern for promoting players to maximize their potential?

Is there an ideal way to play minor league guys at certain positions to maximize their fielding potential? I have 2 20 year olds (going into their second and third seasons) who project to be maybe slightly below recommended second basemen. They’re in LoA and AA right now. Should I be playing them at 2b in the minors?

Last one (for now). If you had a 23 year old in AAA who is ready for the majors, but the majors aren’t ready for him, is there a downside to holding him in AAA one more season?