I've never seen this before. This is with an abandoned team that I am babysitting for the remainder of the current season. I just got five DITR emails this morning, but two of them were for the same guy:

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A Diamond in the Rough RE:D.Smith Douglas Douglass on 10/16/2008 7:20:00 AM

Dave Smith (LF) has really shown some substantial improvement half-way through the season. Be sure not to overlook him.

-- Douglas Douglass, Bench Coach

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A Diamond in the Rough RE:D.Smith Douglas Douglass on 10/16/2008 7:20:00 AM

I can't believe it! Dave Smith (LF) has just had a major breakthrough. This guy has become substantially more valuable to our franchise.

-- Douglas Douglass, Bench Coach

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Here's the player in question, Dave Smith, a 17th round draft pick this season. He's 18 years old.

I don't have what his old projections are, but here are his current and new projections for a number of ratings. The projections are seen with a $12m advanced scouting budget:

Overall: currently 30 --> projected 84

Defense (range/glove/arm strength/arm accuracy):

48/33/37/33 --> 90/78/52/87

Hitting (contact/power/vs LHP/vs RHP/eye/base running):

26/34/17/13/30/30 --> 96/84/65/38/71/92

I wonder if this "Double DITR" is was admin referred to a couple of weeks ago when they hinted that they had some ideas about how to make some of those lower round draft picks true diamonds.

I've never seen such a disparity between current ratings and projections.

54 overall points to reach projected??? Wow, he should have ratings increases of like 4 overall points at a time.

With a bench coach named "Douglas Douglass", you're surprised by repeats?

It's happened to me once. Guy went from a Low A at best to AA (maybe); then next season jumped again to career AAA (maybe) guy. Nothing to get excited about for sure, most DiTRs aren't.

Quote: Originally Posted By aginor on 10/16/2008
It's happened to me once. Guy went from a Low A at best to AA (maybe); then next season jumped again to career AAA (maybe) guy. Nothing to get excited about for sure, most DiTRs aren't.

This isn't the same player receiving a DITR in back-to-back seasons. This is him receiving two DITR's at the same time.

I dig it. It'll be very interesting to see how he develops moving forward.

Wow I've never seen a guy take that kind of jump. Jury's still out on whether he'll come close but if he's only 18 he's at least got a shot. I'd be very interested in seeing what he jumps up next ratings cycle. Gotta be 4-5 points in each category (at least early on) right?

He's 70 (!!!) points away on contact, and 62 on baserunning.

His hitting coach at Rookie League has a hitting IQ of 71, so he should see some very nice development this season.

TWO in the same season??? Wow, never even thought that was possible???

How close he is to the projected numbers considering 12m advance scouting budget is not really high is the key.

True, a higher AS budget would be preferable.

But a $12m AS budget should not be grossly inaccurate, as might a $6m (for instance) AS budget would be.

I'd love to see a running update once a season or so on this guy... I'm very curious to see if he can reach anything close to those projections. 70 points to make up in contact means he needs to see advancements of 15+ those first few seasons to have a shot, as players generally slow their advancement to a crawl by about age 22*.

*In respect to 18-19 year olds, I should say. Players drafted at age 21-22 obviously can see big spikes at 24 still.

I can do that for this season, but like I said I'm only babysitting this franchise for the reset of the current season. Then he'll be somebody else's project.

With those projections as compared to where he's at now, you must be sending him to the BBSMC (Barry Bonds Sports Medicine Clinic). I'll be curious to see how that 48/33 plays out in CF.

First development cycle since the DITR . . . minimal one point improvement in a handful of categories.