Posted by alleyviper on 5/8/2015 6:50:00 PM (view original):
I find it hard to believe that you've only seen one IFA go straight to the majors, Mike, I can think of a handful just off the top of my head. Draftees are definitely far more rare, and the cases I can think of have typically been due to misconceptions or misguided ideas, but there certainly are draftees who are major league ready - some even better than end-of-FA fodder - few and far between as they may be. Using the draft as a near-to-ML engine may not work, heck I readily admit that the evidence is soundly against the possibility that it can work with the game as currently built, but it's something I would at least like to try and toy around with. Except it's not going to be a possibility any more.
It would be really nice, though, if the HBD drafts had enough variety that we would see more draftees go straight to the majors. Seeing some Ryan Zimmermans, Carlos Rodons and Chris Sales pop up would make things a lot more interesting and if this discussion helps lead to that kind of change then it's a win to me. Of course, that's not something that can happen if we don't have current ratings for prospects, or at least some indication of how close or far a player is from ML-ready.
In any case, what exactly would the harm have been of engaging rhyno on his point from the start? He had an interesting point that was worth exploring, regardless of his intentions of making that point. You stand behind the veil of "honest discussion" and sure, maybe you're right that you wouldn't get honest discussion out of him, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't be good discussion about his idea with other people in the thread. We've just had several pages of it as a matter of fact. So what's the benefit of shooting him down instead of engaging? This forum is not nearly as healthy as it could be because the insular, reductive kinds of thinking that started this whole tangent is astonishingly pervasive.
But let's set aside the idea of supplementing a big league team through the draft and just discuss the importance of current ratings in setting up a draft board and evaluating draft prospects. Two seasons ago in Clemens* I had three hitters near the top of my board who were basically equal quality hitters - two even had essentially identical power and splits with just a rough disparity between contact and eye. Ultimately it was their current ratings that swayed how my board shook out. Of those two nearly identical guys, one had a current VsR of 38, which obviously was not going to reach the mid-70s VsR my projections were showing him for. Current ratings do allow people who skimp on their budget to still find value in the draft but they're also very important for actually evaluating guys for people who did budget. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.
If I'm losing current ratings for prospects, I need to have the assurance that my projections are going to be more accurate to make up for that key element of my evaluations that I'm losing. Especially if a prime reason for removing current ratings is in an effort to curb the 0 budgeters. Except we're also being told that projections are now going to be fuzzier. That's not a combination of factors that sits well with me at all. And if there are aspirations of just increasing the probability that owners will whiff on players in the draft, well...I think that's just flat out bad for the game. People need to know that the decisions they're making actually matter, otherwise we're all just playing the RNG lottery, and that's not something I want any part of. If there is a desire to shake up the draft a little and where players may fall, there are any number of ways that you can do that other than presenting me with projections that tell me two players are virtually identical, when they're actually not, and telling me to flip a coin.
All this is turning into a really long-winded way of saying that it would be nice if tzent and co. were more forthcoming about what the ends are to their means, instead of just saying "oh by the way these are the changes we're making." With changes that, as presented, could be very broad or very minor it would be very nice to know what some of the intended consequences are. Maybe we wouldn't even need a discussion on the importance of something like current ratings if we knew better what the actual goal was in eliminating them beyond the fuzzy answer of introducing fuzzy projections. Transparency here is for the better.
Most owners want control of players for 11 seasons at full development. That's why IFA to BL is so rare. They want to see if they develop before moving to the bigs. Even moreso with draftees because we know some IFA have little/no development but EVERY draftee develops.
Nonetheless, you can still do "draft to bigs". You draft a guy, you sign a guy, you see his currents, he's "BL-ready" in your mind, you promote him. Easy-peasy.
As for what you're "losing", I'm sure you understand that you'll be sitting in the same boat as everyone else. No one "loses" anything. And I don't think "fuzzy" ratins with proper budgeting will cause anyone to "whiff". You might whiff if you bet on 0 and spin the wheel.
Some things are better left to learn. Transparency isn't always the best thing.