We're seeing a couple players pop up like this every once in a while, and I find them really interesting. It seems like they could only result from the following two scenarios:

1) Some combination of all 32 teams under-scout or don't see the player in question.

2) All 32 teams don't see the player in question.

I question (1), because the scouting variability required to modify the ratings of a top-50 player such that they appear to be a top-500 player is so huge that it's either outside of the reasonable bounds of scouting, or it would require someone with $0M scouting to see AND under-project a player that everyone with $10M+ scouting doesn't see at all.

This, combined with anecdotal evidence where I haven't seen anyone claim they scouted a such a player prior to the draft, leads me to believe (2) is the likely case.

To me, the interesting question then is, is this random chance, or did WiS actively program something like this into the draft? I guess there is no way to know for sure, but my inclination is it would be exceedingly rare for all 32 teams, with their varying levels of scouting, to all miss on the same subset of players, AND to have at least 1 player from that subset end up being a top 50 player. There are approximately 850 players drafted each season, so being in the top 50 represents only 6% of all players.

I guess I do have a question for you more veteran owners out there: is there a way to see the entire prospect class, not just the entire drafted class? That is, can we see how many players are eligible to be drafted? Even when I have $20M/$20M scouting, I can only seem to see the "top" 500. I'd like to be able to see the rest of the players, even if I haven't scouted them.

You can change the weights of each position and move some bodies around, thus allowing you to see more/different, but there's no way to know if you've seen all.

I don't think it's possible for any owner to see the entire prospect class. I believe, all things into consideration, my $20M/$20M is going to bring different results than your $20M/$20M. And this is for MikeT, do you think, in your opinion, that in changing weights or preferences that it moves prospects in and/or out of your Top 500? Or does it just repossition them? I always felt my $20/$20 unlocked my Top 500, that the weights just rearranged them, it didn't bring more into play.

I know it brings new prospects in/out of the top 500. None were worth a damn but new ones showed up.

And, yes, my 20/20 will show different than your 20/20. I've never heard anyone say "I saw everyone in the first round!!!"

Question for you then, I've had $20/$20 scouting many times, and I think after drafting, if they were outside of my top 500, it said they weren't scouted well enough to see the ratings. I might be mistaken, but pretty sure I recall this. The Canadians see everyone in the first round, they sit higher on the globe, they have a better view.

So I wonder then, does WIS hide a top level player in each draft, or a couple of them, that weren't scouted well enough by everyone?

Is the only reason why we hear about this occasionally because not every team signs all of their drafted players?

I know we will never get an answer to this but it would be interesting to see what the DEV's thought process is behind this.

I got a guy in rule 5 in one of my worlds this year that I think I had graded 65/69 as a 25 year old. Drafted in the 25th round as a 19 yo JUCO kid. He's not a TORP by any means, but he's certainly AAAA quality, so I wondered why he was drafted so late. I suppose this would explain it. But still, you'd think someone would see these guys. I wonder if it's a regional thing. Only teams in certain regions can see certain players, so say none of the teams in a region scouted college players that year, so no one saw the player. It may not be regions, but it's got to be something along these lines, right?

This morning, I drafted Lawrence Urich in World Moonlight Graham. Round 21, pick 687. He's currently 45 Overall, the two pitchers I drafted around him are both 32 Overall. Either, like MikeT23 said, maybe something is making his projections display as less than his currents... or, the one weird rating he has is 59 Range, which is just stupid for a pitcher. Maybe the sim read him as being at another position? One final coincidence: with 20 mil HS scouting I saw exactly 202 prospects with projections. I pull my prospects back up now, and Number 203 (with '?' projections) was Lawrence Urich.

I've now begun signing my unscouted players before my mid-level "just another guy" scouted ones.

After I read this, I went and signed my unscouted guys, but I scout HS and Coll, so they were horrible.

Doesn't always happen! Past two Moonlight Graham seasons I had ended up with too much unused IFA money, so I went back and signed everyone. All turds.

Even still, if you get one actual 'DiTR' in the late rounds of a draft even once every couple of years, it's worth it. What else are you going to do with that money?

Also signing the guys you can't see the ratings of over the scrubs like Damag mentioned sounds like a good strategy.

Posted by hockey1984 on 12/2/2016 12:11:00 PM (view original):
Even still, if you get one actual 'DiTR' in the late rounds of a draft even once every couple of years, it's worth it. What else are you going to do with that money?

Also signing the guys you can't see the ratings of over the scrubs like Damag mentioned sounds like a good strategy.

Wouldn't call it a strategy. Last resort. As I said, I saw only 202 projected HS prospects. And it was a poor draft, only about 70 of them looked like they'd even be decent AA players and up. So my picks between round 8 and 15 look like turds. Plus I didn't get enough pitching. But in the last ten rounds, I got a bunch of unscouted College pitchers. Costs less money to sign them than the mid-round players who I can already figure won't be worth their bonuses.

You could say if I drafted better, I'd have players in those mid rounds who weren't that bad. But I was always looking at about 125 prospects who I wouldn't have wanted to draft at all. If you're scouting College players instead of HS, you've probably got a deeper pool to look at.