I know we have talked about this quite a bit (Damag has given the best information thus far) but between my two leagues I have 20 million in HS scouting in one for the draft and 20 million in College scouting in the other with 0 scouting for the rest.

Just recently this year I've noticed that with my College scouting, I was able to rank about 30-35 guys that would easily make my big league squad and ended up drafting 3 pretty much sure things (Would have been more but I goofed on my settings) plus also, I'd say 40 of my top 50 ranked guys were 'Will sign for slot money'

With my HS scouting draft, I'm having trouble ranking 10 guys that are sure things, 15 that are fringe players and have already punted 8 guys to the bottom of the draft because they are 'probably won't sign' with another 5 ranked lower because they are 'might sign if the deal is right'.

I know before Damag had mentioned about the number of prospects seen with COLL scouting vs HS but I've only recently noticed the quality plus signability. Has anyone else noticed this or has it just been an odd draft year for me? Plus also, now knowing this, is there any point in focusing on HS scouting for the draft or should everyone just pump into COLL and hope to get a late round gem that wasn't scouted well enough?

With the fuzzy ratings, you'd expect a 22 y/o player to be rated more accurate. After all, his currents are much more developed than a 18 y/o. So, IMO, college will be more accurate because there is less room for error.

That part I get for sure. I remember admin made a post a while ago about the older the prospect, the less fuzzy the ratings would be, which makes sense. What I am also curious about though, is do you think the programmers intentionally programmed College players to be more likely to sign vs less likely to sign as a HS player (more options when you are younger. Not sure what you are going to do with your life) or is that just reading too much into SSS?

Also didn't see a lot of HS prospects in this draft that seemed to have absurdly high projections (not complaining about that) no 100 ratings, not really a lot of 90's either to be honest.

I'd think HS should be less likely to sign. They can do other **** as you noted. Once you're getting out of college, you have to begin life. You either play baseball, work in daddy's hardware store or sell drugs.

Thanks for giving me credit but all I did was realize my observations were backing up things MikeT and others said long ago.

- I hadn't noticed the tendencies regarding signability. I can tell you that I've seen a decent number of issues with College players over many seasons. I'd be leery of generalizing about whether HS are more likely to not sign; I think it's just random player-to-player. But one thing about 18 year old players is that they simply have more options available (might go to college).

- Also while generalizing about this, always remember that quality of draft classes is always unique. Seen good drafts, poor drafts, deep drafts, seen one draft with literally only one very good player in it. If you're looking at a poor draft this season you could always have a biggie next season.

- Possibly debunking the idea of late-round "no one scouted him" players being all College, last season I got one in my HS-only world.

- As for any suggestion of everyone getting out of HS scouting, in the world where I have all HS I would certainly welcome it. The best hitter I've ever drafted fell to me at the 6 slot in his draft year because the five teams ahead of me all picked College players.

hockey1984, the thing I really noticed about the HS classes topping out in the mid-200s is that there just aren't many decent mid-round players. In a College-only draft, say in the 10th round you're looking at a player who'll top out with an overall rating in the mid-50s. Kind of player who'll never get out of AAA or AA. But in a HS draft, by the 10th round, you're already looking at players who might top out in the 40s, barely even worth spending a slot money bonus on.

Posted by damag on 2/9/2017 11:22:00 AM (view original):
Thanks for giving me credit but all I did was realize my observations were backing up things MikeT and others said long ago.

- I hadn't noticed the tendencies regarding signability. I can tell you that I've seen a decent number of issues with College players over many seasons. I'd be leery of generalizing about whether HS are more likely to not sign; I think it's just random player-to-player. But one thing about 18 year old players is that they simply have more options available (might go to college).

- Also while generalizing about this, always remember that quality of draft classes is always unique. Seen good drafts, poor drafts, deep drafts, seen one draft with literally only one very good player in it. If you're looking at a poor draft this season you could always have a biggie next season.

- Possibly debunking the idea of late-round "no one scouted him" players being all College, last season I got one in my HS-only world.

- As for any suggestion of everyone getting out of HS scouting, in the world where I have all HS I would certainly welcome it. The best hitter I've ever drafted fell to me at the 6 slot in his draft year because the five teams ahead of me all picked College players.

hockey1984, the thing I really noticed about the HS classes topping out in the mid-200s is that there just aren't many decent mid-round players. In a College-only draft, say in the 10th round you're looking at a player who'll top out with an overall rating in the mid-50s. Kind of player who'll never get out of AAA or AA. But in a HS draft, by the 10th round, you're already looking at players who might top out in the 40s, barely even worth spending a slot money bonus on.

