Posted by MikeT23 on 8/26/2015 9:33:00 PM (view original):

I bet the Royals said "**** yeah!!!  Mike Stodolka will anchor our rotation for the next 10 years!!!!"    And the Cubs said "HAHAHA!!  He sucks.  We got Luis Montanez!!!  He's gonna make Jeter look like a scrub!!!!"

I bet at the time, neither of those franchises were well run and history shows me that I'm right. The team piling money into scouting do better drafting. Period.

Would you like to pick another year?    They all look alike.


Anyway, you can pick any year and you'll find more busts than success stories in the 1st round.    Besides, are you claiming that HBD owners putting 20m into scouting aren't doing better than those putting in 5m?   I don't think you have that data.

History will show that I'm right about 1st round picks.

Period.

No, I'fd rather change the subject and ask if you think I hopelessly screwed with the first pick in a draft whereI have but 14 in High school and college. I clearly can't take my scouts word for anything, so

also, as much bs as you want to make about the first round, where are my Piazzas and other low round picks? They still all have current ratings in the 20's and 30's meaning there are no 13th round stars to fill the gaps

Still, I'm more interested in someone's thoughts about my future crappy draft.

I didn't understand that last post so I'm going to go a different direction. The MLB has had a lot of busts in the first rounds but there have been the rare rare rare hall of famer that gets drafted in the 11th to 50th rounds. I know that DiTR's are supposed to be getting better to offset this, but has anyone seen a world where a player has been top caliber after the 5th round even with hitting DiTR?

I'll respond to both of you.

Every draft produces BL players.   Some drafts produce HOF players.    MLB doesn't have a round limit but they draft 750ish players in the first 25 rounds.   HBD does have a round limit and drafts around 800.   Since they just fuzzied up the ratings, we have no real idea which round the BL players/HOF players are going to come from.   But, trust me, a lot of them will come from the draft.

timb's problem seems to be that he thinks his 1st round pick should always be a hit and never a miss.   That doesn't mimic MLB at all. 

I'll say it again, there was a lot of demand for MORE RANDOMNESS in the draft.   It's here.   People getting ****** by MORE RANDOMNESS are not happy.    Just like I said oh so many years ago.

Basically the MORE RANDOMNESS people wanted to hit in the first 3-4 rounds AND get a couple of bonus players in the 14th and 22nd rounds.  

IT
DOESN'T
WORK
THAT
WAY
!!!!

And, BTW, I'd still rather draft with 14m than 4m.    If you think 14m is untrustworthy, imagine 4m projections.

Here's my experience from my recent draft (same one hockey1984 was in).

I budgeted 16 mil college and 4 mil HS, figuring I had to go high on one and low on the other.  Aside from anyone willing to put 30mil+ into their amateur draft, this would seem to be the way we're going to have to go... by cutting out half the draft prospects.

Sure enough, the smaller number of HS prospects looked really strange.  The projections just looked obviously too high.  Also strangely, the college prospects I saw had relatively low overalls.  But then again, under the old system I was probably seeing projections that weren't reachable.  I wondered if it was a poor draft, but had to keep in mind that I only really saw half of it.

Throwing out all the HS players, I ranked my top 50.  And then hoped that anyone taking a HS player would mean a decent player might get bumped down to me.

I had the 25, 40, 54, 72, and 86 picks in the top 100.  I guess the HS guys indeed let my guys slip down, because I got five players in my top 15.  Matter of fact, down in Round 7 at the 247 pick, I was still getting players I manually ranked.

So maybe one of those guys in my top five is a player someone like hockey1984 let slip.  I think this is how it's supposed to work.  The way we divide up our scouting dollars is going to result in the way we divide up the draft.

HAVING said that... I realize we've been mixing a couple of ideas here.  IFA and the amateur draft don't look the same at all to me anymore.  I don't go after top IFAs (only 1 mil IFA budget), but given what I've heard from other owners and some of the questionable signings I've seen so far, I've been wondering if IFA is separate and more fuzzy than the amateur draft.

I'm curious. Mike, how do you feel about HBD Admin making the decision to not allow a one time scouting budget increase or decrease after the update? I have heard arguements for both sides.

Damag, I feel like if the amature draft is like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine then the IFA is like powerball. You have to have high IFA scouting AND hope that a good IFA comes along AND hope that you see his projections well enough AND hope that you have the highest bid AND hope that he doesn't get injured.

I never had success with IFA's before this. I think starting now I'm going 20/0/0 HS/COL/IFA and drafting aggressively.

I'll never be for a one-time reset of budgeting.  Never.   I've played the game, using the loopholes that WifS gave me(and exposing them to everyone in this forum), a specific way for years.   Real life years.   If that loophole is closed, then I'll play differently for a couple of seasons and find another way. 

