Looking for good insights regarding the IFA budget and signings in building a franchise.....I have had invested modestly in IFA in the past and made some signings for some decent ML players but never the star players....I had IFA scouting at 8 mil this season and never saw a player worth spending for. My question is, what budget really makes a difference in IFA scouting? 10 mil plus? I'm ending with a quite a few million wasted because I was waiting on an IFA prospect that never came.

The elite teams always grab star IFA in the rebuilding years, I have invested a lot into drafting well and developing that way but I'm trying to learn more about the IFA market

First, budget more. Anything less than 16m is troublesome for me. The numbers just don't match up. You could try to "use" other coach's budgets by bidding up to see if someone follows. Of course, someone else with low scouting might be doing the same thing. Blind leading the blind.

Second, be prepared to pay 25m+ for top IFA. That means you're putting 46m+ into one player(16m scouting, 20m prospect, 10m transfer) which is 25% of your budget but that's what it takes in most worlds to land the big fish.

16 mil plus in scouting. I've dropped to 14 and it's immediately more hit-or-miss. Ratings are less projectable, and you immediately see less players.

As Mike said, star IFA are 20 mil plus. That means using budget transfer, which means your player salaries have to end up low enough to allow you to transfer as much as possible. Players are acquired through amateur draft, IFA, free agency, and trade. You can't do them all at the same time, you have to go with two, maybe three at best.

There's also a different mind-set when you're going for big IFA. When you have mid-level dollars, you might want to jump on a "fair" prospect before others get to him. Say, that 70ish Overall SP who looks like a rotation filler at the beginning of the season, a very good defensive SS or full time C. When you're sitting on 30 mil in prospect cash, you discipline yourself to ignore those and wait for an 85+ player. It's a huge gamble to be sure.

I agree with everything Mike and damag said. I've signed some really solid IFAs with lower scouting budget because the teams with lots of cash are going for the super big fish. Sometimes $8-12 mil will get me really good players, sometimes even $1-5 million will get me an All-Star caliber player. Decide if you want to go for one or two mid-tier guys or go all-in for a stud and budget accordingly.

for me IFA is a situational strategy- it's a MASSIVE investment, and it's a slow investment, and you have no idea what you're getting. Only one of my 5 teams is going IFA at the moment (Atlanta) because I took over an abandoned team midseason with literally 0 useful players or prospects but still a ~65 million payroll. So after finally shedding all the dead weight and after finally assembling a team of 20 minimum-salary and/or pre-arb ML players, I had enough money to throw at IFA for a few seasons in a row. You really have to go all-in or you're more likely to miss out

Season	User	Player	Prospect				Int'l Scout
43	pjfoster13	69 (37)	20 (36)				20
42	pjfoster13	67 (31)	20 (38)				18
41	pjfoster13	63 (47)	20 (28)				16
40 (inherited at A-S break)	pjfoster13	69 (63)	20 (24)				16

S41 was a weak crop and I was only able to net RP Player Profile: Jeanmar Beltre for $14.1M, and that player didn't even show up until the very last day. Whatever, he has talent I guess. The other top players that season were SP Player Profile: Midre Matos for $20.5 whom I didn't even see, and 3B Player Profile: Wilmer Chavez for $14.0 whom I did see, but whom my scouts wildly under-projected as potential OVR 82 instead of potential OVR 90. I was not willing to risk my entire budget on somebody whose potential OVR 82 would actually be mis-projected in the other direction in the ~75 OVR range, that would have been a massive waste. Turns out the 16 scout lied and he was 89 instead of 75. It's a crapshoot even at 16!!! Stupid

S42 was also a weak crop where 3B Player Profile: Eduardo Martin was the top bid at $23.4 and I was the 2nd highest with OF Player Profile: Ismael Nicasio for $18.7. Decent player I guess, probably a LF/RF so while I'm disappointed he's not a CF, I like that he hits S and his eye/speed/BR combination is downright hilarious. There were seven $9M-$14M players which were mostly disappointments. I chopped up the remaining payroll for a 2nd bullet that I never got to fire, I literally did not see anybody 70 or above after Nicasio. Instead, I spent the leftovers at the end on about 40 $50k-100k guys hoping for future DITR. It allows me to fully stock my rookie/low-a/high-a with primo candidates, increasing my chances of getting lucky and hitting a guy who would have maybe gone for $10M on the ifa market such as RP Player Profile: Matthew Dubler

S43 (current season finishing) was the only chance I've had to fire two bullets-- signed the #4 and #5 highest bids on $14.1 on 2B Player Profile: Midre Paz ("90 potential OVR", allegedly), and another $14.1 at the end on RP Player Profile: Gerardo Lopez which is an over-payment but since it was near the end I figured I might as well spend whatever I still had leftover. The top bid for the season was $20.5 for SP Player Profile: Guilder Lopez, who I didn't even see with 20 scout. Stupid

Moving forward, I have 0 long-term contracts and only a few players just entering arb, so I expect to go IFA again for at least the next 2 seasons. Eventually I will ween myself off IFA around S46-47 and shift those budget units into Player payroll to spend on contract renewals and ML free agents. When that happens, I expect to drop IFA the max (4 units at a time) while immediately dropping prospect the max from 20 to 6-10 (depending on how many draft picks I have). I'm either all-in or all-out

@pjf. I'm starting the same strategy with a team about to begin it's 3rd season with me at the helm. I began with 3 barely average ML players using up $50M alone during my first season and the farm was stocked with crap as the previous owner put everything into payroll with very little scouting, training, etc... for several seasons.
During my second season I was able to bump college and HS to $18M each and got some good picks as well as picking up a few usable rule 5 guys. It helped that my season 1 pick didn't sign and I got a D pick at #4 as well as the 7th pick.
I plan to drop HS scouting and increase International, while bumping college to $20M, until I can get useful prospects. I still have a $20M below average player in the upcoming season but only one other multi-million dollar player so I'll need some useful but cheap FAs to get me through a few seasons.
I expect a 3-4 season setback before I can start being competitve- assuming I can maintain my draft luck, find a couple really good IFAs, and develop current prospects and rule 5 players. Does that sound about right, or might it be a little longer?

As I said earlier, there are four ways to acquire players, they all have varying costs, so you have to pick your two or at best three.

I never used to play IFA at all, just acquired players in the draft and free agency. My first team, I started trading when I was in a position to make a run that went to the finals but lost. When my drafted players were ready for the majors, team got cheap, so I've been able to IFA for a few seasons now. That might end next season as players move out of arbitration eligibility. My second team, also cheap but then had a really good season and ended up with a 30+ draft pick. Since I knew my draft wasn't going to cost a lot, I filled a hole with a Type A FA and saved prospect money for a decent IFA (but since I knew I wasn't going to be a top bidder I jumped at the first good one who came along.) Again, probably no IFA next season with my players' demands increasing.