IFA bonuses are really getting out of hand. And one of the main reasons for this is that the draft engine is seriously flawed. Too many times the draft prospects are dissapointing, and it seems that owners who put a serious amount of their budgets toward the draft are not being rewarded by seeing more top picks. People are moving away from the draft, and devoting obscene amounts of money toward IFA's. Fix it, please.

If people are moving away from the draft doesn't it stand to reason that there will be more value in staying with it?

You get much more value for your money from the draft than from IFA.

He's reacting to a recent signing in No Trade Clause.  Similar draft spending to every other world I'm in, but half as much being spent on ADV (honestly don't know why anyone is above 0 in that world).  Plus, the FA market is typically thin because guys are less likely to let decent players that they could re-sign go on the market.  That money has to go somewhere.  I don't think people are suddenly moving away from the draft.

Yeah, I was sure he was reacting to something.   The difference between average College/HS/IFA scouting in all 5 of my worlds is only 1-2m.   And, of course, there is almost always one "WTF?" IFA signing every season.   It's usually the result of "Gotta spend it somewhere".

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/9/2012 8:10:00 AM (view original):
If people are moving away from the draft doesn't it stand to reason that there will be more value in staying with it?

Yes - do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.  Find the best value for your money.

You could easily take these circumstances and say, IFA needs to be fixed, not the draft.

The thing I've learned from observing other teams is that you can only do so much with your budgets, so depending on what the state of the ML roster is, owners build off of it and choose their poison accordingly.  Lots of zeroing out of budget categories in my world, to spend the extra money elsewhere.  If this is standard practice in a world, then if you try to do a little of everything you run the risk of getting shut out in IFA.

What about updating the rules to reflect the new, very tight international caps in real life? It would make scouting a much bigger deal four internationals

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2012/613345.html
For the details, but there's am annual hard cap if $3M

Im not in the world, but from what I know of it. The reason why No Trade clause has very high IFA bidding for even less than stud players is because you cant trade and you have to get talent in other places than the draft. Maybe thats me being Captain Obvious though.

Posted by jwendt on 11/9/2012 4:53:00 PM (view original):
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2012/613345.html
For the details, but there's am annual hard cap if $3M

Simply putting a cap in place, especially one that low, would basically mean the tiebreakers decide who gets every quality IFA amongst those who saw him.  IFA bonuses are much lower, with the exception of well-known Japanese pros and Cuban defectors, in real-life because for the most part it's a much less competitive environment - teams find players at their camps and sign them before other teams know about them, and they aren't anywhere near sure things.  You'd have to completely overhaul the IFA system to implement a low cap.  I wouldn't have a problem with implementing a cap on total prospect spending within the current system, but it would have to be at or north of the 20 million initial max we have now.

Rather than capping prospect payroll, a smarter fix might be increasing the benefit of spending more than $16 million on international scouting.

Of course, that would also increase the reward for pumping all your money into scouting and signing bonuses at the expense of player payroll (i.e., tanking).

I think it might be a idea to explore and use a form of the scouting engine in ootp baseball.  You have to allocate money to regions (countries) rather than just 'scouting'.  I think that would allow a little more strategy, and have it affect the likelyhood of someone signing with you if you compete with another team.  For example:

I put 5 million into Japan while team B puts in 2 million.  Now if we are trying to simulate real life as much as possible then we both might see the same players but my results would be about 60% more accurate to the current and projected ratings.  Not that I would see 60% more players.  That said I certainly would expect to see more players than team B but not at that extream a level.  Maybe I see 13 and he sees 10, something like that.

Now because I spend more money in Japan my team is also better known than team B, so I think that should give me a slight edge in negotiations / signings if we assume all other things being equal.  (Both my team an his are .500 teams last season and so far this season for the example), also I think players should gravitate towards teams built to their strengths.  Such as a 80's and 90's era Braves team being an attactive place for pitchers due to the way they handled and developed them. (Rays now days).

It's a pretty involved sim know with preseason so easy to screw up if you miss checking in each period, but for stat junkies, the more customization of a franchise the happier they would be.

So add the top 15 or so baseball countries as represented in MLB, and require at least 500k if you want to scout an area up to anything.  Break the US down into time zones and your highschool and college money gets split there. etc.

Note the date:

7/25/2007 4:19 PM	MikeT23
This is just a "wish" item. I stumbled upon the idea in a thread griping about coach hiring when someone sarcastically mentioned "scout hiring". Anyway, I'm not sure if it's practical to program but I think it would be pretty nice and add a handful of options/strategy to scouting(which is pretty much hands off except for budgeting). Thanks in advance for taking the time to read the following. The concept: Each 1m you allot "buys" you one scout. This applies to Int'l, HS and college. Scouts are of equal ability(for the most part). Each country will be a seperate entity for international scouts. The US will be split up into regions(15 is what I'm thinking. Probably by state). The regions will not be equal nor will they produce the same quality/quantity of players. The same applies to countries. The owner assigns a scout to a region(for HS or college) or a country(for internationals). Domestically, a scout in a region will find the top 5 players and 25(or whatever) other players of varying ability. If two scouts are placed in the same region, the numbers will double. Obviously college scouts will only report on college players. Internationally, each scout will find up to 8 players(or whatever # is chosen). These will be random and there will be no guarantee that you see the best 8. You will simply see the first 8 he finds. Doubling up scouting will double the number of prospect found. Regions/Countries: At the beginning of the season, before scouts are assigned, the owners will be sent a report giving the number of colleges in each region, the number of high school seniors playing ball in each region and the number of international prospects in each country. Again, the only constant from season to season would be the number of colleges playing baseball from each region. I'd recommend varying the number of colleges per region during set-up as opposed to making each region the same "size" to add to strategy. During the arbitration process, the owner will assign scouts based upon these reports/personal strategy. If an owner fails to assign scouts, they will default to previous season settings and/or one scout to the most populated region on down until scouting budget runs out. Overall scouting For each 2m spent domestically, the owner will see the top overall player regardless of region. This will not "add" a player to scouted regions but simply ensures he sees the top player(s).
7/25/2007 4:58 PM	Customer Support
Mike, We have some ideas and we are currently discussing how to expand the role of Scouts in HBD. We will take these thoughts into consideration when we cross that bridge. Thanks!.