Crap, I can't quote only parts of this.

I'd rather give you credit then MikeT, just repost his quotes and anything that is groundbreaking I'll just credit you for it first. :P


I've noticed that as well with late HS picks vs late College picks but even more so with the 3-5 round range. The big thing for me is since offence sells I know I'm not going to get any type of bat or SP who will ever make the majors in rounds 3-5, that being said, with my college draft, I've noticed I can sneak by and get a Leftie specialist bullpen guy who might be 75 control, 85 VsL, 52 VsR, P1 - 82 P2- 77 from college who everyone else missed. Or a SS with no bat but 85+ defense across the board who switch hits. Or a C who can't hit but is 85, 85, 95 for arm, accuracy, PC. I don't really see as many of those guys in the HS pool. Again, may have just been a few bad drafts back to back, but its an interesting thing to note.

Just wanted to bring this back for a minute because I now have a huge difference between two types of drafts to look at.

Last week; draft in Riley World; 20 million college scouting. I saw a full 500 projected players, only six of which were over-projected high schoolers. It looked like a little deeper draft on the college side; no sure fire superstars but plenty of role players. And even before pre-ranking, only about five players in my initial top 100 had any signability issues. A raft of "looking to sign for slot money" players.

This week coming up; draft in Moonlight Graham. 20 million HS. I've got projections on only 191 players. And the vast majority of the remainder are college players with "?" ratings. It's a good first round; I should get a future starter with my #20 pick. God only knows what I'll get in the middle rounds, and my pre-ranking is going to have a big effect on who I get in 2 through 5.
AND - over 50% of the players have signability issues this time. It's a totally different draft from the other one.

damag-- I have one world in which I'm 20 HS/0 COL and others in which I'm 20 COL/0 HS. Have had it that way for (real-life) years.

I see drafts like yours all the time. 20 HS/0 COL always shows me 190-220 players, with a bunch of ? players filling out the 500. Typically 40% or so have at least some signability issues. OTOH 20 COL/0 HS shows me 500 players. The only thing that feels new to me since the last update (a while ago) is that among college players, I used to have about 20% with questionable signability, and that's now down to 10% or less. But that could be random chance.

Thanks. Don't know why I didn't notice this as strongly before. Maybe I'm just learning more every time I run a draft. I hope. But it's also quite coincidental that I got a HS draft so much like this just a a few weeks after hockey1984 first posted his thoughts.

So, my question then (and I know this is subjective and based off of every draft) but at what point in time does it make sense to do HS vs Coll? Obviously if there are 16 owners drafting college players and 16 drafting HS, the smart money is on Collage. But what about 22/10? 27/5? And now with the new hidden budgets it's impossible to tell. Owners may be aligned 20 HS - 12 College for all we know.

You can see the averaged budgets

That really doesn't help much now. If the average is 12, is that a bunch of 20s and a handful of zero or a bunch of 10-13(which most of us believe is almost useless)?

My observations running 20M/20M:

Looking back at my old draft boards, the top of the drafts have tended to be 50/50 talent wise (maybe slightly favoring HS). Can't speak to depth as I only look at the top 50 or so. My scouts tend to miss about 3-4 guys drafted in the first round, so seeing 90% of the pool is nice. I haven't really paid attention to sign-ability since guys seem to sign if offered a contract enough times (but could be more of an issue if your budget is tight).

The downside to running 20/20 is I have to run 0 Med so I've passed on a number of elite guys due to low health ratings.

Well, switching completely takes five seasons, two of which you're essentially drafting blind. But the top of the draft is still good, just with more of a signing issue. But again, I've had those with college players too.
The HS draft is just a bit more work. And you likely end up with weaker minor league teams, for those (like me) who care about that sort of thing.

Posted by brianplath on 2/27/2017 9:19:00 AM (view original):
My observations running 20M/20M:

Looking back at my old draft boards, the top of the drafts have tended to be 50/50 talent wise (maybe slightly favoring HS). Can't speak to depth as I only look at the top 50 or so. My scouts tend to miss about 3-4 guys drafted in the first round, so seeing 90% of the pool is nice. I haven't really paid attention to sign-ability since guys seem to sign if offered a contract enough times (but could be more of an issue if your budget is tight).

The downside to running 20/20 is I have to run 0 Med so I've passed on a number of elite guys due to low health ratings.

What do you mean sign if offered a contract enough times?