I've already adapted to the new way of things and I feel like I'm doing pretty well under these new guidelines.   I won't disclose it yet for two reasons.   1)  Maybe I'm not dong well  2)  If I am, I don't want my leaguemates copying me until I'm set.

It's hard to say with any confidence what the effects of the update will be long-term. Post-signing currents seem to be farther below pre-draft projections, but we're 6 months away from even beginning to have an idea how development might have changed. What we know from the old system — players rarely/never surpass projections, players develop until a certain age or for a certain number of seasons, etc. — may or may not still be true, or may just be less consistent.

As for snagging a top IFA:
1) Have to have high scouting — Right. WIS eliminated the strategy of putting $2M in IFA and going all-out for the 1 or 2 stars you were still likely to see.
2) Hope a good IFA comes along — Has a season ever been completed without a good IFA coming along? They will still come along, but to see then, or know it when you see them, now you have to have money in scouting instead of knowing from a glance at their demands. As it should be.
3) Hope you see accurate projections — Anecdotaly it seems $10M-$14M doesn't give a good projection. We could only be hearing about it when Currents are disappointing and not hearing when they're what was expected. It's too soon to say. If enough people get up to $18M-$20M for a few seasons, we'll have a better idea where the projections start to get more accurate.
4) Hope you have the highest bid — This is better than pre-update when with 5 minutes of research you could sometimes assure yourself of having the highest bid. If you have high enough scouting, you now have a better chance at winning a player you value since half the competition is seeing garbage for projections and can't use demands as a sign to bid a guy up.
5) Hope he doesn't get injured — Isn't this always the case with any player of value?

It appears that WIS has effectively slammed the door on 3 or 4 loopholes/exploits just with IFA. That's a pretty solid improvement.

Posted by joshkvt on 8/27/2015 10:31:00 PM (view original):
It's hard to say with any confidence what the effects of the update will be long-term. Post-signing currents seem to be farther below pre-draft projections, but we're 6 months away from even beginning to have an idea how development might have changed. What we know from the old system — players rarely/never surpass projections, players develop until a certain age or for a certain number of seasons, etc. — may or may not still be true, or may just be less consistent.

As for snagging a top IFA:
1) Have to have high scouting — Right. WIS eliminated the strategy of putting $2M in IFA and going all-out for the 1 or 2 stars you were still likely to see.
2) Hope a good IFA comes along — Has a season ever been completed without a good IFA coming along? They will still come along, but to see then, or know it when you see them, now you have to have money in scouting instead of knowing from a glance at their demands. As it should be.
3) Hope you see accurate projections — Anecdotaly it seems $10M-$14M doesn't give a good projection. We could only be hearing about it when Currents are disappointing and not hearing when they're what was expected. It's too soon to say. If enough people get up to $18M-$20M for a few seasons, we'll have a better idea where the projections start to get more accurate.
4) Hope you have the highest bid — This is better than pre-update when with 5 minutes of research you could sometimes assure yourself of having the highest bid. If you have high enough scouting, you now have a better chance at winning a player you value since half the competition is seeing garbage for projections and can't use demands as a sign to bid a guy up.
5) Hope he doesn't get injured — Isn't this always the case with any player of value?

It appears that WIS has effectively slammed the door on 3 or 4 loopholes/exploits just with IFA. That's a pretty solid improvement.

2) There may still be one or two good IFA's per year but you may not see them. We had a guy in Reily who turned down a bunch of defensive bench guys and SUA pitchers who kept saying 'my starting pitcher is coming'. Season is just about over and a stud SP comes along. First legit over $20 mill IFA all year. We all go 'there you go (blank)'. He never saw him. $30 million of IFA budget gone to waste. This isn't new with the update but still 1 of 5 that needs to hit to get a stud IFA.

4) it will be interesting to see if anyone starts doing 'piggyback scouting'. Bid the 50k, if you hold the bid after a day, withdraw your offer, if you get beat out, up your bid to a million, then 5 then 10 then 20. If at anytime before 20 million you hold the bid for a full day, withdraw the offer....... Come to think of it, I may try this.

5) what I mean by this is, my $20 million IFA sees All-Star Sanchez as a stud SS. I sign him for $31 million. Yay me! His current ratings look great, except his durability which is 49 and his health which is 28. Before the 'unanounced update' 28 health would have been a blessing (regardless of if you saw it ahead of time). Overplay the bugger, break his arm, put him on the 60 day DL and watch the ratings soar. Now a lot of users are reporting a $20 million medical with 60 day DL isn't even getting their player back to their pre-injury stats. That makes Low health ratings a much bigger handicap.